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

[roboass]

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?

Thanks millie865 you made me better about my own decision to go back to work in July after 6 years off (bourne out of circumstances and not choice I should add). My husband was away for 3 months when my twins were 3, I didn't hear one negative comment about him but imagine if a mother did this.... You really can't win as a mother

It is water off a duck's back to me now but I tend to laugh in their faces and ask if they are suggesting that it is just women who should stay at home or men too?

Another good one for when they primly state "well, I couldn't do it" is to look them up and down and then in a voice full of speculation respond with "What, you couldn't ever see yourself having kids and hold down a great job at the same time?....hmmm, no, you're right, you probably couldn't" Not big, not clever, but it does leave you laughing all the way home.

I'm a SAHM, but I went back to work when DD was 14 weeks old and it kept me sane. It would have driven me crazy being a SAHM at that point. You work for your reasons. Don't let any other arrogant tossers tell you that it's best to be at home. YOU know you best...YOU know your kids best. Tell any interfering busy bodies, MIL's, FIL's, interested parties, to feck off and get a life.

My mum was a SAHM and she was a complete nightmare. If she'd started work when my brothers/sisters were smaller she might have had more perspective on the child rearing front and I wouldn't have been left at home with mummy dearest on the valium and nine times out of ten ripping the joy out of my very existence.

Do what makes you (and your children) happy...

I retort by saying "Oh, I'm good at multi-tasking!"
actually I'm shite at multi-tasking and my house is a tip but they needn't know that!

Scariest thought - M&F IL actually tried to suggest they would MOVE IN with us for 1 year to look after my baby upon hearing I was returning to work, as they did not think it right that strangers would be looking after him in nursery! YEAH RIGHT!

When I went back for three days a week, a quite viperish SAHM 'friend' with a baby the same age said

'I'm glad I don't work, because it means if the baby is ill and needs to go to hospital, I'll be able to take her'

I replied 'yeah, you're lucky, I'll just have to let mine die then'.

Silly cow.

My experience of this is slightly different. I gave up a very well paid manaagement position after Kieran was born because I just didnt want to go back. I loved my job but I was on call constantly and did 24hr shifts at times to cover etc so just not the way I was willing to exist. I pottered and did odds and sods then took on Usborne and running my own business. I make good money at it, and love it and the best bit is I can look after Kieran full-time myself but STILL I get comments like.

"Poor tyke, dragging from place to place" - Ummm, yes he HATES spending all day in toddler groups, play centres, toy libraries etc.

"Its a shame really, how can you spend quality time with him if youre busy selling books?". Fairly easily thanks and his fantastic verbal and social skills are realy setting him ack (not!).

To the grudging "Well I suppose its better than you doing a PROPER job". WTF! Good-o, so glad youre not jealous that I earn a good wage, work when and when not I want to, and have fun doing it.

I reckon people just have to be smug and have somthing to complain about. Wonder what their kids are doing when they are sitting round bitching with their little working-mum-hating-groups and eating their body weight in choccy digestives. No pleasing some people.

hi Nicky, I've got kids at primary school

do you recommend Usborne? do you need space to store the books (I've got none space at all!)

sorry for hijack!

I do hun, its worked so well. Theres a bigger Usborne thread Im on further down (in Going to Work). Have a read of it then email me (My email is on the thread) if youd like to chat about how it works (practically) and have some info etc. x

When I worked full time, from mil, don't you think you ought to spend time with ds, you're both missing out on so much, etc.

When I worked part time, from mil, sometimes ds doesn't know if he's coming or going, it's confusing to him, etc.

When I became a sahm, from mil, is it fair that dh has all the responsibility of bringing in the family's income? Etc

Good job I can see the funny side.

PMSL! Kinki - do we share a MiL?
Sounds like you cant do right for doing wrong lol! Keep laughing!

thanks nicky

its the space thing that worries me, my house is tiny, no garage, kids squeezed into a room together, living room crammed!

god knows where I'd put boxes of books........

anyway with check out your thread, thanks!

Since having dd and going back to work I haven't really had any negative comments

The only one I do get is that it is "easier" for mums who work - admit it is nice to be able to read my book on the bus in the morning and enjoy a hot cup of coffee - but when I'm running for the bus at 5pm having dodged a huge pile of work on my desk I do think, easier - how ???

I've got three DCs now and have had to put up with some really dumb and insensitive comments, like "oh ^I" would never farm my children out to someone else to bring them up"

MY family are very supportive

I did resent having to work FT when I just had two DCs but now I have three I have had to cut my hours to 30 hrs per week, and share most of childcare with DH (we both do flexi working now) as we cannot afford to pay child care with three DCs!!

My standard seasoned response now to dumb comments/judgements about our lifestyle is:

"Oh I couldn't wait to get back to work - so much easier than looking after three kids"

or

"I love my job - I just can't belive I get paid to sit down all day - its fantastic"

Both true BTW

Its a shame there are so many bitchy comments coming from other woman though about our choices. I think there are often elements of jealousy/guilt behind such comments, as the grass is inevitably always greener on the other side isn't it?

I used to work, and had to return VERY early to work when ds1 was small, and I heard "I could never leave mine so small, I loved them too much!"

Thanks.

Thats shocking - I hope it was said unthinkingly!

A friend of mine says to people who make comments like these "I'm proud to go out to work and support my children. I hope when they are older they will appreciate the hours etc I put in to make sure they get certain thing and know that being hardworking is a admirable quality"

I used to teach university students in a conservative part of southern Germany. In a seminar once I was explaining a linguistic point using the example of the German word 'Rabenmutter', which means an uncaring mother and is usually applied to WOHM . When I mentioned the word I heard one student murmur to another 'like her'.

I have a dear friend who I love to bits, but has rather strong and un-thought-through opinions about a lot of things and often makes rather pitying-patronising comments about how much I've 'missed out on' with ds1 and what a good mother I am despite that .

I never understand why people think they have the right to comment on other peoples decisions....I think it says more about them tbh. As long as you are happy with the choices then you have made then who gives a toss about what others think?? I love working and I love being a mum.....the two are not mutually exclusive imo.......and it means that I get to have a coffee in peace and go to the loo without someone asking me what I am doing!!

I think its a lot to do with them too K99

I think the comments often come from jealousy that we have lovely kids and also have a decent job.

The barbed comments I have had are usually from "friends" who either haven't had kids for whatever reason (not usually because they didn't want kids, but life didn't work out that way) or who have had kids and gave up a job which they hated and didn't pay very well anyway - so effectively they didn't have a choice as their pay wouldn't have covered the child care costs. I think they resent the fact that I love my job and have three well adjusted lovely DCs, which is why I respond with a very loud comment about how fantastic it is to get paid to sit down all day.

Why do people feel they have to comment - I don't make comments to them about their life choices?

I do find it very odd when men make comments like "Oh I wouldn't want my wife to work" or "oh my wife doesn't have to work" - as though having a woman at home washing their socks for them is some kind of status symbol of their huge manliness earning power

It's quite depressing to see that the vast majority of these comments are coming from other women, particularly other mothers. Why are we so nasty to each other? I'm going back to work part-time in a couple of weeks (my son is 7mo) and I've been on the receiving end of a few comments from SAHMs too.

I would love to stay at home with my little boy, but DH works in a shop and I'm a lowly civil servant, so it's not going to happen. Tax Credits etc. mean we will get just enough to live on - if I stayed at home, we'd sink, for sure.

If there's one thing I've discovered since having my DS, it's that there's nothing quite as competitive/spiteful/backhanded as another woman who's made different perenting decisions to you.

Never had any negative comments IRL but seen plenty on here. Including that old chesnut 'why have children if you don't want to bring them up yourself'.

But I remember one horrid little girl at playgroup ejecting my sister from the Wendy house with the line 'you can't come in here, your Mummy works'.

it's because making a parenting decision is hard. Nobody is ever SURE they are doing totally the right thing. People who are sure in themselves and secure don't get militant about it.

Militant smokers always turn into fervent antismokers when they quit! the ones who smoked a bit and were happy about it are calm and laissez-faire when they quit.

I am due in Sept and already being asked when I am coming back to work - it seems expected of me - I daren't tell anyone that I am not sure if I want to yet! It all depends on where we are financially.

There are two mums in my office with young children and they do make it much harder for the others by assuming that they will take over everything when the clock strikes 5pm. There used to be an air of gratitude about it - you know the real team effort thingy (words are not coming today!) - but now they are just taking it for granted - and leaving a lot of the harder sticky stuff for others to pick up. It does make me feel like not going back to work as I don't want to be seen like they are.

Then there is the mum who works in a different part of the company - single mum, always early, very organised and never ever relying on anyone else to take care of her job for her - quite an inspiration to be honest.

I have had a lady (childless through choice in her mid to late 40s) ask me about childcare and I have said that there are already lots of volunteers to get involved in taking care of my LO - I have a very large and caring family that meant when I was growing up, I was the eldest of 6 cousins taken care of by our gran until mum/dad came home. I said that I was quite looking forward to my LO being "kidnapped" (using the word loosely like my mum does when she describes how I was by my aunts and uncles when I was little) and enjoying so many different things. SHe was horrified and said how can you bear the thought of anyone else looking after your child. I suppose if people don't have the experiences like I did of picnics with aunts and cousins, going to walks and playing football, getting taken on holiday by my aunt and her bf etc etc, they cant understand it all.

The same lady was the one who recommended a book on taking care of babies that her friend had used. I kindly said thanks but no thanks, there were enough babies in my family (and I have two baby nephews and enough friends with tiny babies at the moment) for me to understand how to feed, clean bottoms and love a baby without needing a book.

:0

Luckily I have had no negative comments and a lot of the women in out place are in the same boat as me including the Director. However, I have once response to this and it is f off and stop talking shit. Shoot this nonsense down straight away.