Did you enjoy your babies?

I enjoyed my babies enormously. I recall my mother telling me she had to leave work when she got married! She certainly found us all hard work with few labour saving devices and constantly scrimping and saving due to large mortgage. As a stay at home mum and mother and baby groupie we discussed endlessly whether it was okay to have a career and children. Nowadays young women don't have the choice. For all the economic reasons already mentioned young women have to work these days. My first dil trained as a childminder so that she could stay home and raise her own children - she enjoyed them as babies. Dil 2 has a career and this week my grandson has chickenpox and she doesn't have any personal days left (Australian system) so my son will take time off to look after him. All very stressfuj. A couple of years ago I took a couple of weeks off when she had 2 prolapsed intervertebral, discs and flew out to oz to mind the children. We had a lovely time, I had completely forgotten what hard work small children are and she was able to avoid surgery by lying in bed for those two weeks.
I recall noticing that having them young I had plenty of energy, whilst my sister who had hers at 40 & 42 was constantly exhausted but had enough money and was much calmer and less stressed than me - Swings and roundabouts.
I wonder if this generation of childcare babies and toddlers will grow up with the natural parenting skills which were attributed to being raised at home by our own mothers....

I enjoyed my babies and was quite laid back about them . I enjoyed them so much I started to foster babies who were to be adopted when my second child was 16 months old. My children seemed to accept that the babies would go to their own mummies soon and did not seem upset when they left ( unlike me ) . We used to take the children to the creche at our church and I handed in one baby and when asked how old he was had to admit he was a week old. Some time later one of the creche ladies asked my DS how his little brother was. " He has turned into a little sister " was the reply.

I had my three in the 80s, when I was 27,30 and 34 and loved every minute of it. I always had some sort of part time job, just a few hours, often from home (based on what I did before I had them)usually did the work once they were asleep. I was very involved with the local NCT which provided a good social network, and still have friends from those days. After the first few months they were pretty good sleepers and I dont remember being too tired. I didnt really have any help from GPs as they were all in their 70s by the time the kids arrived, though they did babysit occasionally. DH worked long hours at that time, but I did lots with the children and friends and the days passed in a happy blur! We joined a babysitting circle, and had teenagers babysitting - it never worried us, but my SiL was very reluctant to leave DGD with our friend's 19 year old daughter who was studying childcare when they visited from Australia! DD worked from when DGD was 1, 2 - 3 days a week but always seems tired - she is going to be a lot more tired when her twins arrive in a month or so!!

I wish I could have my babies all over again as I would appreciate them more now than I did then. I was a completely inexperienced young mum and found the whole thing very difficult and stressful until they were 18 months or so. We survived though, I'm pleased to say, and now they both have families of their own. I suppose I must have done something right.

I loved bringing up my three. I was lucky, in the 1970's, that I was able to stay at home. However, I worked 2/3 evenings a week in a fairly menial job that gave us that extra income, and DH was at home with them then. Even he had an extra part time job at one point to help out. My own DC's wouldn't dream of doing it that way.

I loved the baby stage. I had mine when 29yrs, 38yrs and 40yrs.
I was lucky enough to be able to be at home with them- I don't think that I would have enjoyed it half as much if having to balance work in.

I'm not at all a baby person. I found the first six months just hard work and had PND with my first. Just dealt with them until they got to six months and had become proper little people with characters. After a late miscarriage I quickly had three between 25 and 29 with a couple more miscarriages thrown in. I childminded too as I enjoyed children so much but never had one under seven months old!

I fear child rearing comes as a bit of a shock to a lot of this generation as they don't seem to have grown up sufficiently, still expecting to have money to spend on themselves and time for themselves. I don't know if it's because they stay in education longer - or whether we were the same and I just thought we were more mature.

They do want it all, don't they? Many of them seem to get it as well!

I do hope most mums (and dads) enjoy their babies.

However, I do feel that there is now a section of "mums" who for some reason need to be soooo busy and sooooooo stressed and to publicise the fact through social media at every opportunity. I don't know if they are looking for sympathy or trying to be sooooo much busier than everyone else as some kind of oneupmanship.

I feel sorry for them as I'm sure they are not fully enjoying their babies and children.

They are called the 'snowflake' generation but I think they have got so used as children to being the centre of everyone's consideration that they think they are martyrs when they grow up and discover that some things in life are hard work.

We never expected life to be given to us on a plate so accepted the ordinary ups and downs of life, including that bringing up children is time consuming and hard work but worth it.

But the young mums I know are cery busy: off to work at 7:15, maybe home at 6:00, weekends doing the chores, playing with kids,keeping up with family and friends. My life in mid 79s/80s was busy as a working mum too but financial.pressures are tougher now.

Did I enjoy my babies? Nope. When they were school age... well a bit more. As adults I am surprised to find I quite like them (in small doses). Same with grandchildren. I refuse to be defined by being a mother, or a grandmother..... I am me. I think my 'laissez-faire' attitude means I don't suffer from angst if I don't see them for a few weeks, I don't expect them to go overboard for my birthday and I never offer advice. That way we all stay friends. I do often wonder why I have joined Gransnet

NotTooOldI am with you,I was a terrible mother i just had no idea. I was on my own so much as OH had to do shift work and sometimes he never saw the kids for a week. When i look back i could cry. I would love to be a mum now as with hindsight i would do things so differently. But i suppose in years to come the mums and dads of today wil probably say the same thing!!!!

I must add they are all fine adults, working and getting on with their lives, i have three beautiful grand children and i can do all the things with them i missed out on with my own children.

I had my three between age 29 and 34. I'm not sure if I enjoyed them, having a husband working away (and having affairs as it turned out). I just got on with it! There was never any money as he spent it all. I remember pretending not to like tea or coffee at playgroup as I could not afford the 2p for a drink. I also took them out for walks a lot to avoid heating the house and I made a flask of hot water for drinks in the morning, to last all day.
When he decided to give up work I had to go back to pay off the debts he incurred. The youngest started school after this and my ex spent most of the day in the pub. I still had to come home and cook meals, clean etc etc. I finally gave up and 'threw him out' when the youngest was 7. I can't see many young mums these days putting up with this and I am embarrassed that I did!!

Life has never been easy as a single parent as he made no contribution, financial or otherwise, after he left and never kept in touch with his children. I am very close to my children and grandchildren and he does not know them. His loss!

I'm not looking for sympathy as I'm sure a lot of my generation went through similar and just accepted it. Changing times.