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

of course they do and more power to them.
without women in the workplace the economy wouldnt exist. although some glass ceilings exist they are rapidly being broken through by intelligent successful women.

heres my point:
i totally understand women going back to work from economic necessity. full stop.

i understand women returning to the workforce when the very early formative years of a child have passed (some children dont attend school until nearly 5 depending on dates etc) i truely believe that children need their mothers certainly up until school going age and that this is preferable over a creche any day. survey after survey has proved this.

I have aproblem with women who have children and the moment maternity leave is up they are racing off to dump their child in a creche. when creche fees are deducted it would seem that they end up working for a relatively small sum. some of these women do not work as rocket scientists for NASA and are not one 200K a year so the idea of "career" in some of these cases is hilarious. I genuinely dont see why these women bothered having children just to hand them to someone else to rear.

of all of the parents that dump their kids at a creche every morning at some ungodly hour, how many of them were put in a creche by their parents?
 
Rigoletto, parents do not dump their kids anywhere.

Question; why, in your world, do men not get charged with the same "crime"?
 
Purple said:
Rigoletto, parents do not dump their kids anywhere.

Question; why, in your world, do men not get charged with the same "crime"?
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I suppose because in some parallel universe, men are 'breadwinners' and have 'careers' while women have 'dead end jobs'. The idea that men can look after their kids does not exist in that universe.

I hope you are clear now Purple :)
 
it's a pity that this post has got so emotional as this is an important issue for many people.

From the OPs perspective I am sure they are wondering what kind of a can of worms they have opened

All I can advise is this

Firstly, do your finances carefully and decide if it is financially worth your while going back to work. Financially you may need to decide to change your lifestyle and if so you need to be prepared to do so. In my own case, my wife wanted to stay at home and to make it work financially, we moved house further out from Dublin, reduced the mortgage and I have a longer commute as a result.

Secondly, emotionally, are you prepared to hand your baby over to someone else to mind them?. That may not be a question you can answer right now, but it's a question you need to answer in your own mind

Thirdly, Assume for a second that financially you can make staying at home work and don't want to hand the baby over to someone else to mind, there is then the risk of being at home with lgreatly reduced adult interaction for a couple of years and a smallie going "wah" and this may scare you. Ultimately it's up to yourself to address that but you may need your partners support as well. In my wife's case, she joined the local mother and toddler group and goes there every week, but she also does a night class and some volunteering at the week-end which means I am baby sitting whilst that is on.

What we've done works for us and any morning I am queued at Newlands Cross in Dublin and when I see some toddler in the back of a car staring at a DVD screen or asleep in their seat, I never regret the decision. We're all calmer and don't have to rush to pick the smallie up in the evening and if she wants to sleep til 9.30am(as she did this morning), off with her. Having said that, I fully accept it won't work for others for a lot of reasons. I'm not going to comment on whether or not a stay at home mum is best for a kid or not. It's how I was brought up and certainly my little girl is happy, but I can't say she wouldn't be if she was in a creche.

One other thing I would say, the Cork Examiner published a summary of the results of every audit done into all the creches and playschools a few months back. Whilst a lot were fine, sad to say a lot were absolutely awful and in some cases, dangerous. If anyone on here knows the link to that report or the summary from elsewhere, can I suggest they post it on here?
 
Diziet said:
I suppose because in some parallel universe, men are 'breadwinners' and have 'careers' while women have 'dead end jobs'. The idea that men can look after their kids does not exist in that universe.

I hope you are clear now Purple :)
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Thanks Diziet. Is there a magic wardrobe or something that we can use to visit this other universe?
 
Can't believe some of the posts on this thread ..didn't think there were so many people out there with such old-fashioned attitudes.

Both of my parents worked full time. My Mum was back at work one week after having my oldest brother - in those days you were supposed to give up work when you married and you certainly did not get maternity leave. She was a teacher and had to take off her wedding ring when she went to interviews or she would not be hired ..I thought we were past all that??

My parents raised 7 happy, healthy, well-adjusted and moderately successful children. We are all going home this Christmas and will have a great time together. Four of us are married, all happily, and three have kids of their own. Between us we have two accountants, one doctor, one solicitor, one IT guy, one trainee solicitor and one consultant. Not exactly delinquints!! My parents both got scholarships to secondary school and my dad did not go to college until he had worked his way up. They both worked bloody hard all their lives to give us fantastic opportunities. They could not love us more and we always knew that. We also knew that they had confidence in us and in our abilities - they didn't need to be there all the time for us to be happy and secure.

Why on earth people think that staying at home full time is the be all and end all of parenting is beyond me!! I've news for you people ..it's only a very small part of a very big picture! Surely this should be obvious???
 
A very interesting thread.
What about the single parent families? Due to tragic circumstances, my father was left on his own with us as a young family. He had no choice but to work full time. And, I think of myself as a balanced, well rounded person.
To those who are arguing that mothers (and not fathers???) should not consider going back to work until the child is almost ready for school does this mean that single mothers should forget about trying to better their own and their childs circumstances through working and not relying on state benefits?
 
Can I ask, how many parents who are recommending going back to work when the kids are in school have school age kids? My oldest started Junior infants this year, and it has made us much much busier as a result. My mother (and many other parents) have also said that one of the most important times to be around is during the teenage years, a toddler in a creche can only get into so much trouble, but the possibilities for a teenager getting into trouble are almost endless. The older my kids get, the more I realise that the early years when the child can be looked after full time by a creche/childminder are the easiest to combine with working full time.

FWIW, I don't think there is one perfect way to raise kids. Some do well in creche, some do well with a childminder, some do well being looked after full time by their mum, some do well being looked after full time by their dad. In the end, most parents are doing their best, as are most children.

It's also useful to remember that nothing lasts forever. You can go back to work, give it three months and see how work and your childminding solution is working out, and then decide whether or not to resign or keep working. Equally, you can give up work, give it a few months, and apply for another job (or not) if you feel it isn't working out.
 
If it's really sooo bad for all our children and society, and if 'survey after survey' proves this; shouldn't the government care more & attempt to make it more financially viable for us to raise our own children if we so choose?

In the absence of this, it is not possible for many 2 parent families to have a stay-at-home-parent and a working parent. That is the financial reality, and not for lots of holidays- for mortgages, bills and living expenses.
 
micheller said:
If it's really sooo bad for all our children and society, and if 'survey after survey' proves this; shouldn't the government care more & attempt to make it more financially viable for us to raise our own children if we so choose?

In the absence of this, it is not possible for many 2 parent families to have a stay-at-home-parent and a working parent. That is the financial reality, and not for lots of holidays- for mortgages, bills and living expenses.
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Then in a few years we could have comely maidens dancing at the crossroads while we live in frugal comfort... I can see it now...
 
Hang on a minute, I earn more than my husband, so that makes HIM the 'bad guy' by the standards of jubi and rigoletto! Phew! :p
 
Vanilla said:
Hang on a minute, I earn more than my husband, so that makes HIM the 'bad guy' by the standards of jubi and rigoletto! Phew! :p
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... and my wife earns more than me so she's off the hook as well (and I don't care about being a bad father so I'm all right as well :D)
 
Purple said:
... and my wife earns more than me so she's off the hook as well (and I don't care about being a bad father so I'm all right as well :D)
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Thank god it's just an economic thing- I was worried there was a social element or something.
 
eh lads, I'm all for choice. And I used the term parent, not the mother.
The first comments were tongue in cheek :(
 
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