The things people say (a NYE vent)
kgrobot
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A couple of my SAHM friends (and even those who are back working full time after staying at home for a few years) keep telling me "Oh I bet you'll decide not to go back to work once that baby gets here!" even though I have put in for my maternity leave and have no plans to leave my job, which I keep telling them. I hadn't actually thought about not coming back to work until I got pregnant and people eventually asked about it.
The thing that annoys me about it is that I really CAN'T stay home with my son--financially, it doesn't make sense for our family at all. I'm not planning on coming back to work because I don't WANT to be home with my baby, or because I think it's not going to be hard to drop him off at daycare at first. Of course I do and of course it is! But it just isn't an option for us right now.
I don't know if they keep insisting that I will "change my mind once I see the baby" because that was their experience and they just can't imagine someone being in a different position, but I just find it super annoying that it keeps coming up. Some people just don't have the option of just quitting their jobs the second they have a baby.
Aside from the pay cut that my husband and I would have to deal with from me quitting, I also live in an area where finding a job that does not require an hour commute is difficult, and I currently work 10 minutes from my home AND from my daycare provider. I'd be worried that even if I did decide to stay home, I would not be able to find something else this close to my children when I was ready to go back to work.
I guess it just makes me feel weird when people say that. Like I'm not going to be as good a mom or as in love with my baby if I decide to come back to work.
Anyway, enough of that--just grumping! 
Happy New Year's everyone!
Re: The things people say (a NYE vent)
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Staying home would not be financially possible for us. When I hear comments from friends such as, 'oh, I could never put my child in day care. I don't want someone else to take care of my child.' Those comments hurt sometimes.
Other times they make me laugh when I hear complains such as, 'oh, my husband won't let me spend money on a pedicure because he is so cheap.' Maybe having an income of your own would solve that problem
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I kind of wish that someone had said something like this to me. I was completely unprepared for how difficult it would be. Everyone I knew acted like it was NBD to work FT and take care of a couple of kids.
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PgAL and PAL always welcome...I got this one too. It is pretty rotten! I hate the implication that when that baby comes and I make the decision to work I have to evaluate what is wrong with me since I don't immediately have the urge to drop my career!
You're not the only one though. DH and I could possibly manage me being a sahm, but I don't want to give up the extra (albeit few) luxuries we have with both of us working. Plus, I like the satisfaction of working, and I like DD seeing me as a working woman!
Welcome to parenthood.
Everyone one step or more ahead of you is going to be telling you what you're definitely going to change your mind about from now until you die.
You're going to change your mind about nursing, or cloth diapers, or binkies, or sleep-training, or snack policy, or artificial dyes, or television, or discipline method, or private school, or allowance... and then if you do change your mind, a different set of parents will tell you you're going to change your mind back.
Just gotta learn to smile, nod, and move on.
The assumption that every mom has that choice is maddening.
Since these are your friends and not just aquaintances I would be frank with them and tell them that you really want to stay home but can't. At least not without struggling and experiencing a lot of financial uncertainty. They should be able to understand that. It's simply just not always do-able that a mom can stay home.
If they were aquaintances or work friends, I would definitely smile and nod.
This is something I just never understood. I had a couple of men tell me this actually. "Oh, my wife just couldn't do it so she decided to stay home with the baby." To me it just doesn't make sense. Either you can afford to stay home or you can't. And I can't so I have to leave my baby whether I like it or not.
Those are 2 of the 4 options. The other two are: 3) women who can afford to stay home, but don't anticipate that that will be the best solution for their family, and 4) women who think they can't afford to stay home, and then find that their desire to be home makes them look at their budget more aggressively. There are a lot of women in those categories. IRL, I know a LOT of 4s.... though often they wait until kid #2 to quit, so they have some time to adjust things financially.
This is exactly it.
You want to hear something laughable? My friend called herself a working mom because she teaches ONE spin class per week. Same friend who gave me the "wait and see, you'll change your mind" speech and commented that she "just thinks you should spend as much time as possible with your child". Um....ok. Until now I've held back, but next time she makes some similarly stupid comment I'm going to throw my salary in her face. (Actually I'm not because I'm terrified karma would come back to bite me in the $$....which is why pp's quote is perfect!)
I get pretty annoyed with these comments too. I often get "Don't you miss her?" and no one asks my husband these things even though he earns less than half of what I do, so if either of us were to stay home, it would have to be him.
I was inspired by an interview with Hillary Clinton. The interviewer asked her what her favorite designer labels were and she responded "Would you ever ask a man that question?" "No" "Then why ask me?" and then they moved onto the next topic.
I don't necessarily think women & men are exactly the same when it comes to family dynamics but how the differences play out in my family aren't really anyone's business, so that's how I plan to respond next time I feel people are getting out of line.
All those women who say, "oh I didn't want someone else raising my baby", I always wonder, well their husbands work, does that mean their husbands aren't raising their children? That kind of attitude completely dismisses the contributions of their working spouse. Parenting isn't something you do 9-5, it's something you do ALL.THE.TIME, whether you're currently in the same room with your child or not.
This whole debate makes me nauseous, because there's no one right way to feel about it! I went back to work, and it was hard - I cried. And it's still hard. Some days I feel like a great mother, and some days I feel like a great employee, but they never seem to be the same days. This whole work/life balance beam is tricky! BUT! I'm still glad doing it. Financially I need to work, but even so, I like my job, and I like contributing to my family this way, while also having something for myself. And honestly, my baby gets WAY more out of spending her days in "school" with her 18-year veteran, early childhood ed certified teachers, than she would out of spending her day in the carseat tagging along with me on errands.
I've never been questioned about my choices (although maybe that's cuz my choices seem to be the choices of everyone else I know) but I think you just need to make your decision and then OWN it. People will only question you if you let them.
Really? Ok I'm sorry that I came off that way. Fwiw I'm very comfortable with my choice to work and I am grateful that I have that choice. I still think her calling herself a working mom is ludicrous.