Are you offended when someone says they “didnt want someone else to raise my kids”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All these self righteous wohm’s would rather concoct convenient narratives rather than believe that many of us sahm’s are feminists, are not remotely religious or “trad”, are not wealthy and will go back to work.

We just understand child development (something most posters don’t seem to even consider) and know that daycare 0-2 is not good for children. That matters more to me and most women I know than any political or social project. And in children with social needs and the desire for parental care is magnified.

My wish for young women is that someone will be honest with them about which careers allow part-time, about how to save so you can always take unpaid leave in addition to mat leave if you have access to it, about how that wedding money is better earmarked for a nanny and about how many women simply change their minds about daycare when they actually have a vulnerable infant in their arms. No one talks about it—it’s taboo in pre-professional environments.

For example I know several physician moms who work one or two shifts a week during the early years. How helpful it would be for young women to know this is even possible!

Are you a child development expert?

Of course, that's what she majored in at Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Point being that when you work from home and have young kids, you are less efficient at work so something that may take 2 hours can get stretched to 5.

Not if they are napping.

Are you kidding? Kids do not nap all the time. Do you only have one kid? Give it a rest.

I actually used to cuddle with my toddler when she napped. When she was a baby, I napped when she napped.

Kids are mostly at school during their childhood and when they aren't they nap... a lot.

No I didn't nap during the day do you have narcolepsy?

I don't work when the kids are awake. I work when they are asleep or I engage with them, or they are at school or preschool or playdates.

Yes I have more than 1 kid but I don't have 3 under 5 that would make it hard.

No one with a reasonably demanding full time job is providing full time childcare and parenting young children at the same time. You can’t do both at the same time well. Remember? This was proven again and again to many of us during the pandemic.

It’s already been proven by showing schedules that for an infant, They are with nanny for maybe 3 to 4 waking hours.

Children don’t stay infants for long

And that schedules also been shared. The children were with their father in the morning, Went to preschool, Took a nap, And was with a caregiver less than two hours in the afternoon before mom got home.

That's your schedule. That's not a universal or even remotely common schedule for majority of kids of working parents, majority of whom are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

I don't know anyone who had kids in daycare 8+ hours a day.

For starters, most of us had nannies or au pairs. The ones who used daycare had one parent drop off and one parent pick up and flexed their schedules so that one parent went in earlier (and did not drop off the kids) and then got off earlier (and did pick up the kids) whereas the other parent went in later (and dropped the kids off) and came home later (and did not pick up the kids). I'm thinking of all the parents I know from working at DOJ, a Big 4 accounting firm, a Big Law firm, and private practice, plus the parents I know now that my kids are at school and all my friends from high school and college that I am still friends with. I truly can't think of any except one whose husband was military and she was a lawyer and acted a single mom because he was deployed a lot who had kids in daycare for 8 or more hours a day. Yes, that is my sample size, and yes, my friends are largely UMC and so of course that skews the results, but stop making up statistics. You cannot support your claim that the majority of children are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

Probably? This is the WHOLE reason you don't know anyone who has kids in daycare 8+ hours a day. The majority of the country is not UMC families. Most people have to actually work 8-9 hours a day. Therefore their kids need to be in someone else's care for 8+ hours a day. You have no idea how most people live.

Nope.

On average kids are in daycare 27 hours a week.

https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/documents/seccyd_06.pdf

You’re not representing what that statistic means honestly (or you don’t get it). They’re averaging care received by a child from 6 months to 4.5 years, so if Mom stays home until kid is 2.5, then puts the kid is in daycare for 40 hours per week, the stat will say the kid spent an average of 20 hours per week in daycare.

That doesn’t mean the 4 year old is doing half days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Point being that when you work from home and have young kids, you are less efficient at work so something that may take 2 hours can get stretched to 5.

Not if they are napping.

Are you kidding? Kids do not nap all the time. Do you only have one kid? Give it a rest.

I actually used to cuddle with my toddler when she napped. When she was a baby, I napped when she napped.

Kids are mostly at school during their childhood and when they aren't they nap... a lot.

No I didn't nap during the day do you have narcolepsy?

I don't work when the kids are awake. I work when they are asleep or I engage with them, or they are at school or preschool or playdates.

Yes I have more than 1 kid but I don't have 3 under 5 that would make it hard.

No one with a reasonably demanding full time job is providing full time childcare and parenting young children at the same time. You can’t do both at the same time well. Remember? This was proven again and again to many of us during the pandemic.

It’s already been proven by showing schedules that for an infant, They are with nanny for maybe 3 to 4 waking hours.

Children don’t stay infants for long

And that schedules also been shared. The children were with their father in the morning, Went to preschool, Took a nap, And was with a caregiver less than two hours in the afternoon before mom got home.

That's your schedule. That's not a universal or even remotely common schedule for majority of kids of working parents, majority of whom are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

I don't know anyone who had kids in daycare 8+ hours a day.

For starters, most of us had nannies or au pairs. The ones who used daycare had one parent drop off and one parent pick up and flexed their schedules so that one parent went in earlier (and did not drop off the kids) and then got off earlier (and did pick up the kids) whereas the other parent went in later (and dropped the kids off) and came home later (and did not pick up the kids). I'm thinking of all the parents I know from working at DOJ, a Big 4 accounting firm, a Big Law firm, and private practice, plus the parents I know now that my kids are at school and all my friends from high school and college that I am still friends with. I truly can't think of any except one whose husband was military and she was a lawyer and acted a single mom because he was deployed a lot who had kids in daycare for 8 or more hours a day. Yes, that is my sample size, and yes, my friends are largely UMC and so of course that skews the results, but stop making up statistics. You cannot support your claim that the majority of children are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

Probably? This is the WHOLE reason you don't know anyone who has kids in daycare 8+ hours a day. The majority of the country is not UMC families. Most people have to actually work 8-9 hours a day. Therefore their kids need to be in someone else's care for 8+ hours a day. You have no idea how most people live.

Nope.

On average kids are in daycare 27 hours a week.

https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/documents/seccyd_06.pdf

Well, not quite. Our goal is to look at kids with working mothers who use daycare. So, we have to look at research that accounts for this. The urban institute says that 41% of kids with employed mothers are in daycare 35 or more hours per week.

It seems that when parents are employed their children spend more time in daycare: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/62106/309439-The-Hours-That-Children-Under-Five-Spend-in-Child-Care.PDF

If you look at all children you end up lumping in kids who have a parent who works PT etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t care about a nanny’s training. I care if she’s present, healthy, rested, and emotionally regulated. And that’s asking a lot of someone who usually has a long commute, immigrant relatives to support, etc. it’s very expensive to find a great nanny AND pay her fairly.

I will be guiding my own children (male and female) to take as much mat leave as possible, even sabbaticals, etc. Do anything to get each child to age 1 without daycare if possible. And then do the enormous legwork to split an amazing nanny in a share. Unless I’m able bodied enough to care for them myself.

Maybe you shouldnt meddle in your adult children’s lives so much - especially when you dont have a valid point. There really isnt a problem with a high quality daycare. And if it’s a low quality day care kids shouldn’t be there at any age

I can’t imagine dropping off my 3-4 month old at daycare. So sad. I say this as a person who was a working mom. We visited many daycares and I just couldn’t imagine leaving my tiny baby in that environment. My mom watched my first when I worked and we had a nanny for my second. Both went to preschool with extended care (daycare) when they were 2.5-3 years old. I stayed home with my third and she also started preschool at age 2.5 but she only went for 2 hours and eventually increased to 3 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:tangents about scandinavia are missing the point. it's rude to say this to someone and intended purely as an insult. anyone who says this is an ahole.

I agree that it’s rude to say it, but picture someone being in the position to need to answer a question about why they are staying home with their kids. I think making people answer that question is asking for a rude answer.

No one asks someone why they stayed home. Come on. You're creating a strawman because you can't just acknowledge that this is a rude thing to say. Give it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, bc I feel the same way. But I would never say that to my FT WOH friends, which are the majority, bc they might read between the lines that I’m implying that they’re not raising their own kids (vs me expressing a choice of my own) and that would be hurtful!
I do feel kind of uncomfortable at the “I admire you - I could never do what you do and be w my kids all day full-time” comments though. It comes across to me as 50/50 either fakey, or really sad for their kids.

And you wouldn't say it to your kids' teachers, doctors, etc., who are working women, right?

Can you imagine if all women stayed home to raise their kids and didn't work? How many male teachers are there at your elementary school?

Do you think if a woman stays home for 5-10 years to be with her kids, that she must stay home FOREVER?

That’s one of the fundamental problems with our current societal set up, IMO. WHY is it taken as a fact that it MUST be practically impossible to re-enter the workforce after several years off?

Can you imagine a world in which a woman might choose to stay home with her kids for a few years and then have a job again for many decades afterward?

So you think none of the teachers or doctors your child sees have young children being cared for by someone else? You think they all took five years off and then just popped back into the work force?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not an acceptable turn of phrase.

But I am not offended because it shows the low character of the speaker. Just as if they had said they work FT because “I wanted to use my brain”

But working parents say this all the time to SAHP. "I couldn't do NOTHING." "I needed to use my brain." etc.

I've never heard this comment in real life.

I've heard it many times. Fully 70% of the new moms group I was in said some version of this in our meetings -- "I'm so bored -- I can't wait to go back to work" or "I feel like I'm getting stupid spending all my time with a baby." It's a very very common sentiment among women who have established careers before having kids and especially highly educated women.

I think people are expressing their genuine feelings when they say this stuff but I remember silently thinking how it didn't resonate with me at all and I loved being on maternity leave and had essentially zero interest in going back to work. I didn't miss my office AT ALL and I felt plenty intellectually stimulated at home (I found learning about child development fascinating and also had more time and bandwidth to read more widely than I had when working). I still wound up going back to work but was miserable and quit my job to stay home for the next two years because it's what I wanted to do.

When I hear people say things like "I couldn't do NOTHING" or "I need to use my brain" I simply know they are wrong. That's it. I know it to be a a false assumption about what it is to stay home with kids. Or sometimes I think they would do it wrong -- there is a way of being a sahm that involves being brainless and lazy but there's also a way of going to work like that isn't there. You get out of it what you put into it.

But I also think when people say stuff like this they are likely trying to quiet doubts they might have within themselves about their own choices. It's not about me even if they are trying to turn me into some kind of foil.

Um, no. They are right about themselves. They needed to use their brains. They couldn't do nothing. That's fine that you felt differently, but to say that someone else is wrong for their feelings is astoundingly conceited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:tangents about scandinavia are missing the point. it's rude to say this to someone and intended purely as an insult. anyone who says this is an ahole.

I agree that it’s rude to say it, but picture someone being in the position to need to answer a question about why they are staying home with their kids. I think making people answer that question is asking for a rude answer.

No one asks someone why they stayed home. Come on. You're creating a strawman because you can't just acknowledge that this is a rude thing to say. Give it up.

I don’t think these conversations happen in real life. Maybe in some passive aggressive frenemy situation.

I’m a SAHM and I do occasionally hear women say they hated staying home or couldn’t wait to go back to work or worked hard for their degrees or some variation of this. It doesn’t phase me at all.

I think insecure people feel bad or would find it offensive whether a working mom says something rude to a SAHM or a SAHM says something rude to a working mom. There is this one mom at my child’s school who seems insulted if I invite her daughter for a play date. Mom always answers with some variation of her working or can’t because she is working. It is her ton that is rude. Other girls in class hang out and I’m trying to be inclusive. That mom openly complains about any event during work day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, bc I feel the same way. But I would never say that to my FT WOH friends, which are the majority, bc they might read between the lines that I’m implying that they’re not raising their own kids (vs me expressing a choice of my own) and that would be hurtful!
I do feel kind of uncomfortable at the “I admire you - I could never do what you do and be w my kids all day full-time” comments though. It comes across to me as 50/50 either fakey, or really sad for their kids.

And you wouldn't say it to your kids' teachers, doctors, etc., who are working women, right?

Can you imagine if all women stayed home to raise their kids and didn't work? How many male teachers are there at your elementary school?

Do you think if a woman stays home for 5-10 years to be with her kids, that she must stay home FOREVER?

That’s one of the fundamental problems with our current societal set up, IMO. WHY is it taken as a fact that it MUST be practically impossible to re-enter the workforce after several years off?

Can you imagine a world in which a woman might choose to stay home with her kids for a few years and then have a job again for many decades afterward?

So you think none of the teachers or doctors your child sees have young children being cared for by someone else? You think they all took five years off and then just popped back into the work force?

Obviously not, you idiot. I am, however, saying that *even if* EVERY mother took some significant time off with each child, the world would STILL be full of working women! (Pushing back against the moronic implication in the post to which I replied). The average age of women in the workforce might skew older, but so what? Women live longer than men anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get it, because it’s true, even if people don’t want to admit that’s what’s happening when children are in full-time daycare. But in polite society we avoid saying things that might hurt someone’s feelings, regardless of whether it’s truthful or not.

But it’s not truthful. My kids went to daycare, and, sure, their daycare teachers, who were all wonderful, provided care during the workday. But my spouse and I made the decisions on how to parent, which included finding great caregivers.

If your children go to daycare for 10-11 (7-6 or 7:30-5:30) hours a day for the first 4-5 years of life and sleep 10-12 hours a night then you are not spending 4-5 hours with them each day 70% of the week. How is this controversial? You are outsourcing a lot of parenting duties to other caregivers. Someone saying that they don’t want to do that is not wrong. And I’m saying this as a full time working parent.

I actually did the math with my neighbor who was a SAHM and I did spend more 1-1 time with my kids than she did.

1st. My H's time counted and I know many of SAHP's who are the 1st to tell you that their H does nothing, works late, travels a lot.
2nd: She did not take into account napping, time in front of TV, time they were in the basement playing and she was futzing around.

I don't think a SAHP should be connected at the hip and I think that independent time is valuable but the reality is she was not spending more 1-1 time with her child than I was.

I think you are mistaken. There's just simply not a chance that you spend more 1-1 time with kids than a SAHP unless the SAHP is outsourcing a ton of childcare. Your kids never play in the basement or nap or watch TV when you're with them? And how much time during the day are the SAHP neighbor's kids doing that? 2 hrs out of a 8+ hour work day...your math isn't mathing.

And there’s the rub. I think because she is home so much she doesn’t even think about doing things with her kids.

I think because I’m not home all day as soon as I get home I want to get outside I take them to the park, Or we go for a hike, We hit a museum, Or walk around the zoo.

in fact when I get home from work the neighbor whose H was sick and she asked me to watch her kids, I immediately pick them up and take them with me to do these things.

The woman who is complaining that she wasn’t chosen to be the caregiver is like sure just send them to my house. They can watch TV or play in the yard while I make dinner or entertain my child in the basement.

Assuming this is all true, your neighbor is n=1. Your neighbor is not representative of the vast majority of SAHP. Nor does your post, however unnecessarily involved, get at the original question of whether it was ok for someone to say they didn’t want their kids raised by strangers.

You go hiking, biking, your kids tube on the lake behind your house every afternoon at 2 pm while you drive the boat before going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discuss El Greco for six hours. We get it. You’re amazing! Tahoe by day, NYC by afternoon. You never go to Costco. You work 190 hours per week at work and get out by 3 pm to pick up your kid from daycare and play laser tag before you coach soccer and you make $280K!

Pretty much except I work 40 hours and my H the same.

It can work if you want it to.

But if you want to SAH and have a absent h and that works for you because he needs to work 190 hours a week to pick up your slack go for it just stop being so defensive about how other families have figured out how to work and be there for their kids.

DP here. Except the problem with your argument is that lots of families with a SAHM have a Dad who is not absent at all, works a 35 hour week and has tons of flexibility to be at events, coach teams, etc. I know many families like this, including ours.

Glad they figured it out too. They tend to be absent from these discussions because there’s a lot of … its impossible to work my H is big law or surgeon and I could only find hubs that had me out of the house from 6-6.

But I agree the majority of families working or with a SAHP don’t have these crazy situations where one or the other parent isn’t home most of the time.

The idea kids are in daycare 8 or 10 or 12 hours are just horror stories made up to justify not working. Most kids have about 3-4 waking hours in other people’s care until they go to school then it’s about 7 hours whether you work or not, unless you homeschool …Except teen athletes they are gone all day.

So many families have figured it out but I guess someone has to marry surgeons and big law partners. Actually they usually have a few wives throughout their life.

Lady, you’re officially batsh!t crazy. Or a troll. Or both.

Most working people have a schedule that vaguely falls around 9-5:30 plus morning and evening commute. How can you live in this area and apparently not know a single Fed, let alone dual Fed couples?

Feds can work a 6-2:30 schedule while the other parent works 9:30-6.

That means 1 parent does am and the other does afternoons.

Not all feds can do this. If you work with a lot of west coast or Pacific island folks in a national program, you can't get off at 2:30 (my situation). Plenty of offices have core hours starting before 9 and ending after 3. Some jobs require specific shifts (e.g. any law enforcement or customer facing job).

Shift work is perfect. No care or very little care needed.

I didn’t say everyone can do that but many feds do. The vast majority of feds and contractors who work at fed agencies. Also many time IT staff work shortened day and do upgrades after hours.

People who are doing research don’t need to read and write 9-5.

I agree don’t work for DOD.

Our core hours are 10-2.

If this is accurate, you’ll never get promoted or mange anyone. Working four hours a day is ripping off taxpayers and it’s lazy. I’m a fed and there’s no way this would fly at my agency or with me if I was your manager. Whatever you think you’re proving here about childcare you’re not. You’re just making feds look like they take advantage of WFH.

They never said the ONLY worked 10-2, but that those were their core hours. It's so hard to argue with stupid.

Why is this so confusing for you? 80% of employees adults work in office and 10% are hybrid and 10% are remote. And only 18-26% of workers are shift workers. You and your husband are NOT representative of most people who work. The fact that you think your lifestyle is appealing (it seems like you never see each other and drag all your kids around because you are never together) or normal speaks to your ignorance.

Not everyone has the option to flex their work schedule let alone flex it to accommodate their spouse’s schedule. Get out of your bubble and stop posting the same thing again and again.

Relax. I'm not the PP, just someone who can read. All I said was that core hours doesn't mean those are the only hours you work. That's also why I said THEY, not I. You sound insane and unhinged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t care about a nanny’s training. I care if she’s present, healthy, rested, and emotionally regulated. And that’s asking a lot of someone who usually has a long commute, immigrant relatives to support, etc. it’s very expensive to find a great nanny AND pay her fairly.

I will be guiding my own children (male and female) to take as much mat leave as possible, even sabbaticals, etc. Do anything to get each child to age 1 without daycare if possible. And then do the enormous legwork to split an amazing nanny in a share. Unless I’m able bodied enough to care for them myself.

Maybe you shouldnt meddle in your adult children’s lives so much - especially when you dont have a valid point. There really isnt a problem with a high quality daycare. And if it’s a low quality day care kids shouldn’t be there at any age

I can’t imagine dropping off my 3-4 month old at daycare. So sad. I say this as a person who was a working mom. We visited many daycares and I just couldn’t imagine leaving my tiny baby in that environment. My mom watched my first when I worked and we had a nanny for my second. Both went to preschool with extended care (daycare) when they were 2.5-3 years old. I stayed home with my third and she also started preschool at age 2.5 but she only went for 2 hours and eventually increased to 3 hours.

Wow. You cant imagine. It’s almost as if you aren’t the center of the universe nor uniquely qualified to make a decision about what is “right”. Have you considered that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two teens here with two observations:

1) my kids friends are all really great, smart, well mannered, kind kids. I couldn’t tell you which ones had SAHMs and which ones had WOHMs if I didn’t know their parents (I know many but not all and it’s a mix of both working and non working parents - they all raised awesome kids).


2) this concept of raising your own children is a relatively new phenomenon. Ever heard of the term “it takes a village”? I also have seen some studies that say that working parents now spend significantly more time with their children than stay at home moms did 20-30 years ago. Probably because there isn’t really a village anymore.

Interesting how everyone is just passing by and ignoring this post. As a mom of older ES kids, I agree - all of my children's friends are wonderful kids. Some of them have SAHMs, some of them have two working parents. They're all great kids. If it makes you ladies feel better to put down working moms and tell us we're ruining our children forever, then fine, go ahead, but my kids have turned out great so far, even with a mom who sent them to daycare.

I agree that there are great kids of working parents and great kids of stay at home parents. But the topic isn't about outcomes/how the kids turn out in the end as a result of who raises them. The topic is about who IS actually raising the kids and, although I'd never say this to anyone and think it's totally rude to do so, you can't really argue that parents who both work and whose kids either go to daycare or have a nanny or a grandparent or whoever take care of them are being 100% raised by their parents. They hardly even see their parents. They spend most of their time w/ someone other than their parents. It's just not possible that their parents are the main ones raising them.

Except every parent with kids in school or preschool do this and you are saying only the SAH person is raising their Child, even though the working parent sees the child just as much.

This thread is largely about kids who are not yet school age.

Though also lots of preschools are not full time so are not meant to be full time childcare -- my child attended a half day preschool starting at age 2.5 which was great and helped her get ready for kindergarten. It was 3 hours a day.

And even once you have school age kids... my kid is off today and tomorrow and monday. He's been sick 4 days in the last month due to RSV and a bad cold going around his school. 10 weeks off in summer. Winter break (2 weeks) and spring break (1 week). Random PD days throughout the year. And the kicker -- school ends at 2:30pm.

Even once kids are in school SAHP see their kids a lot more than full time working parents. And I say that as a working parent. You can't deny facts.

This is why many people can't just get a job once their child is school age. It's cheaper and less stress to just have one parent on-call for all the p.i.t.a. kid related issues, especially if the other parent is a high earner. If we both worked, we have literally nobody to cover all the days when kids aren't in school and need care at home. I don't care who looks down on it. Half the families at my school have a SAHP because they have the same problem. Preschool is so few hours during the week we skipped it for all the children and just taught them to read and write and do math at home before they started K, also saved a lot of money there.

Before I had kids and was working, I didn't really feel I was doing anything all that important. So many of these jobs that people think are high status will be replaced by automation and AI. Might as well raise your kids and let the status obsessed folks do their thing.

And yet tons of working parents have figured out how to work and be able to care for their kids on sick days, etc. Sorry you couldn't, but that doesn't mean others can't.

Tons of parents have figured out how to care for their kids without needing two incomes. Sorry you couldn’t, but that doesn’t mean others can’t.

Some of us want our kids to be raised by both parents. Sorry all your husband can do is make money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is a huge difference to the kids though to have a more relaxed morning and to be able to come home and rest after school instead of staying in aftercare.

I stopped working when I had my kids, went back part-time when they started school and now that they are in high school I am increasing my hours close to full-time. I have always worked from home and have an intellectually stimulating job.

I realize that I am very lucky and not everyone has the same options as I do. I have no judgment, only sympathy, for those who would prefer to stay home with kids but have to work due to financial reasons.

I will never regret staying home with the kids when they were young. I truly believe that having one lovung and engaged parent stay home is the very best for the children. Those were also some of the best years of my life and I am forever grateful that I had the opportunity.

My husband and I both work full-time and our kids have never done aftercare, they come home right after school because one or both of us is home. Good for you and your set up, but stop acting like either kids who do aftercare are going to end up in group homes or that many working parents don't have their kids in aftercare.

First of all: she’s not doing that.

Second: you don’t get to say this AFTER making sure to point out that YOUR kids have NEVER done aftercare. Hypocrite.

My point is that I have no dog in the aftercare fight because I've never used it so I'm not sensitive/offended.

Saying there's a HUGE difference in kids who do aftercare and those that don't is ridiculous at best and disgusting at worst. But go ahead and call people names when you don't understand. It really helps get your point across.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Point being that when you work from home and have young kids, you are less efficient at work so something that may take 2 hours can get stretched to 5.

Not if they are napping.

Are you kidding? Kids do not nap all the time. Do you only have one kid? Give it a rest.

I actually used to cuddle with my toddler when she napped. When she was a baby, I napped when she napped.

Kids are mostly at school during their childhood and when they aren't they nap... a lot.

No I didn't nap during the day do you have narcolepsy?

I don't work when the kids are awake. I work when they are asleep or I engage with them, or they are at school or preschool or playdates.

Yes I have more than 1 kid but I don't have 3 under 5 that would make it hard.

No one with a reasonably demanding full time job is providing full time childcare and parenting young children at the same time. You can’t do both at the same time well. Remember? This was proven again and again to many of us during the pandemic.

It’s already been proven by showing schedules that for an infant, They are with nanny for maybe 3 to 4 waking hours.

Children don’t stay infants for long

And that schedules also been shared. The children were with their father in the morning, Went to preschool, Took a nap, And was with a caregiver less than two hours in the afternoon before mom got home.

That's your schedule. That's not a universal or even remotely common schedule for majority of kids of working parents, majority of whom are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

I don't know anyone who had kids in daycare 8+ hours a day.

For starters, most of us had nannies or au pairs. The ones who used daycare had one parent drop off and one parent pick up and flexed their schedules so that one parent went in earlier (and did not drop off the kids) and then got off earlier (and did pick up the kids) whereas the other parent went in later (and dropped the kids off) and came home later (and did not pick up the kids). I'm thinking of all the parents I know from working at DOJ, a Big 4 accounting firm, a Big Law firm, and private practice, plus the parents I know now that my kids are at school and all my friends from high school and college that I am still friends with. I truly can't think of any except one whose husband was military and she was a lawyer and acted a single mom because he was deployed a lot who had kids in daycare for 8 or more hours a day. Yes, that is my sample size, and yes, my friends are largely UMC and so of course that skews the results, but stop making up statistics. You cannot support your claim that the majority of children are in daycare for 8+ hours a day.

Probably? This is the WHOLE reason you don't know anyone who has kids in daycare 8+ hours a day. The majority of the country is not UMC families. Most people have to actually work 8-9 hours a day. Therefore their kids need to be in someone else's care for 8+ hours a day. You have no idea how most people live.

Nope.

On average kids are in daycare 27 hours a week.

https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/documents/seccyd_06.pdf

You’re not representing what that statistic means honestly (or you don’t get it). They’re averaging care received by a child from 6 months to 4.5 years, so if Mom stays home until kid is 2.5, then puts the kid is in daycare for 40 hours per week, the stat will say the kid spent an average of 20 hours per week in daycare.

That doesn’t mean the 4 year old is doing half days.

No that’s not what it says. They are not averaging each child they are averaging the population by age.

There is a chart on page 16 that explains it.

The post above says the vast majority of kids are in daycare > 8 hours a day.

That’s wrong.

That statement is a lie and the study shows it’s nowhere near the majority.

3 month - 1.5 years: only 37 % are in care for more than 30 hours.
1.5-3 years: 44 % (higher but not the majority)
3-4: 50% in care > 30 hours but that includes preschool.

I’m not saying daycare is right or wrong I’m just posting facts that show the other poster is the one out of touch

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two teens here with two observations:

1) my kids friends are all really great, smart, well mannered, kind kids. I couldn’t tell you which ones had SAHMs and which ones had WOHMs if I didn’t know their parents (I know many but not all and it’s a mix of both working and non working parents - they all raised awesome kids).


2) this concept of raising your own children is a relatively new phenomenon. Ever heard of the term “it takes a village”? I also have seen some studies that say that working parents now spend significantly more time with their children than stay at home moms did 20-30 years ago. Probably because there isn’t really a village anymore.

Interesting how everyone is just passing by and ignoring this post. As a mom of older ES kids, I agree - all of my children's friends are wonderful kids. Some of them have SAHMs, some of them have two working parents. They're all great kids. If it makes you ladies feel better to put down working moms and tell us we're ruining our children forever, then fine, go ahead, but my kids have turned out great so far, even with a mom who sent them to daycare.

I agree that there are great kids of working parents and great kids of stay at home parents. But the topic isn't about outcomes/how the kids turn out in the end as a result of who raises them. The topic is about who IS actually raising the kids and, although I'd never say this to anyone and think it's totally rude to do so, you can't really argue that parents who both work and whose kids either go to daycare or have a nanny or a grandparent or whoever take care of them are being 100% raised by their parents. They hardly even see their parents. They spend most of their time w/ someone other than their parents. It's just not possible that their parents are the main ones raising them.

Except every parent with kids in school or preschool do this and you are saying only the SAH person is raising their Child, even though the working parent sees the child just as much.

This thread is largely about kids who are not yet school age.

Though also lots of preschools are not full time so are not meant to be full time childcare -- my child attended a half day preschool starting at age 2.5 which was great and helped her get ready for kindergarten. It was 3 hours a day.

And even once you have school age kids... my kid is off today and tomorrow and monday. He's been sick 4 days in the last month due to RSV and a bad cold going around his school. 10 weeks off in summer. Winter break (2 weeks) and spring break (1 week). Random PD days throughout the year. And the kicker -- school ends at 2:30pm.

Even once kids are in school SAHP see their kids a lot more than full time working parents. And I say that as a working parent. You can't deny facts.

This is why many people can't just get a job once their child is school age. It's cheaper and less stress to just have one parent on-call for all the p.i.t.a. kid related issues, especially if the other parent is a high earner. If we both worked, we have literally nobody to cover all the days when kids aren't in school and need care at home. I don't care who looks down on it. Half the families at my school have a SAHP because they have the same problem. Preschool is so few hours during the week we skipped it for all the children and just taught them to read and write and do math at home before they started K, also saved a lot of money there.

Before I had kids and was working, I didn't really feel I was doing anything all that important. So many of these jobs that people think are high status will be replaced by automation and AI. Might as well raise your kids and let the status obsessed folks do their thing.

And yet tons of working parents have figured out how to work and be able to care for their kids on sick days, etc. Sorry you couldn't, but that doesn't mean others can't.

NP of course it's possible to figure out how to work and care for kids on sick days. Doesn't make it desirable. Some people would prefer a less stressful life where they don't have to scramble to find childcare or reschedule work meetings or whatever to stay home w/ a sick kid. Some people would prefer to just be able to be there and take care of their sick kid without having to change a thing about work.

And some people want their children's dad to take care of the sick kids, too.