Wrap around child care -the child’s voice

growstuff

Allira

Casdon

Allira

Actually, being a SAHM is hard work too.
It's not sitting around at home as some might imply. Not if you want happy, fulfilled children.

It's the rather superior perception that comes across that those whose children go to nursery are somehow intellectually superior and their children are high achievers because they did go to nursery that probably annoys other posters.

I don’t think anybody has said, or thinks, that Allira?
Some children get a much better start if they go to nursery, some children get a much better start if they have stay at home parents who teach them. Nobody is being superior about the children’s academic abilities, it’s about maximising their potential.

Not everyone but it does come through.

I disagree. My children went to a nursery from 8 to 5 five days a week from the age of six months. I am fed up with reading that my children were "farmed out", "dumped" in a nursery (and the rest) and generally being guilt tripped. I worked damned hard to keep a roof over our heads and to spend every moment I could with my children in the evenings and at weekends.

I have no idea how their lives would be different if they'd been at home with me all day - maybe they wouldn't be the people they are today. However, they are both confident young people with good lives and we all have a close relationship - I don't think any of us could ask for much more.

I think that, yet again, you are misinterpreting my post.

I didnt say it was wrong orcright.
I never said farmed out - that was another poster.

My issue was with the perception that SAHM are lacking in any intellectual stimulation, falling behind on the career ladder.
Not imagining that, in fact, some young mothers are not high fliers and would in fact prefer to be at home with their babies.
But then this happens every time this subject comes up doesn't it.

Unfortunately, these days it's not so much a matter of choice but necessity.

Allira is right to say,
It's the rather superior perception that comes across that those whose children go to nursery are somehow intellectually superior and their children are high achievers because they did go to nursery that probably annoys other posters.
Early this year on GN, there were posters saying that SAHMs' lives were dominated by their home and children and had no other topics of conversation, and that the children of SAHMs are exposed to a less balanced set of values than those of working mums, whatever that means.

Neither way is better, nor worse. Just different.

growstuff - I was also full time worker. My children are 39 and 40, we have loving relationships, they’re doing ok don’t seem ‘damaged’ by working mum. Of course, no one ever questioned their dad working full time.
As grandparents we helped with their 2 children each in 3 years, no strict instructions about diet, naps or any kind of care we gave. We did ok with them so they trusted us wuth their precious children. They were grateful x

My children are 60 and 54. I was a SAHM until they went to school. Then I worked part time. Most of my friends at that time were SAHM too. It was the norm then. But things change. No way is the right way. How can one judge ?

JamesandJon33

My children are 60 and 54. I was a SAHM until they went to school. Then I worked part time. Most of my friends at that time were SAHM too. It was the norm then. But things change. No way is the right way. How can one judge ?

Yes, it was the norm. I think those who are saying they went back to work when their DC were babies may be younger Gransnetters.

Allira

JamesandJon33

My children are 60 and 54. I was a SAHM until they went to school. Then I worked part time. Most of my friends at that time were SAHM too. It was the norm then. But things change. No way is the right way. How can one judge ?

Yes, it was the norm. I think those who are saying they went back to work when their DC were babies may be younger Gransnetters.

And - I worked for ten years before I had a family. I was one of those 'elderly primigravidas'.

I’m 76

Allira

Allira

JamesandJon33

My children are 60 and 54. I was a SAHM until they went to school. Then I worked part time. Most of my friends at that time were SAHM too. It was the norm then. But things change. No way is the right way. How can one judge ?

Yes, it was the norm. I think those who are saying they went back to work when their DC were babies may be younger Gransnetters.

And - I worked for ten years before I had a family. I was one of those 'elderly primigravidas'.

I was an elderly primigravida too. I was 37 when my first child was born. I'm not sure what that has to do with it. I'm happy with the decision my husband and I made. We actually separated when my younger child was 3, so had no choice from then on. Both my children attended breakfast and after school clubs until they were 11. And still they turned out to be happy human beings!

Yes, it happens every time this topic appears on GN. There is a certain amount of smug superiority from those who chose to stay at home to look after their children because they really don't seem to accept that it isn't the only way to bring up children successfully.

Some mother's need to stay at work to protect their careers, but the majority do all kinds of mundane non-'career' jobs just to keep the bills paid and the children fed and clothed.

I would just add, that I had a working mother, she had a working mother, who also had a working mother - and so on ad infinitum. I am descended from good agricultural worker stock in England and Ireland. My mother was the first to have worked by choice rather than from dire necessity.

I am not aware that any of us suffered as a result. My memory is of warm and close mother and child relationships cascading down the generations.

Yes, it happens every time this topic appears on GN. There is a certain amount of smug superiority from those who chose to stay at home to look after their children because they really don't seem to accept that it isn't the only way to bring up children successfully.

Sorry, but it seems to be the other way round to those of us who may have stayed at home, even for a few years, with our children, that we are somehow intellectually lacking and not worried about climbing the career ladder.
Perhaps you missed those posts.

I think, as Luckygirl said, choice is what is important. You seem to have had no choice like so many of today's parents.

Perhaps it's not age, as I mentioned, perhaps it is when we became mothers. The 1960s and 70s were a different country, where I lived at least. Moving to the metropolis in the 1980s presented a different scenario.

M0nica

I would just add, that I had a working mother, she had a working mother, who also had a working mother - and so on ad infinitum. I am descended from good agricultural worker stock in England and Ireland. My mother was the first to have worked by choice rather than from dire necessity.

I am not aware that any of us suffered as a result. My memory is of warm and close mother and child relationships cascading down the generations.

Yes, my mother worked and so did I from when my youngest was six (took a course from when she started school at four).

We seem to have wandered off the topic of Cambsnan's OP - Wrap around child care -the child’s voice to the usual pointless arguments.
Why not ask children what they think?

The child's voice is what is most important.

I expressed reservations about nurseries but I was not a SAHM. I had no choice but to go back to work, although I did make a conscious choice not to pursue advancement in my career. This was the time of Nicola Horlicks telling women they ‘could have it all’ but I was never convinced by that. Hence I never went into management but watched my (very able) husband in the same career go much further than I ever did.

This thread seems to have digressed into the usual discussions about working v. stay at home mums and the pressures parents face. The OP’s title was ‘the child’s voice’ which is not the same thing at all.

Sorry Allira I’m a very slow typist!

nightowl

Sorry Allira I’m a very slow typist!

😁 and I'm not a very good one!! I blame the stylus.

Times change and we should not criticise others for being a product of their time or for doing what was the norm at that time.

Incidentally, referring to the child's voice, my DGD hated going to Breakfast Club!!

The thing is here, are we expecting the child to voice its opinion (which obviously it can't) at the time, or retrospectively?
We can all be wise after the event, and say decisions were right or wrong, but life is not a rehearsal so there's no second attempts at it.

Very wise.

The other point is that many women did both - were SAHM when their children were very young then went back to work when they started school, bearing in mind that was probably part-time even if they were teaching, because breakfast clubs and after-school clubs are a relatively new phenomenon.

escaped I think there are ways of giving the child a voice - certainly it would be interesting to hear the retrospective views of our own grown up children who went to nurseries, but there are ways of gaining even very young children’s views from their behaviour.

Social workers have to include ‘the voice of the child’ in assessments of all kinds, and are sometimes supported by other professionals in this. I think that life is so very busy and pressurised for parents that very often they do what they have to do to keep the family functioning. And sadly, in western society the family is just an economic unit. So I think the child’s voice is overlooked in many of these debates.

I wouldn’t have chosen nursery in 84 and 86 I found a local childminder with children the age abd same school as mine. She had dogs, our children went to swimming and pony riding together. In school hols she did the same activities I did when not at work.
We’ve just had a an invite to her secret 70th birthday party. My girls still hug her call her auntie j if we bump into each other
Nowadays nurseries and child minders follow national guidance but I liked our less organised approach

Totally agree with you.

Sorry, should say totally agree with OP

escaped

The thing is here, are we expecting the child to voice its opinion (which obviously it can't) at the time, or retrospectively?
We can all be wise after the event, and say decisions were right or wrong, but life is not a rehearsal so there's no second attempts at it.

I don't understand what you mean by writing that children can't voice an opinion. Mine certainly did from a very young age!

They can voice their opinions very clearly. Even before they have the power of speech