Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Work

Chat with other users about all things related to working life on our Work forum.

Original poster

working mums, what sort of shitty comments have people have made to you, about the fact you work

77 replies

roboass · 27/02/2008 13:42

as i just had, abit of a run in with someone that made me feel like im a partime mum and not there for my baby.how do you cope with the variuos comments made to you.
i was also told by someone i work with, i don't know why people have kids if they don't want to bring them up.
and as my job isn't that great and its someone i work with i couldn't even give it all the bravado of oh well i enjoy my job blah blah,because none of us that work at my place like it or love it.

do you think,to others [that you do not work with]its best to put on a confident front?

OP posts:
ManchesterMummy · 27/02/2008 13:59

Can't really help, but I've not even gone back to work yet (back in May) and I'm already getting the comments.

FIL expects me to stay at home for 10 years. My career is "not dynamic". MIL gives me evils whenever she spits out the word "nursery". When dh's cousin was planning her return to work following mat leave all the in-laws had things to say about it. My mum says "it's a shame you have to go to work". I love what I do and earn as much as dh. I've spent the past year just about (from when I told all that was pg) justifying my eventual return to work.

I could have hugged dh's 80-year-old gran recently though: instead of the usual "you're going back to work, are you. Hmmm" she said "So, ManchesterMummy, when are you back at work? DD will love nursery and I'll bet you'll be glad to be back working".

morningpaper · 27/02/2008 14:00

I've never had any negative comments

hellsbells76 · 27/02/2008 14:02

i love my mum's backhanded compliments. '[DS] is so adaptable isn't he, well i suppose he's had to be...'

K999 · 27/02/2008 14:02

If you are happy and content with your decision to work then its nobody else's business.....tbh I dont give a flying wotsit what anybody thinks. I am happy with my decision to work - thousands of women do it so its no big deal really.

RubySlippers · 27/02/2008 14:02

i don't feel i need to justify my choices for my family to anyone who is snotty towards me

FWIW, i think snipey comments say more about the person directing them, rather than the person they are aimed at

MascaraOHara · 27/02/2008 14:02

none.

the only negativity I have ever encountered towards WOHM is here tbh

jenmac · 27/02/2008 14:05

I am back at work and DS loves nursery, so it good for both of us.

The worse comment I had was someone asking me about me little job. This is the saem job that I returned to which is paid more and more senior than that of the person making the comment.

A confident front is best, I enjoy my break from DS and look forward to seeing him when I pick him up but he is at the stage where he needs so much stimulation and that is not possible with me alone. He has developed quicker at nursery whilst I know that working allows me to pays the bills as well as buying those luxuries.

Kathyis6incheshigh · 27/02/2008 14:08

Never had comments about me working.
Now, comments from colleagues/students, on the other hand, about the fact that I have a family....

pedilia · 27/02/2008 14:08

When I worked FT the worst comments I got were from the mums at school and it really used to p**s me off, I never questioned/commented on that fact that they had decided to SAH

TheFallenMadonna · 27/02/2008 14:09

In RL, I have never encountered anything really, either as a WOHM or latterly as a SAHM. MN was a whole new world to me. I guess people must just bite their tongues in real life .

Apart from the colleague of DH who explained to me that once a women reached a certain level of education they couldn't give up work to look after children. But that was just too ridiculous to get upset about .

PotPourri · 27/02/2008 14:09

Avoid getting drawn in is my best advice. They have their view, and you have your reality. If you close the conversation down before it opens, then it's finished. you don't need to justify yourself to anyone- remember that.

Other thing you could do if you didn;t like the person is to think of something offensive back - like, I can't understand why people continue to eat cakes and then complain that they are fat... Equally insensitive in my view (and ill informed too).

GooseyLoosey · 27/02/2008 14:16

Like the others, don't think I have had any unpleasant comments. Have had a number though which betray a huge level of misunderstanding.

One at a toddler group at which my ds was bored "you should have him in play group - its just selfishness on your part to keep him out when you're at home. Its obviously what he's use to."

One while away in Europe for 3 days with work "Oh, you miss your children? Well that's a surprise, I didn't expect you to really like children".

Ignore them. People know nothing about what life is really like for you. Alternatively, if you can't ignore, my response to the first of these was to turn my back pointedly and walk away.

jelliebelly · 27/02/2008 14:28

Never had any comments tbh but if I did then I would respond with something equally insensitive

madamez · 27/02/2008 14:32

Here are some of my favourite idiot-stoppers...

'Oh dear, are your piles hurting?'

'You should have more sex, then you'd spend less time worrying about other people's lives'.

'Never mind, stupidity isn't hereditary, so your DC should be OK.'

indiechick · 27/02/2008 14:36

'How can you bear to leave her?' - Erm don't really have a choice, she loves nursery, has developed amazing social and verbal skills and at the end of the day it helps if I can pay the rent and the bills and shop for food so we can eat. (Well actually I mumbled something about needing the money - but that's what I should have said!).
'Mothers only work for the extras, that I've learnt to live without' - yes dear, that's 'cos your husband earns about 100K and you don't go without anything and I'm not working for the extras, I'm working to survive. (Again, didn't actually say this to her smug face - should have though).
Strangely men have never judged me harshly for working full-time, just other mothers.
I really hate some of the comments that other mothers make, but what can you do? Not everyone is as understanding and enlightened as I am! Seriously, have some good answers prepared, other mothers can be right cows!

DrNortherner · 27/02/2008 14:37

I was made redundant at 6 months pregnant. As we could not manage on dh's wage alone I had to find another job. I was offerred a job doing something I love (still here 5 years later!) but my boss needed me to start immediatley and ds was only 3 weeks old But needs must so I did it.

On my first day, when finding out I had a 3month old baby one of teh women here said "God, if I had a baby at home I'd be there cuddling him. Not coming to work 5 days a week"

I went to the toilet and cried an cried

Page62 · 27/02/2008 14:38

"i admire how you can leave your children with virtual strangers; am really too attached, can't do it."

the other one - not directed at me but she was talking about someone who worked FT (not thinking i would be sensitive to the comment) "she has difficulty conceiving - am sure god figured that she's just going to leave it with someone else anyway given she's a partner in a law firm and likely to go back to work".

Ho-Hum. Water off a duck's back for me. i've stopped giving a toss.

My FIL who is fab and MIL, to be fair, are all supportive. So is DH.

Head high dear.

OrmIrian · 27/02/2008 14:43

Hi again roboass.

Elderly neighbour, when she heard my second baby was on the way: "Another child for someone else to bring up." Which was nice.

MIL constant comments along the lines of mothers should be at home with their DCs. But she's largely very wonderful so I forgive her.

Mum after having been fantastically helpful and supportive for years, told me that "of course children need their mothers at home with them" and that really hurt as she knew how much I wanted to be at home with them, and how heartbroken I was when I went back to work after DD. I still can't think why she said it after all that time.

Pollyanna · 27/02/2008 14:44

I've only had negative comments from my stupid f*cking au pair - telling the children I should be spending more time with them (not dh who works 5 long days a week, but me). I feel like punching her, but haven't said anything as she is leaving in 3 weeks.

Everyone else has been fine, and most of my/dh's family have been positive (I went a bit loopy when I was a sahm!).

Original poster
roboass · 27/02/2008 14:57

thanks for all the lovely posts, i was actually feeling tearful earlier. feel much better now.
hi ormirian thanks for taking your time to post to me, i feel just the same i want to be at home,but have towork.

pay for our basic non fancy lifestyle.

i won't mind the hurtful comments if working ment i had a cleaner, high flying career, loads of money etc.
that would make it alot easierto laugh in peoples faces but im worse off than most
ps im not saying your as skint as i am by the way, just that i wish i was at home too.

some comments are like a knife through the heart.

OP posts:
beansprout · 27/02/2008 14:59

I just tell people that I have no choice given that we can't persuade the bank to forget about the mortgage.

Love the way people assume that most of us have a choice!

Kathyis6incheshigh · 27/02/2008 15:00

Page62 - LOLOL @ "i admire how you can leave your children with virtual strangers; am really too attached, can't do it."

That is just so passive-aggressively transparently smug!!!!

CatIsSleepy · 27/02/2008 15:11

well, none really

and you are there for your baby, of course you are
it's nobody else's business

pagwatch · 27/02/2008 15:22

A long time ago but still remember it, from a female co-worker of course....

" pagwatch , you really are my role model. I just so admire how you never let it bother you that people think you don't care about your baby "

Fortunately I was her boss so I smiled gratefully and gave her every shit account that passed across my desk for the next two years
Vindictive? Moi?

TheDullWitch · 27/02/2008 15:25

When I was a mega-stressed out working mother, of a couple of toddlers, my MIL said of my children "Oh they are a credit to X" X being our nanny. So, spending every waking moment with them when I wasn't at work, careering home to be with them for EVERY SINGLE bathtime, never having a moment to myself any weekend didn t count. It was all down to our nanny. As you can tell I never forgot that...