<p>Ah, Marian, you brought back memories. When my S was 8 months and I had bronchitis, my doctor called my pediatrician to check on drugs because I was still nursing. Pediatrician said I should stop nursing! Then a year later when I was sick again and still nursing, same thing happened. I belong to a group of women that gets together monthly, and at least once a year the conversation turns to how terrible it is when mothers nurse long-term. They know my youngest nursed until age 3, and that their conversation bothers me, but they can’t seem to help themselves.</p>
<p>Got grief from my pedi because I nursed each kid until kid wanted to stop. For S it was when he was 9 months. For D, she was 18 months. It worked for us and my pedi and I agreed to disagree.</p>
<p>“I do think more peer pressure is needed when divorced spouses (usually the dad) fail to provide support.”</p>
<p>Amen. I work with tons of divorced families, and they are all over the map. Some divorced parents work together better than most married couples, but at the other end of the spectrum there are noncustodial parents who seem to think lifting a finger on behalf of their kid is a gift to the ex-spouse. The worst stingy attitude I’ve ever gotten from a parent in 14 years of counseling practice came from a multimillionaire divorced dad who lives on a gorgeous estate. My service is not cheap and is not a fit for every family, but that guy nickel-and-dimed everything I did for his kid, with a nasty tone to boot. (That child, by the way, was a perfect delight to work with. The good manners obviously came from Mom.)</p>
<p>If anyone is interested, there is a book out called “Superdads” by Gayle Kauffman that is pretty interesting. It’s about how many dads (mostly divorced) are demanding more flextime and such in the workforce so that they can be more at home. The vast majority of the dads are white middle/upper-middle class men so it’s not representative but… </p>
<p>I have very mixed feelings about it for a lot of reasons, but still found it interesting.</p>
<p>One of my brothers has a “friend.” The guy is divorced and purposely stays in a low wage job because he doesn’t want to pay much/any to his ex and kids. He works for a pizza company and doesn’t want promotions, but doesn’t mind doing “side jobs” for cash because he can pocket these and hide them from ex-spouse and kids. I’m not a fan of him and his thinking, but it is sadly not as unusual as you would hope.</p>
<p>Salve - Sorry to hear you had such a lonely experience. Years ago I read that it can be hard to be part time professional mom, not really quite fitting into either world. </p>
<p>It’s one reason I didn’t push for part time when it became somewhat affordable… but would have impacted my job security. Phew - DH lost his job a few years later and was unemployed a year. He’s been underemployed from then on, but we are ok due to the two incomes.</p>
<p>Parenting values are such an interesting mix of family history, immediate social circle, and area of the country. The differences in breast feeding time in my own city used to fascinate me. The length of time differed more depending on what you saw around you rather than any analysis of what was better for mother of child. I saw vast differences in various social groups in my smaller city. </p>
<p>The differences in working moms vs SAH must vary a good deal depending on location as well. Most professionals in my social group worked part time for years, teaching part time in colleges, working less than full time for state agencies or the school district. My community perhaps saw this flexibility as reasonable, more than some. </p>
<p>As to the divorce comments, yes!!! It is such a crazy dichotomy, that divorce world. Having been there, I appreciate the perspectives. Many things that went on in mine were too nuts to mention in polite company, as they were rather beyond belief, though my ex was better than many.</p>
<p>colorado it was a lonely existence but my kids really needed me then so I don’t regret a thing. Like someone mentioned upthread, I am a strong proponent of choosing a flexible career over moving up the ladder, even if you have to downsize your life for awhile, which we did. I don’t know, I must be missing the gene that is able to juggle full time work and child-rearing and still look great on the train each morning!</p>
<p>@Samurai, my DD wants a large family so when she chose nursing, I was kind of glad because I can see her doing third shifts (she’s a night owl) while granny watches the kids :)</p>
<p>Each family will make different choices - there is no right answer. </p>
<p>I will say it’s lots easier to work full time when you have an easy commute and little or no overtime. We lived 3 miles from work when the kids were really little, and DH was great about helping with the kids in the morning. After moving to CO we were a little further away, but still only a 15 min drive. Luckily I didn’t need to look great on the train… or at the engineering workplace. </p>
<p>Now I work from home a lot. But there is gobs of stressful overtime, some planned and some unplanned. It would be harder to merge this job with parenting responsibilities.</p>
<p>What I really would like to see is increased flexibility, more telecommuting, more part time professional opportunities, etc. for both women and men. There has been much improvement in this area in the last several years, but we still have a ways to go.</p>
<p>I’m interested in hearing about child care choices working parents make. I’ve been following this thread, so I know many of us on this thread were able to cobble together flex time and helpful relatives who loved your children. And there are a few who spoke about live in nannies. </p>
<p>Did others use daycare centers? Independent home daycare providers?</p>
<p>How did it all work out for you and your kids?</p>
<p>(I’m a stay at home parent. I strongly believe in the value and importance of good daycare. I live in a highly regulated state, where home daycare providers are required to be licensed, and are regularly visited to ensure they are following safety regulations. My area is home to many dual career families, and there don’t seem to be enough providers. I live next door to a licensed home daycare provider, and am friends with several other women who run licensed daycares in their homes, so I see that side of daycare. Parents, particularly parents of infants, are desperate for daycare. Regulations limiting the number of infants a home daycare provider can take are frequently ignored by parents (and sometimes by daycare providers as well). Parents need daycare more than they care about numbers. My friends take calls regularly from parents begging them to take their baby, and the parents don’t care whether their child would be one too many, they just need somewhere for their child to go.)</p>
<p>Was that your experience at all? I wonder if this is a newer phenomenom, or if it is more a reflection of where I live. </p>
<p>I see daycare as such a hot point issue in the lives of young families. It seems to be a stressor for parents: trying to find it, managing drop offs and pick ups, dealing with sick kids. And it is expensive!</p>
<p>Most people I knew had in home care for their kids. The reason was most of us had very long hours. We became so dependent on them (no shows meant no work for some of us) that they were treated better than our spouse sometimes. Stealing someone’s babysitter was considered worse than cheating.</p>
<p>My DD was in an independent licensed home day care for about 8 years (from infancy to about second grade). The woman who ran this day care was FABULOUS - warm, loving, caring, and smart. My H and I had/have no family whatsoever in our community (no “helpful relatives” within a ten-hour drive) and as new parents, we were terrified of leaving our baby with “strangers” - and sometimes, we were even terrified of our baby! (Who knew they could cry so much?!)</p>
<p>Anyway, for us it was a perfect solution. As a mother with five (almost grown) children of her own, our provider was a wealth of information and support. As a working mother with a lot of guilt, I found so much comfort and encourgaement from her. As an only child, our D made a lot of friends in day care, some of whom are still her friends today. Actually, D and I are still friends with that day care provider.</p>
<p>When D was little, I would go into work very early (from 6:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M.) and my husband would work later hours (9:00 until 6:00). It helped that we spend as much time as possible with D, but the real key to the whole situation was our wonderful home day care provider.</p>
<p>Day care providers need much more respect. I agree with scout59: A good day care provider is worth her weight in gold. I was lucky enough to afford live-in help, which offered considerable flexibility, but several women I know used local day care providers.</p>
<p>The only relative we ever had to help care for our kids was DH’s unemployed younger brother. He stepped in for a week here and there when we had an abrupt change in nannies. Anyone see the movie “Uncle Buck”? That unfortunately was my BIL!! But it did allow us to show up at work, at least. And the kids survived.</p>
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<p>Same here. It was actually less expensive AND more convenient to have in-home care for baby twins that it would have been to take them to a daycare where they would have had less individual attention.</p>
<p>We did day care for a bit with D1, but one day she came home with a major bite mark on her arm. We decided to go with home care, and had a wonderful young nanny who saw our kids through until they were in middle school. Now she is a mother herself and she and the girls still stay in frequent Facebook contact and meet up for meals every once in a while. Since I worked long shifts at the hospital, we really depended upon her. She was so sweet, and very very patient with our girls.</p>
<p>The key is finding consistent quality child care. I paid a premium for it as well as for quality summer camps. One draw back to “home care” providers is that they were not reliable if they were sick and there was no back up and I appreciated many sets of eyes on my child for safety and other reasons. Once, I found an in home care provider toting my child to her nail appts, doctor appts. and errands all day long. That ended in less than a week when I found out. Day care centers have many planned activities, more structure and information for parents at day’s end and in many cases, camera monitoring so that you can check on your kids to see what’s going on. Children playing with others in an age appropriate setting is also important. Home day care may have a mix of ages, which can be beneficial, but also can have drawbacks. Just my opinion. I am sure there are many good quality in home care centers, but it was just not right for me and I did not like one person being the sole provider for care, enrichment, meals and activities for multiple age levels.</p>
<p>^^^Our nanny was not the sole provider for care, enrichment, and activities. She would take them outside of the home for those just as I would have had I been a SAHM the entire time.</p>
<p>We were lucky that we found a wonderful, caring, trustworthy nanny. DH is self-employed, so in a pinch he could stay home if she got sick. Our nanny almost never called in, so we were very lucky. Once the kids got into school, she just needed to be able to pick them up from school and get them to dance, gymnastics, music lessons, soccer practice, what have you. That was a tremendous help to me. Because “full time” for me was 3 12s a week, this worked for us. On her days off, she was able to go to school herself. It was a perfect solution for our family, but we always knew how lucky we were to have found such a gem.</p>
<p>As I said above I used montessori from just over age 1-4.5 and we both loved it. My daughter still exclaims when we pass by. They, literally, potty trained my kid immediately in those big white cotton underpants and for those who know montessori the kids do dishes and sweep and there were animals. It was just very wholesome and warm and nurturing without being too woo-woo.<br>
I’m a researcher/data person by nature and as a first time mom I visited probably a dozen places before deciding where we went. Because it was a school, also, however (goes to grade 6 I think) we sometimes had to work around school breaks etc.<br>
I didn’t have family that was both local and underemployed enough to watch my child.</p>
<p>We had a mix. I stayed home for the first 3 months with S, we moved and then H stayed home for 3 months while i began a new career (at an office 5 minutes drive from home, I came home at lunch to BF). When H’s career picked up, S went to an in-home daycare, a mom had him, her two and 3 others for a total of 6. She was wonderful and he loved being there. He stayed until pre-school which he did at a local co-op - real teachers, parent helpers on a rotating schedule.</p>
<p>When D was born I took 3-4 weeks off from my job and then had her at the same in-home daycare part time as S was at and she was miserable. My provider finally said she just couldn’t handle her and the other kids at once, my D needed to be held all the time and cried a lot for me. </p>
<p>This was where I made the career decision I did - to work a little from home, a little in an office (like 1 day a week) and become the primary caretaker for the kids. The freelancing I was doing from home actually took off for awhile and I had an offer to partner with a larger company, but since H was back into his career fulltime and D still couldn’t be left with others for long, I declined and kept my freelance thing part-time. Which all made great sense until H and I separated. I suppose that is the point where some of the “regret” of the OP article comes in. </p>
<p>In any case, we had SAH parents, my own grandmother who was living with my mom nearby used to watch S a bit, the in-home daycare, a 3 mornings a week preschool, a daycare center with a long and excellent rep in our town. Finally once they were both in school we had me working from home and thus available to do doctor appts, pickup after school, be there in the evenings and weekends (H’s schedule was all over the place), etc.</p>