Does hiring childcare make me a bad parent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you need extra help around the clock, then you need the help. Since you can afford it, better to pay for it and have it then for your kids to be neglected or poorly cared for.

But don’t talk about it at work. It doesn’t make you look great as a parent (that you need 3 adults for 2 kids) and it sounds bright about money.

I disagree. It makes her sound like a parent who is putting their resources to their kids instead of a new car or whatever else.

There aren’t extra points for drudgery and I think it’s ridiculous that people act as though there are. I just got in from sledding with my kid, the babysitter made a big healthy brunch, and now I’ll eat it with my kid. If I want to go sledding (which I do) and I want her to eat better than cheerios (which I do) I can either outsource or wake up earlier to pre-make brunch. It’s not better parenting to be tired on a Sunday morning.

That’s fine. If you aren’t able to make your child breakfast and do an activity on a weekend and you have the money, then definitely hire help. As I said, your child needs to be cared for. And if in your house you would only be able to do either a meal or an activity, then you need more adults to meet your child’s basic needs. But it doesn’t make you look good so don’t talk about it at work. The vast majority of parents can and do feed their kids and do activities on weekends. Even on this thread, your perspective that it would be too exhausting for a parent to both give their child breakfast and go sledding isn’t one that many can relate to.

OP here. I don’t know many parents with childcare who don’t spend weekends with their kids. Most childcare providers are only there when the parents work.

We have childcare while we work and now to maintain her employment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For me the entire point of parenting is to enjoy time with my kids. I was able to do that while being the primary caregiver, with no other childcare apart from my husband. But if you enjoy time with your kids only if you outsource, then that's fine. The goal is met.

So it’s about YOU.

[Anonymous]

What is so hard about:

1) of course hiring childcare doesn't make you a bad parent

And

2) don't share every detail of your childcare arrangement at work because people have different resources and, for example, a night nurse will be viewed by most as a luxury

And

3) the opinion of some random coworker who doesn't even have kids is irrelevant here and to be completely disregarded

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your coworker is envious of all the help you have during a time where she had (or would have) very little help. She's being rude if her judgment is overt or coming out of nowhere.

But if her judgment is more like "wow, that's a lot of help" in a tone of voice that isn't 100% supportive, she's actually not even being rude. That's a sign you need to shut up about all your paid help at work. No one needs to know ALL your business.

This. I’m a fed. I took the 10 weeks of leave I’d accrued after each kid was born and went back to work. We had daycare, but no babysitters, no breaks except the ones we gave each other. It was HARD. I don’t judge or resent anyone who has other options, but I am jealous.

I had a coworker who quit to stay at home while her first child was an infant because it was so hard to be a working parent. We were friendly and when we were talking about it one day she was rattling off the things that were difficult and suggesting they were unique challenges (they were not, and I say that as someone who worked through serious PPD/A and I understand not everyone knows what people are going through).

She said something about not knowing how other people do it, as if we could all just quit working and stay home. I said very directly that most of us do it because we have to and we don’t have other options. I’m sure she took it as being judgmental. I wasn’t judging her decision, but the total lack of perspective.

I also remember being in the grocery store with my then 6 week old and the woman stocking shelves had a baby the same age and was on her second day back to work. I started being real careful about who I complained to about going back after 10 weeks after that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you need extra help around the clock, then you need the help. Since you can afford it, better to pay for it and have it then for your kids to be neglected or poorly cared for.

But don’t talk about it at work. It doesn’t make you look great as a parent (that you need 3 adults for 2 kids) and it sounds bright about money.

I disagree. It makes her sound like a parent who is putting their resources to their kids instead of a new car or whatever else.

There aren’t extra points for drudgery and I think it’s ridiculous that people act as though there are. I just got in from sledding with my kid, the babysitter made a big healthy brunch, and now I’ll eat it with my kid. If I want to go sledding (which I do) and I want her to eat better than cheerios (which I do) I can either outsource or wake up earlier to pre-make brunch. It’s not better parenting to be tired on a Sunday morning.

That’s fine. If you aren’t able to make your child breakfast and do an activity on a weekend and you have the money, then definitely hire help. As I said, your child needs to be cared for. And if in your house you would only be able to do either a meal or an activity, then you need more adults to meet your child’s basic needs. But it doesn’t make you look good so don’t talk about it at work. The vast majority of parents can and do feed their kids and do activities on weekends. Even on this thread, your perspective that it would be too exhausting for a parent to both give their child breakfast and go sledding isn’t one that many can relate to.

OP here. I don’t know many parents with childcare who don’t spend weekends with their kids. Most childcare providers are only there when the parents work.

We have childcare while we work and now to maintain her employment.

No one at your job cares in any way if you have childcare while you work. Every working parent has childcare while they work. Your thread was about having additional adults in the home to help while parent(s) are at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you need extra help around the clock, then you need the help. Since you can afford it, better to pay for it and have it then for your kids to be neglected or poorly cared for.

But don’t talk about it at work. It doesn’t make you look great as a parent (that you need 3 adults for 2 kids) and it sounds bright about money.

I disagree. It makes her sound like a parent who is putting their resources to their kids instead of a new car or whatever else.

There aren’t extra points for drudgery and I think it’s ridiculous that people act as though there are. I just got in from sledding with my kid, the babysitter made a big healthy brunch, and now I’ll eat it with my kid. If I want to go sledding (which I do) and I want her to eat better than cheerios (which I do) I can either outsource or wake up earlier to pre-make brunch. It’s not better parenting to be tired on a Sunday morning.

That’s fine. If you aren’t able to make your child breakfast and do an activity on a weekend and you have the money, then definitely hire help. As I said, your child needs to be cared for. And if in your house you would only be able to do either a meal or an activity, then you need more adults to meet your child’s basic needs. But it doesn’t make you look good so don’t talk about it at work. The vast majority of parents can and do feed their kids and do activities on weekends. Even on this thread, your perspective that it would be too exhausting for a parent to both give their child breakfast and go sledding isn’t one that many can relate to.

OP here. I don’t know many parents with childcare who don’t spend weekends with their kids. Most childcare providers are only there when the parents work.

We have childcare while we work and now to maintain her employment.

This isn’t even true. You have a night nurse, you aren’t working then.

[Anonymous]

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you need extra help around the clock, then you need the help. Since you can afford it, better to pay for it and have it then for your kids to be neglected or poorly cared for.

But don’t talk about it at work. It doesn’t make you look great as a parent (that you need 3 adults for 2 kids) and it sounds bright about money.

I disagree. It makes her sound like a parent who is putting their resources to their kids instead of a new car or whatever else.

There aren’t extra points for drudgery and I think it’s ridiculous that people act as though there are. I just got in from sledding with my kid, the babysitter made a big healthy brunch, and now I’ll eat it with my kid. If I want to go sledding (which I do) and I want her to eat better than cheerios (which I do) I can either outsource or wake up earlier to pre-make brunch. It’s not better parenting to be tired on a Sunday morning.

That’s fine. If you aren’t able to make your child breakfast and do an activity on a weekend and you have the money, then definitely hire help. As I said, your child needs to be cared for. And if in your house you would only be able to do either a meal or an activity, then you need more adults to meet your child’s basic needs. But it doesn’t make you look good so don’t talk about it at work. The vast majority of parents can and do feed their kids and do activities on weekends. Even on this thread, your perspective that it would be too exhausting for a parent to both give their child breakfast and go sledding isn’t one that many can relate to.

OP here. I don’t know many parents with childcare who don’t spend weekends with their kids. Most childcare providers are only there when the parents work.

We have childcare while we work and now to maintain her employment.

No one at your job cares in any way if you have childcare while you work. Every working parent has childcare while they work. Your thread was about having additional adults in the home to help while parent(s) are at home.

This. If OP was just talking about having a nanny, no one would have said anything because obviously everyone who works needs childcare of some kind and a nanny is a standard kind of childcare. With multiple kids it is often as cost effective or more so than daycare.

OP was going on about getting a night nurse for her infant and making sure people knew she was going to have the nanny continue to take care of her toddler during her maternity leave. That's fine -- I don't think there is anything wrong with either of those, especially not the nanny since of course you will have the nanny continue to work through your leave, there's no other solution that makes sense. But it's obnoxious to be advertising this at work. OP says childcare came up with other moms in the office but that the one coworker only seemed to judge her. Well that's likely because OP is in an outlier situation with more help than most people have and was providing more details about that than she really needed to.

OP sounds insanely defensive about what appears to be a pretty privileged situation. This is not the coworker's fault at all. This is all about OP and her own feelings about her lifestyle. Maybe she grew up with a lot less or married into wealth and just feels guilty. Well that's OP's problem to solve. For all we know the coworker wasn't actually judgmental, or was actually judging the fact that OP was bragging about all the help she has in a workplace where most people likely have a lot less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is so hard about:

1) of course hiring childcare doesn't make you a bad parent

And

2) don't share every detail of your childcare arrangement at work because people have different resources and, for example, a night nurse will be viewed by most as a luxury

And

3) the opinion of some random coworker who doesn't even have kids is irrelevant here and to be completely disregarded

And yet if she rolls up to work in a brand new car or goes to Bali or buys a $4M house in McLean to be in a good school pyramid no one will bat an eye, and on the $4M they’ll say how great it is she’s making and investment in her kid.

So maybe consider why not risking your life and your baby’s life by being sleep deprived is such a “luxury” you shouldn’t mention it to coworkers. Good grief.

[Anonymous]

Do all the people judging OP stay up to date with the data on the link between PPA/PPD and postpartum psychosis and sleep deprivation? Just curious whether you value women’s health so little out of ignorance or just misogyny…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is fine to have help but gauche to brag about it, especially when most cannot afford it.

This. I remember when I had my son one of the more senior ladies at work was going on and on to me about how much help she had and what she was paying for it. I smiled and nodded while inwardly seething. I knew she made way more than me but it just seemed to rude and thoughtless to throw it in my face like that.

[Anonymous]

This is like my DH’s boss venting to him about how stressful it was doing a multi hundred thousand dollar whole-house remodel. She was spending on the remodel more than he makes in a year. Read the room lady.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is like my DH’s boss venting to him about how stressful it was doing a multi hundred thousand dollar whole-house remodel. She was spending on the remodel more than he makes in a year. Read the room lady.

Most houses cost more than people make in a year.

People need to stop being so crabs in a bucket about this topic. We should normalize overnight care (family or paid) given the well documented connection between sleep deprivation and adverse mental health outcomes post-partum. We don’t tell people to tough it out or not brag about their luxuries when they have a therapist or other mental health professional, and people pay them a lot more than they do a night nurse over the course of a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is so hard about:

1) of course hiring childcare doesn't make you a bad parent

And

2) don't share every detail of your childcare arrangement at work because people have different resources and, for example, a night nurse will be viewed by most as a luxury

And

3) the opinion of some random coworker who doesn't even have kids is irrelevant here and to be completely disregarded

And yet if she rolls up to work in a brand new car or goes to Bali or buys a $4M house in McLean to be in a good school pyramid no one will bat an eye, and on the $4M they’ll say how great it is she’s making and investment in her kid.

So maybe consider why not risking your life and your baby’s life by being sleep deprived is such a “luxury” you shouldn’t mention it to coworkers. Good grief.

Uh, if she "rolls up" to work in some super expensive car or does any of those other things and then talks about it extensively at work, people will 100% judge her for failing to recognize that different people have different resources and not everyone can afford to vacation in Bali or spend $4m on a house in McLean.

If you truly believe that not having both a day and night nanny during the postpartum period is "risking the life" of the mother and baby, they I highly suggest you get to work addressing that need for the 99% of the population who cannot afford. Including me, by the way. I had severe PPD and no family help due to a health crisis in my family (cancer) and I didn't have any nannies during maternity leave at all. Am I supposed to sit in the break room and listen to OP drone on about how her night nurse was essential and everyone should have one without rolling my damn eyes at her privileged tone deaf a$$. No thank you.

Get a night nurse, don't get a night nurse. Don't expect people you barely know to fall all over themselves congratulating you on having a significantly more privileged position than the vast majority of mothers in this country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is like my DH’s boss venting to him about how stressful it was doing a multi hundred thousand dollar whole-house remodel. She was spending on the remodel more than he makes in a year. Read the room lady.

Most houses cost more than people make in a year.

People need to stop being so crabs in a bucket about this topic. We should normalize overnight care (family or paid) given the well documented connection between sleep deprivation and adverse mental health outcomes post-partum. We don’t tell people to tough it out or not brag about their luxuries when they have a therapist or other mental health professional, and people pay them a lot more than they do a night nurse over the course of a year.

Was that what OP was doing? Because a night nurse costs upwards of $200 a night. So the biggest obstacle to people having night nurses is people affording night nurses. Not failure to hear about their colleague's night nurse.

And actually therapy is also a luxury in the United States and you should not brag about having access to good quality therapy, especially in the DC area where the best therapists don't even take insurance.

This conversation would be different if OP had been having a conversation about how important it is for new moms to get support and help so that they can sleep and take care of their mental health, and then a coworker randomly shamed her for it. That's not what happened, is it?

(I also think OP is a troll, but whatever)