Bay 3 months chucked into FULL time nursery

Gigglepig

Why be judgmental of people who live their life differently than yours?

In the USA for example, ladies get 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave, but career women often return sooner.

If you don't like career women having babies, what about people who aren't capable of holding down a iob at all? Better off in an excellent professional, regulated and inspected nursery surely than at home with a useless parent who has nothing to offer? There are plenty worse things than career mums.

If you dislike it, perhaps lobby for changes to maternity/paternity leave legislation, so that people are paid a % of their salary no matter what that salary is - this will make it more feasible for middle income families to stay at home for longer.

Some companies top up the maternity pay for a few months, this could be a very good reason to return after 3 months if your salary was a lot higher than the maternity pay, and you had a mortgage to pay

Or, ensure all dads get a couple of months paid paternity leave, and could go on leave say after the first couple of weeks, that way mum can return to work without needing a nursery or childminder, and dad won't miss out on the special moments...

I don't think mums should need to sacrifice their working lives to be parents, and perhaps some people "appreciate fully" their children without seeing them 24/7....!

Person_one

Does that go for both parents then, or just mums? Most dads only take two weeks off at most, often less.

Toothfairy4

I don't think it's a 'fashion'. Living costs are extremely high in some areas, do you have any idea how much some people would need to save to be able to afford a year off?

Lagoon

trevorsminted wrote: »

I appreciate and totally see that some don't care about strangers caring for their kids for longer hours than they do, changing their nappies, reading to them ,hearing them speak, smile for the first time, fair enough as I said you got to work and cant afford it then its a choice you make, I just wondered what the point was instead of waiting a few years saving up to appreciate fully your newborn baby for the first year and savour every moment, call me old fashioned we went without but the new fashion is "we cant afford not to work" as I have said each to their own!

Depending on their career, perhaps a few more years would mean an even better position that's even harder to leave behind.

Perhaps they're concerned about their age, and this is what they see as their last chance to have a baby?

Perhaps they've made the decision that socialisation outside the home is the best choice for their baby, and will aid their child's development?

There are hundreds of possible reasons.

trevorsminted

Oh dear I wasn't meaning my family my circumstances were different and didn't fall into this category I am merely wondering why someone would want to put their newborn baby (mummy or daddy) into care for 9 hours a day to strangers in the first days/weeks/months of their life when they are so precious, for so little time!

mummyroysof3

Nursery isn't cheap so she must be earning a high amount to make it worthwhile

clearingout

I can't afford not to work. I'm a single parent. My lovely ex husband walked out when I was pregnant with our third child. I had no choice but to look at my broadest options and work out how on earth I was going to work. I did the benefits thing for nearly 2 years - and received the criticism that everyone gets in these situations: who on earth do I think I am for expecting other people to pay for bringing up my children. In reality, I stayed at home for one year, volunteered part-time for the second and then went back to work on a full-time training course and am now a qualified teacher.

What you won't believe is how many people think it perfectly acceptable to challenge me working full-time with young children. Same people who think single mothers on benefits are the root of all evil. My children are in breakfast club from 8am. I rarely pick them up before 5pm. I didn't have children to have other people care for them whilst I care for other people's children. But that's the way it's worked out. When you are judged in this way, it really doesn't help. I feel guilty enough but I also know I'm making the best of what was a horrible situation I could never have predicted.

People who have children make all kinds of decisions based on literally millions of possible variables and outsider couldn't possibly understand. Take your judgey pants off, please!!!

thorsoak

Unless you know the circumstances of the parents, you should not judge! Maybe one parent is threatened with redundancy at the worst possible time; maybe the relationship of the parents has become rocky and mother is forced to return to work far earlier than she anticipated. Maybe they have just come out of a fixed mortgage rate and been unable to sign up to a good one .....who knows?

The fact that you use such judgemental language demeans you trevorsminted - unless you are in the shoes of those parents, who are you to use such damning language as "baby 3 month chucked into ..."

I'm disappointed in you

barbarawright

trevorsminted wrote: »

Oh dear I wasn't meaning my family my circumstances were different and didn't fall into this category I am merely wondering why someone would want to put their newborn baby (mummy or daddy) into care for 9 hours a day to strangers in the first days/weeks/months of their life when they are so precious, for so little time!

So are you suggesting that neither partner should work just in case they miss out on special moments with their baby?

Toothfairy4

clearingout, what a horrible situation your ex-h put you in, i have total respect for people like yourself who know they can do so much more for their kids than spend their lives claiming benefits. Well done you!!