Having two working parents doesn’t mean those things aren’t possible, though. I work full time and, because of how I arrange my schedule, I get home early enough every night to make a home cooked meal 98% of the time. I am able to take off one afternoon a week to go to the grocery store and do laundry, as well as those fun things like going to the park and the swimming pool. After dinner we go for walks, bike rides, play outside…you name it. Weekends are for fun family stuff, too. My husband and I both do a little each day so the house is tidy and we can relax after our daughter goes to bed. Being a working parent doesn’t have to mean eating McDonalds every night and coming home exhausted and collapsing after doing a mountain of dishes.
That all depends on who you’re talking to. There have been plenty of posters **on this very board **who say things about working moms like, “I’d never allow *strangers *to raise my children” as though daycare is a revolving door of carnies and shifty characters. You’ll always find someone to criticize a parenting choice, no matter what that choice is.
And this one more level of why people feel there are mommy wars.
pbbth was commenting on what she felt would happen if she was working yellowval commented on what she’s able to do and I’d be willing to bet both of them felt attacked by the other even if not directly.
The reality is you do what works for you and keep in mind that when others are talking about what works for them it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re saying your way is wrong.
My father used to say “When you’re unsure if people are insulting you, assume they are not. If you’re right you just saved yourself from looking like a jerk. If you’re wrong you’ll annoy them because they failed to annoy you.” WIN/WIN!
I didn’t feel attacked, and did not mean my post as such. I just wanted to point out that some of those things are not mutually exclusive. But I guess I’ll just assume you weren’t insulting me with your post…
No sorry I wasn’t. What I meant was it’s human to read something and to assume that because it’s the opposite of what you do it’s a condemnation. Particularly when it’s something so sensitive as how we raise our kids. I still do it and have to remind myself all the time and my kids are adults. It was even harder when they were going through their “challenging” phases and I felt like a failure anyway.
I know, I just had to give you a little crap. 
I’ve seen mommy wars and this ain’t nothin’.
It sometimes like feel like a huge component of the human condition, the knee jerk response that is hearing another persons choice, as an indictment of yours. Everyone seems vulnerable to this at times. And sometimes that’s what people are trying to say.
It most often manifests as; people are talking about a topic, and someone feels the overpowering urge to explain their choice concerning that. Like shared custody, a hairy topic for sure, but every discussion, in broad terms, with wide ranging issues, will inevitably clutter up with people telling you why they have their custody arrangement, in exacting detail, as though they were being accused of something, or being judged, which they never were. The ownership for feeling that way, is on them, not the people with the broad ranging discussion and many issues topic.
Because, ultimately, you have to decide if you’re strong enough, to resist the knee jerk reaction of feeling that way.
IANA Parent, but let me ask you this. (I think it’s a chick thing.) Daddy works full time, right? And Daddy comes home and does his share of the daddying, no?
So. Does Daddy feel guilty for leaving baby with a nanny/sitter/daycare/whathaveyou? Have you asked him? If not, why not?
What I’m getting at is why women feel guilty and torn in different directions and act like it’s the worst thing in the world to not be a SAHM (millions of us were raised by working moms or by SAHMs – I see no different in results) when men don’t seem to? I know two guys right now who were both single dads and did the bulk of raising three kids by themselves. I’ve never heard a peep out of either of them about how terrible they felt going to work every day. They do both talk about how awesome their kids are and how much they loved being single dads.
Why do men tend to not experience this guilt that you are going through, but it seems like almost all the working mommies do? Can you talk with your DH about it and see if you can think about things from his point of view?
Er, um, because it’s traditionally been the mother’s job to stay home with babies since the beginning of time, might explain it. Y’think?
Right on, Dogzilla.
I was gonna pop in to say that most of my friends have kids and the dads are all working working working all the time. They work overtime, they go on business trips, they do work events. Most of the moms work too but they are the ones stressing about how much time the kid is at the sitter, and getting dinner and chores done, and taking time off for the kids’ sake.
The dads don’t care. Nobody gives the dads shit about being at work so much. So why should the moms get crap about working away from home?
And that’s not to say that I don’t sympathize with the women who would prefer to be home. My best friend really surprised me when she revealed she’d much rather be at home with the kid than at work. This is a woman who has always been a workaholic. I think she surprised herself!
I’ve heard of child prodigies, but wow 
You’re feeling guilty because a part of you is falling for the idea that there’s One Right Way for a mother to bring up a kid, and every other way is wrong. That idea is thrown at us from just about every direction (specially by journalists who want to stir up controversy to get attention and by people who are selling books to teach us the One Right Way), even though the One Right Way is different every time, so we’d have to be superhuman not to get sucked into it a tiny bit.
And it’s targeted at mothers rather than fathers because you get much more of a reaction that way. Telling a woman she’s not a perfect mother is presented as equivalent to telling her she’s the devil; the huge emotional charge means she’s way more likely to buy your book or talk about your article or whatever. Tell a guy he’s not the perfect father, and he’s likely to shrug and say, ‘The kid’s happy, it’s healthy, it’s loved and I’ve never dropped it on its head. What’s the problem?’
IMO, here’s the one actual universal truth about child-raising methods: every family is different, which means that the right way to operate is different for each family. I cannot believe how many articles/people/general sources of blather seem to miss this. For some families, it absolutely is best if one parent stays at home. For other families, it absolutely isn’t. Your family seems to have found the right way for you. Everyone’s happy and growing. Congrats.
I work from home, and that’s the right way for us. I wouldn’t be happy not working, but neither would I be happy being away from the kid for 40+ hours a week. I feel incredibly lucky.
One quote I really like was from a mother who said she stopped talking to other parents in the part, since all the mothers would talk about was how guilty they felt and all the fathers would do is brag.
I have two girls including a toddler. I work at home. And I still get grief from it from a few assholes. One of my neighbors loves to imply that I’m a bad parent when I can’t drop everything in the middle of the day and run to whatever activity she thinks important for her kids. To hell with them all. Do what’s best for you. As long as it works for you and your family that’s great.
Even if we could afford to make it on one salary it would make crazy if I didn’t have an income of my own.
Some people aren’t meant to be stay at home moms. I think Betty Freidan wrote a whole book about the complex. But honestly - I mean, if you’re happy, the kid will be happy. I feel guilty now that my son is 7 that I didn’t know how to enjoy the wee years. But let’s face it - I’ll never be the type who thinks its a great job to change diapers and watch Elmo. Still, he’s about to turn 8 and I can’t help but to wonder if I’m ‘doing it right’. NOW the kid is hilariously fun and I’m super hands-on. Maybe I’m not a good parent?
One thing people are probably noticing is that if you’re home by 6, you’re missing most of his awake time. How many hours a week do you see your child? On weekends, are you refreshed and doing ‘weekend mom’ things? Are you working? Maybe that’s where the criticism is coming from.
I donno. If the kid is healthy and happy, who gives a shit?
I can’t possibly respond to everyone, but thanks so much for all the responses. It’s so helpful to hear from other WOHMs who don’t feel guilty! I’d love to meet some of you in real life! (Maybe my working mom support group just isn’t the right way to meet other working moms – they’re all there because they feel guilty and are having a hard time with work-life balance and all that.)
And it’s nice, too, to hear from SAHMs who aren’t judging and are just doing their thing. More power to you – caring for young 'uns all day by yourself truly requires talent, and I respect what you do!
I might just print this out and read it whenever I start caring too much (and assuming too much) about what other people think…
One other thing: I recommend the line ‘Wow, it’s fascinating how every family’s different, isn’t it?’ To be said cheerfully whenever anyone makes a snide comment about how u r doing it rong. Repeat as needed.
I’m sorry I didn’t get to this thread sooner.
When I had my daughter fifteen months ago, I quit my miserable, unsatisfying job to stay home with her. I had always wanted to be an earth-mother and housekeeper. Actually staying home caring for a baby has taught me a lot about myself. But let me focus on you:
Your son absolutely would have transitioned to longer naps and longer times between feeding if he’d continued at home with you. My daughter took 20 minute naps till she was four or five months, also. She ate every two hours, also. Eventually things change and it has nothing to do with the caretaker.
Feeling disappointed with yourself, your confidence, your ability to keep the baby happy, and the reality of being a SAHM is absolutely normal. I felt it too. I tried to pump too… I lasted four weeks. Pumping is twice the work, it’s the hardest thing you can do. If you want the rebuttal to these feelings, I think that this almost certainly does a good job of speaking for your baby. It’ll make you cry, too.
Boredom is absolutely normal. The little critters fracture your ability to concentrate on anything else, especially while the naps are frequent and short. Life actually improves as they take fewer and fewer naps. Your attention is still fractured though, and I cannot comprehend how anyone could care for a child without SOME kind of regular break from it, just so you can have your brain to yourself for a while. We began sending my daughter to daycare two mornings a week, to keep me sane. Even though I don’t work.
Lastly, from the perspective of a mom who is still staying at home, there’s a lot I envy you for. There was a good job for you to get. It’s enjoyable enough that you keep going. You get to wear nicer clothes, shop for nicer clothes, socialize more, and appreciate your time with your son more.
Maybe (in your copious free time) you’d enjoy reading Bring Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman. She discusses how almost all French women continue working after becoming mothers, and there is no hesitation about sending children to daycare. Good daycare is GOOD for kids. And good for your son.
It’s so awesome that you have a wonderful, fulfilling career. I’m jealous! That might be where some snide comments come from. I’m heartbroken that I have to return to a job I hate in 2 weeks- part time thankfully- leaving my baby with my husband. They haven’t quite figured each other out and she cries a lot with him, so I’m having a lot of anxiety about that. So hearing someone say that they love working honestly makes me feel jealous and bad for myself, which might make me say something insensitive. Not to hurt a happy working mother, but as an accidental leak of my own anxiety.
You will. My boss is about ten years older than I am, and her kids are six and eight years older than mine. And we talk a lot about being working moms, and what that has meant for our kids - generally in terms of advantages.
She’s done it differently than I have - her husband has been the primary parent (though he works) while she’s been the primary breadwinner. In my case, my husband has the career ladder climbing job, and I do the orthodontics appointments.
Whenever someone gives me the “You can’t have it all” lecture, I want to turn to the nearest guy I see and scold him for having the balls to think he can have both a career and a family. All these arrogant guys with their newfangled ideas are just ging to drive themselves into a life of ruin and regret, I’m telling you!