Nannies: something needed? Or should parents who choose to have children also rear them?

[SheilaT]

85. How about the parents who

can't afford nannies and send their kids to day care or have Grandma take care of them? Does that also make you vaguely disgusted?

I was myself a stay at home mom and I loved it, and I think more mothers maybe could/should stay home. But that's me. I am not generally privy to the nitty-gritty of anyone else's childrearing decisions. Sometimes money is the main consideration, sometimes a career is the main consideration, sometimes it's something else.

Personally, I never had a job that I particularly liked, and I really loved all the things I got to do with my kids during those years. Again, that's just me. Maybe if I'd had the right sort of job I'd have preferred to work. We all make choices, and we almost all have certain regrets; that's to be expected. But we do what we do and it doesn't help to have others judging those choices.

Note: There are fewer things that can get me more riled up than the attempt to play moms with jobs outside the home against moms who are just moms. Unless it's the those with children vs those without. As I said in another thread recently, there is no one right way to go through life. Everything involves a trade-off.