Should parents stay at home with their children?

Ana I worked after I got married and stopped when I became pregnant a few years later. I was not an equal earner to my DH. I earned much less. Our neighbours of similar age were in much the same position. The husbands worked and the wives stayed at home with children.

I was married in the late 60's and had my first child in the early 70's. There was no maternity leave, no Nursery or child care provision. The expectation was the mother would give up work. I typed at home in the evening because we were 50pence a month below the level at which a rate rebate was allocated. Like Ana, I became a single parent and remained very hard up for some years. I did all kinds of part time work during that period, during which p.t. Workers had no security.
I was lucky in having a second chance at family life in the 80's, maternity leave, good child care provision and a more equal partnership. Things feminists aspired to and that, thankfully, many couples enjoy today.

I married in 1970 and started teaching that year. I admit I did give up work when DDs 1 and 2 were born,. I had actually left teaching when our first baby boy had died a year earlier and didn't feel emotionally strong enough to go back so I had worked for an exam board until pregnant with DD. Frankly the childcare opportunities of today didn't exist and I was wary of just A N Other childminder. Both sets of grandparents lived hundreds of miles away so we were very hard up but I started freelance cooking and catering with a girl I had met at playgroup and we somehow managed between us/playgroup/ and school when the oldest were old enough and DHs at weekends to bring in a few more pennies to the budget !
You have to go with what is possible in your own situation and I think my parents might have been a bit disappointed to see me "just" be a SAHM after my education and starting a career, especially Mum who definitely regretted not being able to continue her university education because of the war.

As a matter of fact state nursery provision was at its height at the end of WW2.The government realised that nurseries would enable them to get women into work in munitions etc and when the war ended they provided care for children left without fathers. In 1948 I went to a full time nursery because my mum was ill. I was taken by my dad before he went to work and collected when he finished. I don't think it did me any harm. When mothers were encouraged to stay at home these nurseries were closed.
lizzypb I was a primary school teacher as well and what has impressed me is the knowledge about child development that nursery staff have and use to track children's development and encourage progress. I doubt if many parents can match this. Nursery education has changed dramatically and if you left teaching some time ago you will not have seen the resulting progress.

I was married in the early 70s too. I'd worked since I left school, why on earth should I have stopped just because I got married? I do recall girls in the 60s 'leaving to get married' and thought it a very odd concept even then. I suppose it did depend on regional or local custom.

I was married early 1970s. Surely some people have been married longer than that on here. Or perhaps we just followed what our parents showed us. The neighbours all did the same as us. Some got part time work once the youngest started school.

I'm glad we can agree on something Gracesgran!!

'Your day' must have been a very long time ago, ^Sugarpufffairy*! In my day both parents had to work to pay the mortgage, never mind cars and foreign holidays - and if there was only one parent, tough!

Alea I was trying to show another difference from when today's grans were the mum's.
In my day it was assumed that the mum would give up work and stay at home with children and the family lived off the DH's wages.
Then we got the two working parents so that large mortgages and cars and foreign holidays could be had. Whether housework and child care was joint or single sided was a mixed issue.
Now I am seeing the whole thing reversed in that the mum's are working all hours to pay for the family, back again to one wage, only the men don't seem to be able to do much in the house.

I am an older Mum to an 11 year old.
When I had her I worked in nursery and fully intended to go back to work,but when it actually came to it, I couldn't bear to leave her.
We discussed it and found that if we made some sacrificies i.e. no foreign holidays, one car etc we could manage on one wage.
I had waited a long time to be a mum and wanted it to be me that brought her up and witnessed all those milestones, not have to content myself with being told about them by Nursery staff.
I actually home educate now, so still look after her full time. Although that wasn't the Intention from the beginning.
It hasn't been plain sailing, at times we 've had to penny pinch to the extreme and neither of us has family near enough to help in any way.
But, hand on heart, I can honestly say that it has all been worth it. I have never once regretted my decision to give up work and become a full-time Mum.
In another year or two our daughter will be old enough to leave for a few hours and I intend on going back to work part time, which I'm quite looking forward to.

Good post Alea. I would not only agree that "stay-at-home" mums is a modern phenomenon but a short live one conjured up by a government after the war to create full male employment. If we say this started in 1945 it was already ending in the mid 60s and was pretty much over by the mid 1970s so was in our culture in actuality for about 25 years but people still look back at it as if it was always the norm.

I am notv denying any of the individual cases SPF quotes as they are known to her, but this is not the principle is it?
We are not really talking about lazy gits who send their wives out to work while they neck Fosters in front of the TV, and heaven knows. their little ones would be better off at nursery! We are talking about women using their education and training, about helping to service eye-wateringly large mortgages/rents, particularly in the South East, and also we are talking about whether or not a child suffers from being at nursery (or with a childminder and God knows, they are hard enough to find. )
There will always be individual cases to prove a point of view from either side, but we do not have to be so black/white judgemental about it.

In Germany there was a huge attack on women who choose not to have children but with society still so sexist - do we really still have to talk about stay at home "mums" - I cannot blame them.

I remember being told that in a generation no one would be working the hours we did when I first started work - now everyone seems to have work more hours rather than less. If the working week was shorter both partners could spend more time at home with their children. Until then it's a parent's job to put a roof over their heads and food on the table and then spend time with them and it is possible - just very difficult.

There is another issue going on just now too. Mumsnet have a marvellous word for it, but us Grans don't use such language.
There are quite a few men who stay at home depending on the DW or DP to earn the money. I am not sexist and it could be a good idea to have the dad at home seeing what it is really like to be a SAHP. The ones I have seen do not actually do any housework the care of the children is very borderline and the think nothing of being a sponger.
This happened to a friend, over 60, her children were adults but still the partner sat home doing nothing but indulge in drink etc. He waited till she came into money then blew with a substantial amount by extravagances and transfers to other accounts.
Another is a female over 30, who works all sort of hours sometimes absolutely ridiculous hours such as 96 per week in a dangerous job sometimes frozen and soaked to the skin or even sunburned red raw. That DP does not clean tidy cook or keep up with laundry. The house is dirty and smelly. He buys take away food all the time. The DCs are not very clean and no general lifestyle is even taught such as using cutlery to eat (school age)
There is another young woman who also works all hours in dodgy conditions and she is on her second partner who does nothing useful.
None of these women are in any way stupid but for some reason they find it acceptable to have to work, stress about bills etc while keeping an adult dependent. These men are provided with computer and sky tv to amuse themselves with. They should try getting a job.
This is another side of the change in the way young people are living today.
When I got married in early 70s I think our mortgage was at 12% For the last 10 years my mortgage was 1%. I had a little car but it was years old and I lived in a tiny flat. I thought I was doing just fine. We were never short.
I also think this is why there are more divorces/splits today. Everyone is stressed trying to do it all to have it all. They think nothing of turning on family and being nasty about parents when in the past parents and siblings all lived within a few streets and provided everything now done by professionals. Such as a listening ear and counselling.
I really don't think this is improvement
SPF

I know many mums who work full time and they all went to university and had no intention of being stay at home mums.They take maternity leave then after that there babies go straight into nursery right through till primary school, going to uni gave them well paid jobs so they can afford extortionate Childcare fees.Think it is a sign of the times these days
I simply cannot agree with this post Tessa
"Going to university* meant that society gained women doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, professional,women in all walks of life, not just what you call "well-paid jobs! "
The NHS and education would collapse without women -are you suggesting a return to the dark ages hen a woman had to give p her job if she married and/or had children?
What century are you living in?
Actually working class women have -always gone out to work. If they were lucky gran minded the children, but she was probably also in the mill as well. Have you never read of how little children used to be parked under the looms where there mothers worked? The upper classes handed their offspring over to nannies and nursery nurses before packing them off to rep school. The "stay at home " hands on mum without domestic help is a relatively modern phenomenon (20th century)
I suspect some grans have little idea a of Early Years education and prefer to think of ranks of babes in cots.
It is not all about lifestyle choices, it can be about households where mum is the breadwinner.it is also about women having the right to education and a career and a choice. Yes it is lovely to be at home with your children but they only benefit if that home environment is caring, stimulating and educational in turn.
I despair at the preaching and judging going on.

I agree, lizzypop. Children learn more from their parents about attitude and social outlook than from anywhere else, not to mention discipline, and all in the first pre-school years. It is just consolidation after that.

There is no comparison between the awful Rumanian orphanages and the nurseries children attend here

First five years at home with parent or grandparent...

Also donning flak jacket: successive governments have encouraged women to go out to work rather than stay at home with their young children. With more wages in the economy, the cost of living rose accordingly. Now it's quite hard to manage on one income. Blame the government (of whichever persuasion) every time.

When my husband and I got married, my dad gave us loads of advice, some good, some not so good. He told us always to manage day to day on one salary and bank the other. Then when children came along, one of us would be able to stay at home. That was sensible advice. Mind you, neither of us could drive and we weren't bothered about foreign holidays. We did buy our first house on that financial basis though.

He also told us that white walls were too harsh and magnolia was the right colour to have! My husband thought my dad was the fount of all knowledge so it was decades before I got the white walls I'd always wanted. I despise magnolia ?

As a former infant teacher, I am convinced that children learn more useful stuff in their first five years than they ever will in nursery.

Yes. Quite, farnorth. Cake and eat it comes to mind.

Until governments start squawking about not enough young people to support all the old codgers.

phoenix, what you said would seem to make sense except perhaps if viewed purely biologically and philosophically. I think it's great that nowadays people actually have a choice about whether to have kids, or at least about how many, but I also think that it's having a choice that is the weird thing. Until modern times there was no choice for people just as there isn't for all other forms of life, plant, animal or fungus. I suppose all I'm really saying is that we don't half squiffy things up!

So, yes, in a simple sense it is a choice, but in a biological sense I don't think it is. The natural reproductive urge is very strong in most people and I don't think that should be knocked or not taken into account.

I do understand what people are saying about people who "can't afford" kids but have them anyway. I think people who have lots are few and far between in the western world now though, and birth rates are falling everywhere as living standards rise. This is a good thing in the long term.

Well said Phoenix,
No, I don't in general regard school as part time orphanages.its a shorter day,some poor little things spend more time in nursery than they do at home.My friends D works in a very good one.She says privately,that she can't fathom out why some people have children.
And incidentally, I watched a program on orphanages in Rumania once.The woman on that said,babies in orphanages soon learn there's no point in crying.I thought that was terribly sad.

pheonix if people decide to have children it's their decision so they finance it themselves.

Both dils have good careers that they have worked hard for. They stayed home for a year then went back to work to maintain their standing at work..
It took me many years to get back to where I left my career after children. No regrets, just different times.
The grand children have all gone to wonderful nurseries where they have learned a lot and got on with other children of their age. This has been their parent's choice and it has worked well.