To work or not to work , baby due , what to do ! !

I think it is clear from the posts that it is a very personal decision. It depends on a lot of factors not least of which are the individuals involved. Some parents love to be at home with their babies, some people are better with older children, some babies are sociable and some are not. People make individual choices which should be respected. I have worked and not worked since my eldest was born (16 now). I have always enjoyed being at home with a small baby but once they start walking and get a bit of independance I have to get back to work. I have met lots of parent over the years and have met a few stay at homes who would be better at work for at least some of the day, for the sake of themselve and their children. Likewise lots of parents work who would rather not.

The op should enjoy the maternity leave, try to extend it a bit, maybe make prepartions to go back to work, then decide. You haven't met your child yet nor experienced yourself or your partner as a parent. Wait and see, talk to lots of people about your options, then decide.
 
I have been reading this thread with interest. I hear women saying I have a degree and i dont want to give up my career, well I have a Masters degree and I have stayed at home for 10 years. Woman always say why cant I have career and a child I am afraid that just the way it is. I wish that I could do lots of things men do but I have learnt life isnt fair sometimes and I am not going to sacrifice my childs wellbeing to prove a point. I cant believe that any parent gets their baby out of the bed at 6.0.clock in the morning to put them in a creche all day. If you want your career DONT have a child its not fair. Babies need security and loads of one to one attention. When I go to parent teacher meetings I am always told I can tell your son has been at home with you and heres why. Totally self assured, extremely sociable and the really big one not aggressive and attention seeking. A lot of teachers have told me that children who have gone to creches are extreme attention seekers and constantly looking for reassurance. My son knows he is top priority and he is very independent. My child went to nursery for 9 hours a week at 2 years of age and we went to the libary, the park and swimming. I have never heard someone say I wish I had spent more time at work but I have heard people when their children have got older I wish I hadnt missed so much of my child growing up.
 
Can someone please remind me at which point we time travelled back to the fifties? :)
 
jubi said:
If you want your career DONT have a child its not fair.
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So then women should never work otherwise the population is gonna plummet big time and who will pay our pensions?

Why can't the father stay at home? It is looking possible my other half might be doing the same as his job has a question mark hanging over it around the time I am due to return to work (when my baby will be almost a year old). I am the one with the Masters and I am the one with the higher wage so it makes sense that I be the one to work. You take your child to the library? I'm surprised you do that as there are a lot of women working there who have children at home surely you couldnt support such a practice.
 
Sandrat

I think it is brilliant you are going to have your child being parented by a parent How novel!!!!. I also thought your remark regarding the library was a touch crass. I know there are women who have to work to survive but there are loads of women who say it is my right to work. What about a child rights. I hear working mums talking about their 2 foreign holidays, new car etc etc. Please get your priorities straight for the sake of our future generations. I worked full time in a high powered job but before I got pregnant I knew I could not have it all. I thought when I was younger I could now I realise I cant. With regard to my future pension my husband is so chuffed to have a good home life and a well adjusted child he pays into a private scheme for me. We live in terraced house 1 car and no foreign holidays GOD how do we survive. I am also amazed you did not applaud my sons good school reports and the positive side of being a stay at home mum. If it so awful to be a mother DONT HAVE KIDS. Keep telling yourselves you are doing for it your children. Further people say what if your child turns out wrong and I say I wont have to feel any guilt for it whereas could a working mother say the same.
 
The library remark was because I actually work in the lirbary sector and know for a fact that a lot of women there have children but have no choice but to work. We are stretching ourselves to our very limit in order for me to take all my unpaid leave to stay with our daughter. This has also allowed me to continue to breastfeed her which is of great benefit. My husband will only be minding her in a worst case scenario because we actually can't afford for him not to be working. It is touch and go as to whether he will keep his job and if he doesnt whether or not he will get a redundancy package. We live in a semi detached house in the country with a 35 year mortgage. I never said it was awful being a mother I love being a mother. It is not all about career for me, a very good job opportunity came up for me in the last few weeks and I didnt go for it. We don't all have rich husbands who can afford to pay all the bills and mortgage AND private pension. Could you not work while your child/children is in school? If i did stay home until my daughter started school I wouldn't be able to sit at home doing nothing with my masters degree that my parents struggled to help me achieve.
 
Well you obviously have made a decision that works for you. It would not work so well for other people so kindly stop preaching.

And to be honest lots of kids get good school reports. It mostly has to do with the education and financial position of the parents.
 
oh and we don't do foreign holidays or irish ones for that matter, I take you are not a young couple just trying to get by pay cheque to pay cheque
 
Sandrat

I do appreciate your comments regarding needing to work however I do not appreciate the assumptions made here. We earn a monthly income of 2000 euro and we have a rented house because we did not want to saddle ourselves with a mortgage that would mean our child been farmed out to god knows who.There is tendency in this country that buying a house is paramount. With regard to working while child at school who will mind him in holiday time or if he gets sick. In a few short years my son will be independent and then i will be able to get outside work and another thing I have far more responsibility that i ever had when I worked outside the home. Sandrat you talk about having a Masters and feeling it would be a shame to waste it by doing nothing. I did my Masters while being a stay at home mum took longer than normal, however my greatest achievement has been raising my son to be the well adjusted child he is and to say stay at home mums are somehow wasting their qualifications is extremely derogatory. Thanks again for the sisterhood remark it really warms my heart.

With regard to performance at school studies show that children who attend creche for longer than 6 hours a day are more aggressive, have problems with impulse control and are likely to have problems with forming meaningful relationships in later life.
 
I think it's really unfair to sling mud at mother's who decide to work or have to work or want to work. Just because staying at home suits one does not give one the right to critize other mothers choices. It's really smug and selfsatisfying truth be told. Some of us do not want to spend the day with their children, I know I certainly don't (send in the cavelry). That does not mean however that we love them any less than stay at home mums. Nor does it mean that one is a better parent and how dare anyone imply that they are a better mother than someone else on here unless they have real grounds for doing so. I would not be as good as minding my kids as the excellent creche which my kids attended. It was truly brillant, far better than me anyday. I don't have the link to the study but I know that women who work and try to advance themselves tend to be high achievers and pass that on to their kids. I couldn't think of anything worse than staying at home and a man paying for a pension for me and me to be grateful for this, is this 2008? I've seen demented stay at home mums it does not suit everyone and one should never ever be made to feel guilty about it.
 
jubi my mortgage now is less than i ever paid in rent. I am assuming you must have a very good life insurance policy on your husband and him on you because if anything were to happen to either of you who would bring in the money and who would stay home with the child? Also what would happen if your husband was to lose his job?

I will not be made feel guilty for giving my daughter the best I can give. It is hard enough to think about having to go back to work without having someone trying to make me feel guilty for doing it. We do not need to back to times when women had to stop work when they get marrried. My grandmother was one of these women, an award winning nurse forced to leave work because she got married.
 
I think ramble put it best on this particular issue ... it is a very personal decision and people make individual choices which should be respected.
 
Whats the point of a mother staying at home who doesnt want to? You end up with a frustrated resentful woman - this cannot be good for any child.

In an ideal world I am sure we would all love to stay at home, raise the kids ourselves, let the ideal world mortgage bank pay the mortgages and bills and sit on a deckchair in the garden surrounded by our children and pets while the hubby paints the white picket fence.

Eh - reality check - life is not that easy. Some women have NO OTHER OPTION but to work - if she stays at home youll have a starving child, oh hang on, he gets to spend time with his mother - its ok if he goes without then?

Some women dont want to stay at home, I dont think any woman should be berated for a decision to work rather than stay home to raise children, some women are less maternal than others, jubi has asked about the rights of the child, what about the rights of a woman to a full life that INCLUDES children but is not solely based around them.

Female children who see their mothers working take on the same values and work ethic, it helps them to develop ambition and to be high achievers.

Guilt about a creche is just ridiculous, do you feel guilty when they go to school? Bad childcare is not going to be good for any child, good childcare may be better than a harrassed mother who doesnt want to be staying at home, trying to make ends meet on one salary, and wishing she had a life of her own. For the women who want to stay at home, great - do so, but taking the holier than thou attitude that you are somehow 'better' than women who choose to work is misguided back patting IMO.
 
jubi said:
Thanks again for the sisterhood remark it really warms my heart.
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How can you talk about sisterhood when making comments like you have.
I am one of those with a degree and a baby and i dont remember signing my life away when i got pregnant.
I am at home with her at the moment and am hoping to have another baby soon, but by the time she is 2.5 and second baby (please God) is about 7 months old ill be back working full time and studying to become a solicitor.
My husband is just getting going in his career and is not willing to give that up and stay at home. I love my daughter but i only have one life too and im not willing to throw it away and not achieve something i have wanted since i was a child.
Im not fulfilled sitting on the floor singing nursery songs all day, i love it but i dont want to be doing only it for the forseeable future - does that make me some kind of monster?
My mother stayed at home and i was the clingiest child, i wouldnt leave her side, go on school trips, i was very shy, wouldnt speak in class so her staying at home minding me certaintly didnt make me the independant child you seem to think it would.

Even if i had all the money in the world i would still want to acheive my goal, and i dont think my child will be worse off for it.
I will be getting a childminder and she will be looked after in our home.

What will you do when your child goes to school, you will be out of the workforce for 5 years and i would be quite sure you wouldnt get a job related to your master part time.

Real sisterhood is about respecting each others choices and supporting them not trying to prove you are a better mother.

Im sure my mother would have been delighted if i told her at 17 i wasnt going to college as i was going to have kids and stay at home !!!!
 
Bronte said:
Some of us do not want to spend the day with their children, I know I certainly don't (send in the cavelry).
I would not be as good as minding my kids as the excellent creche which my kids attended. It was truly brillant, far better than me anyday. I couldn't think of anything worse than staying at home .
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so let me get this straight:
  1. you dont want to spend the day with your children
  2. you're not good at "minding them" whatever the hell that means.
  3. you couldnt think of anything worse than staying at home?
why the hell did you have children!!!!!?????
:mad:
 
Rigoletto said:
so let me get this straight:
  1. you dont want to spend the day with your children
  2. you're not good at "minding them" whatever the hell that means.
  3. you couldnt think of anything worse than staying at home?
why the hell did you have children!!!!!?????
:mad:
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Because she is as entitled to pass on her genes as anyone else. My interpetation of her post is that she doesnt want her life to solely revolve around her children, which is a natural and normal way to feel.

Rigoletto - youre not even the one who stays home, so how can you possibly comment on it? If you were staying at home do you think youd be fulfilled? You get to go out and work and see your kids in the evening - so does Bronte.
 
Wow, way to use emotive language in this thread Rigoletto. Your tone is downright accusatory and insulting to women (and let's not forget men) who decide that working outside the home is the right decision for them and their families.

As an FYI to those who think that one parent being with the children at all times is the way it has been since the dawn of time, newsflash - many cultures have for aeons used collective rearing of children rather than the nuclear method we in the West are familiar with (and which some on this thread idealise). As others have pointed out, one solution does not fit all, and there is vigorous debate in the academic and medical communities about which approach is best.
 
my wife and I rear our children not the local creche. we made a lot of sacrifices when we decided to have children. I have given up a lot in my career for our children. I have turned down opportunities to work abroad or sacrificed obvious promotion as I will not work huge hours over time because i want to see my children.

you make that choice when you decide to have children.
we have sacrificed many things because children come first.

I can totally understand why women may decide to return to the workforce when their child reaches school going age, its the women that have children and cant wait to abandon them at some creche door the minute their maternity leave finishes. the women who comment like bronte that they "dont want to spend the day with their children" i see this as repugnant and wonder why these women bothered having children at all.

as another poster commented what about the childs rights in all this.
 
Rigoletto said:
so let me get this straight:
  1. you dont want to spend the day with your children
  2. you're not good at "minding them" whatever the hell that means.
  3. you couldnt think of anything worse than staying at home?
why the hell did you have children!!!!!?????
:mad:
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try spending all day every day with a small child (do you?) and see how easy it is to get frustrated and to crave adult company. And frankly, being with small kids all day is not exactly intellectually stimulating, is it?

Who says childcare is supposed to be one to one? We have pretty much lost the concept of the extended family, but the extended family model is what is being replaced by paid for childcare. Or childcare by both parents as a team. Or by friends, family, neighbours. Or a mixture of approaches which changes as a child grows up.

There are rafts of studies, some showing that external childcare is good, some not. Nothing has been proven either way, apart from the fact that, over a whole population, it is the financial and educational position of the parents that affects the success of their children regardless of other factors.

Asking people why people have children takes the biscuit in the holier than though stakes.
 
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