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You've made it very clear that money/career/retirement is more important than raising a child from infancy and that an infant is perfectly fine being put into daycare, spending 50 hours a week in daycare by a $10 an hour paid worker, separated from its mother at a very early age.
Got your message loud and clear.
Money > relationship and bonding with infants/young children.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newtovenice
Common sense?
Are you really taking the standpoint that kids who spend 50 waking hours/week in the care of other people don't miss/need/want their moms?
Or are you saying that since kids in daycare are so accustomed to relying on people other than their mom for basic needs that they have learned to depend on others in PLACE of mom since she is rarely there?
Or are you saying that moms are unnecessary because daycare is a perfectly acceptable/equal substitute? (Why don't women who give birth just sign the infant over to the state after delivery, then none of those pesky motherhood nonsense is needed? The state can take care of all needs, and women can go straight back to work.)
Common sense??? Kids spending 50+hours in daycare means MOM IS NOT THERE.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newtovenice
Neither of you addressed the point that babies/young children need their moms, and that kids in daycare spend more time with paid workers than they spend with their moms.
FACTS can be neither angry nor judgmental. It's a FACT. Own it. If your baby/young child is in daycare, at least be honest, that the baby/young child spends MORE waking hours without their mom, in the presence of strangers.
Do you dispute that FACT about daycare?
Why do people assume that working mothers are always getting their nails done, buying fancy clothes and jetting off to somewhere with all the money they make?
My daughter entered daycare at 10 weeks old and is now 18. We've managed to save enough money to send her to a 4-year university without her or us having to borrow any money. I'm super proud of the fact that she will not start her adult life in debt. We're also on track to have a well-financed retirement. I did that so that my daughter will never have to fret about taking care of us financially when she's trying to take care of her own family. If that means I valued money over relationships and bonding, it's okay with me. There's more to raising a child than the first five years.
Did she miss me when she was at daycare? Probably. But she has no memory of the lovely woman who took care of her til she was 3 and only the foggiest memory of the preschool teachers. She and I have always been very close. I breastfed until she was 3.5 years old and we co-slept til she decided she was old enough to sleep on her own. My job is flexible and I've never missed a school or extracurricular activity because of work.
Two of my best friends were SAHMs. They both went on anti-depressants shortly after their children were born and both said it made them "better mothers." Take from that what you will. One of them has 4 kids, all of whom are borrowing money to pay for school. Her oldest son couldn't make his loan student loan payments, so his parents are doing that, when they should be maxing out their retirement savings.
I firmly believe that people should make the choices for their families that work for them. If you can afford to stay home and believe that's best for your child(ren), do it. If you need to work, or *gasp* want to work, do that. There are many ways to have a healthy, happy, loving family and you should choose the one that works for you.
Take a poll. I'd guess you are in a tiny, tiny minority that does not reflect the majority of kids in daycare who are desperate for attention from mom.
You're really too much. How many of these daycare kids have you been around? At the first babysitter my daughter had, she was happy when I dropped her off and happy when I picked her up. She loved her Momo like a grandmother. When she went to preschool, she was sometimes clingy when I dropped her off, but never wanted to leave when I got there in the afternoon. It was a struggle to get her to stop playing and walk out the car.
It's clear you don't know what you're talking about and are making things up, most likely to justify your own choices. You may be new to the mommy wars, but they've been going on for a long time. You should probably just give it a rest.
I always find one refrain in these arguments odd. People always say in shock and horror, "I wouldn't want to trust someone else to raise my kids for 8 hours a day! The babies spend more waking hours with their daycare teacher than their parents!"
But I just wonder.....what kind of lives are these people's babies living? Most infants I know take 3-4 naps a day. Then they drop to 2 naps, then finally the blissful one, long nap. Let's look at some math for my family, which has 2 working parents.
My kids (almost 2 and 4) both wake at 6-6:30 am. My husband entertains them, dresses them, and feeds them breakfast while I get ready for work. I leave at 6:45 am. My husband is with thme until 8 am, when our nanny comes and he leaves for work. Our nanny finishes anything my husband hasn't in the feeding/getting dressed realm and then loads them up and drops the older one at preschool by 8:30. Then she has 2.5 hours of play time with the littlest, then she is home for a quick lunch and nap. Little one naps 11:30-2:15. Our nanny wakes her by 2:15 and they go back to pick up my oldest at Preschool at 2:30. They play again (in parks, play dates, in our building's play room) for another 1.5 hours, and then I'm home at 4 pm. Sometimes I "work late" and I'm home at 4:30 pm. Husband is home at 6:30-7:00 pm.
So the math:
-Kids are with parents from 4 pm-8am. = 16 hours/day. Typically, they both sleep 9-9.5 hours overnight, so 7 hours wake time.
Younger kid is with nanny 8am-4pm. = 8 hours, 2-3 hours sleeping. That's 5-6 hours wake time.
Older kid is with nanny approx 2 hours a day, at Pre school 6 hours a day with a 1 hour nap.
Then weekends, they are home with us for 48 hours straight. My husband gets 4 weeks vacation + federal holidays. I work in education, so I get 2 months vacation + federal holidays. If you look at hours in a year, we are with our kids *significantly more* than any other caregiver. My kids both still have wakeups, so it's insane to only count "daytime hours" as parenting anyway. I've been doing a looooooot of "night time parenting" this winter as my kids have cycled through strep throat, the flu, a stomach bug.
This idea that gets tossed around that daycare teachers or nannies are "raising kids" is laughable. I love our nanny--she's amazing. But she takes direction from me. I decide what the kids will eat, if and when they will go to a class or to a playdate or to story time at a library. I tell her when the kids wake early, so they will need to go down for a nap earlier than usual. We pack their lunches and leave their snacks for her to give them. I buy the foods they are eating and am solely responsible for their nutrition. We do bed time stories and make dinner and pat their backs when they are throwing up at night. We are the ones juggling our schedules and working from home or taking a sick day when the kids have a fever or have to go to the doctor. People that have these outt-dated ideas of what working parent life need to actually talk to working parents. In our family, we have created our caregiving team, and one of those people is paid (our nanny), but if ANY of us from the team is doing something with the kids, it's a win. Our nanny is bilingual and our kids have learned a whole language with her that I am a beginner (at best) in and my husband doesn't speak at all. Our Pre-school teachers teach our oldest concepts and skills that neither my husband nor I would be able to do as well, because we aren't experts in early childhood education.
We aren't rich, we're middle class. But we do spend a significant portion of our take home on childcare because we other PPs have said, we are looking at the long game. I'm saving for my own retirement, as is my husband. Although my husband makes more, I have the best health insurance and the whole family is on it. I know that when my kids are in school, or are done with school and leave the nest, I have a job. So we all save money and benefit from me working. I have a lot of SAHM friends and everyone has to choose their own path, and there isn't one right way. But I love my choice, because my husband and I have a more equitable arrangement of childcare in our home. My husband does night wakings and takes sick days for our kids as much as I do. Whereas my SAHM friends are often in really inequitable relationships with their spouses and there's a fair amount of resentment because even when their spouses are home, they don't take on a primary parent role. But not all of them! Some are really happy with their choice, I'm really happy with my choice, and we all realize that we're each doing what is best for ourselves.
Two of my best friends were SAHMs. They both went on anti-depressants shortly after their children were born and both said it made them "better mothers." Take from that what you will. One of them has 4 kids, all of whom are borrowing money to pay for school. Her oldest son couldn't make his loan student loan payments, so his parents are doing that, when they should be maxing out their retirement savings.
Thanks for playing the mommy wars.
If it bothers you when people make assumptions about working moms and go on to tell them what they "should" be doing, then please keep that in mind when voicing judgements about stay at home moms and telling them what they "should" be doing. Or just accept that everyone judges and judge away.
Last edited by MissTerri; 03-31-2017 at 09:16 AM..
If it bothers you when people make assumptions about working moms and g on to tell them what they "should" be doing, then please keep that in mind when voicing judgements about stay at home moms and telling them what they "should" be doing. Or just accept that everyone judges and judge away.
Thanks for making my point. There is no right way or wrong way. All choices have consequences and we all do the best we can in our circumstances. What I stated are facts. They're clearly not true for everyone, but it's wrong to assume that having a SAHP is the best choice for every family.
Me neither. To hear some of these people talk, you'd think this country was over run with out of control, emotionally disturbed adults all due to their working parents. That's obviously not true.
Well. Trump voters. ****. Am I getting banned now?
Well. Trump voters. ****. Am I getting banned now?
Well, ok... . I wonder if Venice assumes all the crazy people she meets went to day care.
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. I wonder if Venice assumes all the crazy people she meets went to day care.