<p>My rant on #59 is more about our society, not a judgement against parents. In many other countries, parents are allowed to stay home for a year or two to care for their infants, but we are only allowed 6 weeks.</p>
<p>"… I am not a supporter of having one caretaker for multiple infants. "</p>
<p>Interesting perspective. The baby room at our daycare staffed a 3:1 ratio and was next to the office. There were large windows all around. If they needed extra help the owner/ass’t mgr would pop over. It was a wonderful place. They were big on “sensory” experiences and would put tubs of shaving cream or cooked spaghetti under the babies feet/hands during playtimes. All diaper changes/feedings were documented for the parents.</p>
<p>I compared this option with the idea of having one person alone in my home unsupervised with my precious children - no way!! When our kids were small I was making almost twice my husband’s salary. Had I quit my job we could not have lived in our wonderful neighborhood nor would I be able to pay for both of them to attend college. I love my career and I loved picking up my kids at the end of the each day. </p>
<p>Anyway…If some of us didn’t work so that we could afford to PAY college tuition for our kids who would be funding the financial aid of those who didn’t?</p>
<p>I’d like to add a little perspective. I’m the bread winner of our family, so me staying at home is not a good practical option for our family. My wife expressed long before we were married that she wanted to work, and honestly, the six weeks at home with the newborn were taxing on her. Yes, I could force her to quit her job and make her stay at home with our kids but I think most of you wives would suggest that I let her do what she wants with her life. I’d prefer that she be happy and working and cheerful. Working during the day provides a lot of excitment and joy, and frankly, I don’t think she’d make the best stay at home mom because it’s just not her thing. So please, don’t tell me that whether my wife works or stays at home is my decision to make.</p>
<p>With that said, I feel comfortable with my child at daycare. She is well entertained, comes home pretty tuckered after a busy day at daycare. When we pick her up at the end of the day, she is almost always smiling and happy. She’s always in clean clothes despite the fact that she does the normal baby stuff. All in all, she is well cared for and well loved in daycare. </p>
<p>As I posted before, it is expensive daycare. My employer takes a lot of care in picking a daycare company to operate the facility, and has selected one that has a very good reputation. There were many ones that were less expensive that we could have selected, but I went with the one that I felt would provide the best care.</p>
<p>For those of you who are or were stay at home moms, congrats and that’s great. Your kids enjoyed having you at home and enjoyed not having to go to daycare. But, please be respectful of those who make different decisions. In our case, my wife elected not to be a stay at home mom. She decided that she wanted to be a happy, working mom than a sad, depressed stay at home mom. I support her 100%.</p>
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<p>Full pay people are not funding the FA of those who couldn´t.</p>
<p>They are at DS’s state school! For every $1 we pay in tuition .20 goes to need-based scholarships. There is actually a bill introduced by a state rep trying to make it a separate line item on the tuition bills.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize that is what they are doing at state schools. </p>
<p>I have always been a working mom and looked for other options outside of daycare for my kids.</p>
<p>We considered a lot of options besides daycare. I looked at working off shifts so one of us could always be home with the kids, but my position didn’t lend itself to. We considered a home-based child care option as opposed to a facility based daycare option. And we looked at having a nanny. It’s in vogue in California to have illegal immigrant non-English speaking hispanic women watch your kids during the day. Not for us.</p>
<p>Nannys are not a good option for babies, I totally agree (SAHM here getting back into the workforce soon… in retrospect I am really seeing the point of going back to work right away). Especially not someone who is not a legal resident! What happens if there’s a problem? Crazy. I think that people think of daycare as this very poor-quality environment but there are state-mandated caretaker-baby ratios.</p>
<p>In addition… I love how people think that SAHMs with an older child and an infant are just all over their kids the live-long day. Right. Because you make sooooo much less money, you are constantly making food that you could have otherwise bought prepared (unless you massively compromise on quality), doing chores during the day because again, the other partner is out of the home so why should they come home to a second-shift when you could both relax? How is a baby being an hour in the carseat for errands and trips to soccer lessons and so on, better than an hour in the crib?</p>
<p>Because mom never gets a nap, either, she’s not exactly Mary Freaking Poppins.</p>
<p>And believe me, I am all over gentle discipline and attachment parenting. I try very hard as a SAHM to do right by my children. I had planned to nurse and stay home for two years.</p>
<p>But again, in retrospect, the isolation at home with a kid or two, and entertaining that child with the same toys, the financial and marital stress that can come with it, the inequality in marriage, the fact that never in history have women expected to live alone, at home, nine hours, with an infant and a toddler (and god forbid a pre-schooler as well) , did I mention ALL ALONE WITHOUT ANY ADULT INTERACTION, well… I’m not so sure I’d do it again. Are the kids okay? Probably. But I highly doubt they got better care from me than they would have at the high-quality care I could have paid for had I been working at my previous salary. Sorry. Sleep deprivation does me in, as do nine-hour shifts (without breaks… did I mention that daycare workers get lunch? Stay-at-home-moms don’t! They’re exhausted AND hungry when baby poops out of the diaper for the gazillionth time that day…)</p>
<p>So lay off BOTW. Seriously. Not many women will admit it in public because nobody wants to admit that they made a mistake. But I’m willing to say that I know plenty of women who are not working, by choice or because where they were, quality daycare was not affordable. And many of them would freely admit that they have no idea whether after the first few months it made any difference.</p>
<p>Wow. OP asks a question about charitable donations, and a few the self-appointed Dr. Lauras take him to task for child rearing choices that are totally none of their business. Compared to this, the old Politics board was positively genteel!</p>
<p>I was divorced when my S was one year old. Before that I had been the family breadwinner, and S was in pretty much full time day care because ex-H did not make it a priority to help with childcare.</p>
<p>After the divorce S was in daycare for probably 10 hours a day because I had a two hour commute and was the sole source of income for myself & S. I had no choice.</p>
<p>Or I could have stayed home with S and gone on welfare.</p>
<p>I’m glad I wasn’t on this board back then to get so harshly judged about my parenting.</p>
<p>Seems like somebody touched a nerve.
If happy with your choices, why so defensive?</p>
<p>Well, as someone who chose to stay at home and still is a bit put out by the tone of the criticism, I will respond to that.<br>
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have seen a lot of parenting, both good and bad, most often, because we are all human, it is a mix of both. As a teacher I see hundreds of students and get to see a lot of parenting on the fringes of my job. </p>
<p>If I took any individual child, made a layman’s evaluation as to their happiness, mental and physical health, involvement in their community, etc., I would not be able to draw a line between the “good” parenting and the “bad” parenting based on which kids spent their early years in daycare settings. I don’t think anyone here could make that kind of generalization, either. I have seen plenty of bad parenting on the part of full time stay at home moms. It is not a guarantee of quality.
People get defensive because they are being attacked in an area that is closest to their heart. People tend to point fingers as a way to validate their own choices and maybe even rationalize them. Why do we have to do that? Why not accept the fact (and studies have shown this to be true) that kids can thrive in diverse settings as long as they are getting the attention they need? Why the judgement?</p>
<p>Well said, EPTR. And it is ALWAYS women pitted against other women. Let’s not do that.</p>
<p>I’m mildly dissatisfied with my choice to SAHM, hence my long post. I wonder if people read it as intended… to say that there is no way to tell whether a SAHP or daycare would be better for any individual child, given the difficult position of the SAHP. Or did everyone just assume that I was saying my way is the right way? Because if you read it, you will see that I’m very resentful of the SAHP mythmaking machine, which does not represent staying at home at all accurately for most parents and children.</p>
<p>^^^
No. You were clear and diplomatic :)</p>
<p>Well, now that the Japanese earthquake has happened, life presents a slightly different question</p>
<p>Do I donate directly to the earthquake relief organizations, or do I buy my kids artwork and hence donate to the non-earthquake related cause supported by daycare?</p>
<p>In the near term, the money would do far more benefit for the Japanese earthquake victims than the other cause supported by daycare.</p>
<p>Hmmm…</p>
<p>One thing I learned, raising two children to adulthood, is that sometimes it is better to take the pragmatic road than the high road. Just because it helps to “grease the wheels”, or at least reduce friction, especially where your children are concerned. So, although I, like you, would find it rather irritating and not a little inappropriate that my child’s daycare was exploiting the children (and coercing their parents) in this way, I might just buy my kid’s piece. Why? Because this sounds like someone’s pet project, and this someone may be taking care of your baby. You do run the risk of encouraging a repeat occurrence, and I’m the first to admit that it’s a moral slippery slope but, and this is a big BUT, when it comes to anything to do with children, you have to pick your battles. </p>
<p>I bet if you suggested to the daycare that they might change the beneficiary of their fundraising to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami victims, they might consider it.</p>
<p>I’ve decided that I’m way overthinking this.</p>
<p>Giving to chariatable organizations is purely optional. When a person goes to McDonalds, they take a collection for the ROnald McDonald house. If you don’t drop money into the bin, do the workers spit in your food or think less of you as a person? Of course not. They don’t really care whether you drop money in or not, but McDonalds has decided that the Ronald McDonald house is the charitable organization they will support and will provide an opportunity for people to support it as well. But it’s not a requirement or expectation that customers will contribute, and the vast majority opt not to.</p>
<p>Same with grocery stores, Costco, and the like. Many provide places to drop in spare change, allow non-profits to collect contributions outside, or the like. All of these are optional and the majority of customers opt not to. You don’t get less quality service because you choose not to donate. That’d just be silly.</p>
<p>In the case of my daycare, it is a pet project of the CEO & Board of Directors. It’s realistic to see that they provide an opportunity for people to donate who enjoy that type of thing and want to do something like that, but it’s not expected or required.</p>
<p>And looking at information about how much they collect each year, it’s clear that the majority of the parents participate. I think those who feel it is a good cause and something that they would support anyway do, and many opt not to.</p>
<p>So I can wrap up the thread with that…if it’s cause that I wish to support I should, but not those that I don’t choose to participate it. It’s optional and not an expectation of the business that I’m hiring to take care of my kids.</p>
<p>Yes, you are way overthinking this. :)</p>
<p>I believe Mousegray’s post #77 made excellent points.
On a personal level, I will often give a few dollars to a charity beyond the scope of “my favorites/those I believe in.” My thinking for this is that the money amounts to no more than what I might spend on coffee or a magazine, but if the funds are at some level promoting goodness in the world, then I have done a good deed which won’t harm society, and in a very small measure will help to improve someone’s elses life. (The exception, obviously, is that I would never support a charity promoting hatred, discrimination, religious extremism, etc…you get the picture.)
On the stay at home vs. work issue: We all do the best we can, whatever our decision. We should all be supportive of each other and stand together…because those kids will all be calling us old sooner than we think! Life is too short to spend it on a soap box.</p>