Do you envy your daughter?

No I don't envy my daughters. They are doing same to me, years being the differene.

I certainly don't envy my daughter. She's on maternity leave at the moment, but will be so busy once she resumes work. We moved near to them so we can help with the baby once she is back at work. They have to do it all now, as it seems to me that the majority of the domestic stuff is also done by her.

Iworked when mine were wee,in fact Iwas back at my desk when my daughter was 8 days old ,with her beside me in her pram.Needs must as I was self employed and time off wasn't possible .Inever found it hard ,she was a good baby and very sociable from an early age,she wasn't a great sleeper either but you learn to live on 3 or 4 hours a night .
I had a bit longer when my son was born 11 weeks early ,Ispent a lot of time beside his incubator and caught up with work in the evening ,our phone was red hot with calls to SCBU, he joined me at my desk when he was 12 weeks old though it was part time for a few months .
I think we do what we have to.I didn't know any SAHM's apart from my own mum so it was normal to me

Oh god no, the world was my oyster at my DDs age. Young women these days have the weight of the world on their shoulders.

Things are so much harder now IMO

Definitely not! I work in a nursery and see mams juggling jobs kids home appointments and family commitments. I wouldn’t of wanted that for me I was a stay at home mum and worked after the kids went to school I couldn’t cope with today’s pressures!

Yes, I do. They are more confident than I was, have more support from their husbands, and live in a world where their sex is less of a barrier to their careers. They all have great social lives with and without their partners. They are all doing jobs they love and bringing up their children equally with their partners. Financially, they are independent too.

My DD is 20 so not so different from my generation in terms of combining work and family life. I envy her confidence and opportunities for travel, and she’ll also be financially independent when she leaves university as I was, which is a great thing imo.

No I do not, She has been unable to have children and is sad about that.

Do I envy my daughter? Or, as DD has chosen not to have a partner or children, I should probably say DDiL.

Yes and no, I do not envy her having to go back to work when her children were barely a year old, even though she took maximum maternity leave each time. I stopped work when my first child was born and returned when second was 4 and was starting school. I would have gone back earlier if there had been more part time jobs and jobs with flexible hours available.

I do envy the way how the law now protected her job when she was on maternity leave, gave her official maternity leave, even with loss of pay. The facilities now for flexible working, the free hours of childcare. All these I do envy her.

I was more fortunate than many, I had a professional career, which I had always intended to return to and when working was always financially independent. Both DH and I had working mothers, which meant mothers who were financially independent. My MiL was the main wage earner in her family, so DH was always entirely supportive of my desire to have a career and be my own person and never live in his shadow.

In some ways I envy my daughter, her financial independence and therefore freedom of choice. She has a high powered professional job with the income to match. However, it all comes at a cost. She has very little time to herself as she has 4 children and the weekends are devoted to them. She has good child care and out sources the domestic work but she is shattered all the time. As soon as she sits down in the evening she falls asleep.

I don't have daughters so no, but I did work full time in central London when my eldest was just 10 weeks old. I had a commute via the childminder was in the office from 7.30-4pm and really enjoyed both working and motherhood. Was it easier then? I don't think so.
My Dil is at the tail end of her maternity leave and isn't returning to work, she' going to be a stay at home mum so it is doable.

No I don't envy my daughters, life was hard when my children were young but we were all in the same boat and helped each other. Life is much more stressful now for young families and their expectations are greater. I'm enjoying my peaceful life in retirement.

No I don't envy my daughters at all. They work very hard at being mothers and holding down demanding jobs. They do so much more and their lives are far more complicated than mine was. I was lucky to stay at home when my four were small.

No I don't envy my daughters but I sort of envy my mothers generation as they mostly were able to stay home and raise their families. Also my generation to some extent - I did have to go back to work aged 55 and worked until 67.

Now my daughters have to return to work after having children but this means grandparents are doing a lot of child care which my mother didn't have to do.

I was 26 when I had my first child and she was 34 when she had her first - mum was 19 when I was born which meant mum was only 45 when she became a grannie but I was 57 - makes a big difference re being tired more easily etc.

I was my daughter's first and main role model – a self-employed professional who worked extremely hard, was able to buy a house(s) – some outright for cash – highly educated and extremely independent. I hope I was also a loving and caring mother who guided her wisely most of the time to the best of my ability through her childhood and adolescence.

We are now close geographically and, even when we weren't, we were close emotionally. I not only love her, but respect, admire and value her skills, talents, abilities, commitment and achievements – as she does mine. There might be the tiniest twinge of envy that she has a big family – six children – while she was an only child. However, if I had had more babies both of us would have very different lives right now, so it is truly avery tiny regret.

I have 4 daughters and they all lead frenetic lives of non stop hard work. All feel guilty that they spend so little time with their children and they are forever trying to catch up and tired out.
I stayed at home until my youngest was 7. What luxury compared to my daughters!

Not at all. My daughter is single and can’t afford to buy her own home. She has been made redundant twice. She loves her current job but she works in the charity sector. At her age I had two children who had left university (I had my children when I was young) and was just starting the best job I ever had which was intellectually stimulating and involved a lot of overseas travel. Plus I have been married a very long time. Her life has been very different to mine. On the whole she is very happy but I wouldn’t swap with her.

I don’t envy my DD at all . She has a hard life . Working shifts and juggling childcare . She has very little money , rarely goes out and hasn’t had a holiday for years .

I am happy for her that she got to have her little miracle baby but feel sad that things are so hard for them .

No I don't envy them they are forever running here and there trying to do the things with their children I did but I was lucky and didn't have to work when they were very young returning when the last one went to school. I was a gran at the age my eldest is now.

No I don't envy my daughters. My eldest worked from home and her son was in nursery. My younger was at home until her 3 were at school and then she started work in the school. I worked until I was 68. I hope my daughters can retire before then.

Before my daughter became pregnant she had a fabulous (although hard) job, lived in Italy had a huge salary... Yes I did wish I'd had her opportunities.

Now she has a 5 month DS who's teething, won't sleep for more than a few minutes at a time and is very fractious. Her cat has started to wail most of the time as well, so that doesn't help.

No I don't envy her.

I feel for modern day mum's but a little bit of me sees what they have and what they want and maybe some, not all ,need to lower expectation. Holidays abroad ,latest equipment etc are not necessities. Warmth , a roof over your head and food in your tummy are. After that a child needs love not fancy toys etc. We need to become more realistic with what matters in life.

no.

yes, the cost of living is high, but it is so different to when we brought up our kids..

far too much to "want" rather than "need" and far more "committments" than ever we had,, and far more "red tape"

so no, I do not envy my dils.. I don`t have a daughter.

It’s really fascinating reading all your posts. At 50 I’m probably between many of your ages and your daughters - my mum would have been 79 this year and I remember having a similar conversation with her about this very topic. She felt that many of you do - that my life was far more frenetic than hers and she enjoyed just being a housewife and then latterly in a p/t role. The downside of that was she was at home with 2 children and there was very little to do in our small village except for coffee mornings and gossip - she felt very unstimulated a lot of the time. She had to leave school at 15(!) and then worked in admin until she was married and then had to leave her job when she was pregnant with me. She didn’t work again until I was 13 and my sister was 11 because there was no childcare available, although she would have liked to.

I agree that my life is busy but I chose it. I’ve had the benefit of a free university education in the way her generation didn’t as standard, travel is much more accessible, I have access to good quality childcare to enable me to work (p/t when the children were younger, now f/t in the same well paid role), technology means I have the flexibility of working from home and I’ve got a good pension pot. I have access to an excellent healthcare system which meant my pregnancies and births were so positive compared to hers.

Mum and I both agreed it’s like everything in that there are pros and cons to both