My Sister & Women Like Her are the Luckiest Mothers on Earth
October 16, 2006 by kate baggott
Filed under Baby Care, Finances, Mental Health
Nursery school, pre-school, kindergarten, babysitters and day cares.
Oh my.
This morning at work I was talking with a student who also has a four year-old who is in kindergarten (A German Kindergarten is like a North American pre-school for children ages 3 to 6) from 7:30 am to 1pm every day. My son, goes from roughly 8:30 to almost 4 from Monday to Thursday. On Fridays his Kindergarten closes at 3:30 and on the last Wednesday of every month at 1:30. The crazy schedule, though, is nothing compared to my worries that they let the kids run a little too wild or the fear I felt when I picked him up with a cut on his head after falling off the slide.
Still, Kindergarten is a breeze compared to our trouble with babysitters. Once, someone called Social Services to inform us that our son’s carer was an alcoholic.
Now that I am back at work and my son is in Kindergarten, I have been flying in a succession of relatives who have been taking care of the baby for month at a time. The only thing that makes me feel safe and secure enough to do my job is the fact that my daughter is with someone who loves her. Still, it is very expensive and I can’t write the cost of airfare, room and board, or financial gifts off on my taxes.
According to an article in the Guardian, I am not alone in my caregiver angst:
- The in-depth poll of 2,000 working mothers of under-fives has brought into focus the pressures many parents face. Only 23% of mothers say their company allows them paid time off if their child is ill, yet many children are unable to attend nursery even if they have a cold.
- A perceived lack of training among nursery staff is cited as a concern by three in 10 mothers, and a fifth say they have removed their child from nursery due to poor treatment of the infant.
- Ideally, according to the Childcare Survey of Great Britain 2006, mothers would like a nanny – but with wages reaching £650 a week in London, just one in 20 can afford it. However, even wealthy parents who have nannies are not immune from feeling guilty, with 86% worrying that their nannies are becoming closer to their children than they are. Overall, 83% of mothers are pleased with their nannies, who typically work 61 hours a week.
- Libby Rowley of the Discovery channel’s Home and Health TV programme, which commissioned the survey, said that what working mothers really wanted was “a wife” to care for their children at home when they were at work. Of the women questioned, 5% had a nanny, 3% shared a nanny, 44% used a nursery, 29% had a childminder, 15% relied on parents and 4% had a partner who was a house husband.
I know that the house husband, the adventures of one can be read about at Inside Fatherhood, is a great phenomenon. If you can afford to lose the second income. We went without my income for as long as we could, but I got tired of having holes in my shoes and worries about being able to afford to visit our families.
I wish, that I had the opportunities my sister has. Her oldest goes to pre-school two or three mornings a week to have a little social interaction and spent the rest of my sister’s work week with her grandmother. Now that my sister is on maternity leave again, both grandmothers are there to make sure she gets a rest.
I am really, really happy for my sister and other women with mothers and mothers-in-law of their own who are prepared to care for another generation of children (our own mother is still working). At the same time, I wish there were an easier solution for women like me with no one around.
I am one of the lucky ones – my parents are both retired, and they moved to my city to handle baby (now toddler) patrol while my husband and I work. Neither one of us earns enough to support the whole family, and even if one of us did, I’m not certain either one of us would be 100% thrilled to leave our jobs.
I must say, though, I would choose a daycare setting over an individual nanny or sitter. That way the child gets some social interaction with his/her peers, and while there might be less individual attention, there is more oversight of the caregivers.
You are lucky Ratphooey. I wish there was a daycare here for under 3 year-olds where I could trust that teachers were trained and properly supervised.
I’m one of the lucky ones too. A husband who works afternoons, a mother-in-law living in the same house who works in the mornings, being self-employed, and having my almost 4-year-old in kindergarten in the afternoons help a lot. I don’t know how we would have managed. We couldn’t have lived on my husband’s income alone (there’s a price to pay for working only afternoons), and I wouldn’t have liked our son to be with strangers while he was younger.
Here in Germany it all depends on where you’re living. In the Eastern part of Germany there’s usually marvellous daycare for children of all ages. It’s affordable too. In the Western part of Germany taking care of children under the age of three is considered to be a mother’s job. Only in the big cities there is daycare for babies or toddlers. Maybe you could found a private daycare thingy. A couple of parents sharing costs and responsibility…
Has anyone ever heard of staying home and taking care of their own children? We expect others to take care of our children and then are unhappy when they do not meet our expectations. People need to sort out their priorities and realize what is most important – the children, not money and “stuff.”
Hi Susanne- You are very lucky. I can imagine that parent initiatives work very well, but you have to be an established part of the community where you live with one person who knows how the adminstration works. That isn’t something an outsider like I am can create.
Kristin- I don’t think I am being materialistic by wanting to wear shoes that are full of holes and make sure that my kids see their grandmother and cousins once a year. And, I am not sure that seeing one parent being financially dependent on another person is especially healthy for children. I also don’t think it’s right to expect one parent to carry the entire financial burden. And, as for meeting my standards, I respect caregivers as trained professionals and I expect them to act like professionals.
Kristin, most working parents I know don’t work in order to buy “stuff.” We work to pay the mortgage and buy food.
Since I had my kids I have worked part-time. The cost of childcare alone would not be worth me going back to teaching full-time. I work part-time 4 days a week at a preschool where my kids attend. It has been very hard on us financially, but somehow we are making it work. The mortgage payment alone puts us hurting every month and we do not live in a big, fancy house.
I feel your pain. We moved here b/c of my husband’s job. We have NO family here. They all live hours away. My husband had surgery last week and it was all I could do to find sitters for the day. It was so stressful. It is rough not having some alone time. Getting sick is really hard on us. I remember about 2 years ago both of us were so sick that we could hardly get up out of bed. Our daughter was a toddler and we would take turns getting up to get her something to eat or drink while she ran around the house and played. We had no one to take care of her. Times like that really makes me miss my family.
Karen- Yup. That is what it’s like.
What makes it worse is that women who stay at home also find they need to make some money. Some of them have the patience to babysit other kids to earn that money. So, basically, they depend on working mothers too. In the end, I feel like I have to take care of not only my children, but that I have had to take on financial responsibility for the caregiver’s family too.
Lucky? They are blessed! I’ve had to do it all alone. My ex-husband is useless. I had to work outside the home and raise the 7 kids and you know what happened? Two of them failed almost every class….and that’s with them attending an after school program.
It really sucks that two incomes are needed in today’s world. I’m blessed that I found many ways to earn money blogging. The thought of returning to work makes me ill. Really, I’m the one that has to run to the doctor’s appts, supermarket runs (25 minutes one way), housecleaning, driving and food preparation. Oh, let’s not even mention the extracurricular activities…
I guess that’s why they call you SUPERMOM!
Even if you can find suitable childcare, it’s usually too expensive. It’s like you’re working so you can pay the babysitter!
Here via Carnival of Family Life.
Kailani,
Would you PLEASE stop reading my bank statements. Even I hate knowing where all my money goes…
Has anyone ever heard of staying home and taking care of their own children
Yes, Caren, we know it is an option for some women who don’t need to worry about earning a living and taking care of their families financially.