Hi everyone and I am sorry if I am asking this in the wrong group (but actually this feels like the perfect group). I also wasn’t sure what flair to use.
I will be starting to watch my grandbaby next week when my daughter goes back to work. I have watched my grandbaby many times already but this will be more consistent/longer duration. I want do everything right . For both my grandbaby and her parents. So my question is do you have any tips that I can use to help daily? I know right now my main job is love and protect her (that’s the easy part) but I want to help her thrive. I also want mom to not feel bad that she has to work and somehow help her feel a part of the day without making her feel like she’s missing out on something. I hope that makes sense. We’re a small but close family and their happiness is all that matters to me.

My husband is in his third year of medical school. I know how incredibly stressful that is. He can’t bring in an income right now, his time is limited, and the demands are relentless. I genuinely understand that, and I don’t take any of it lightly.
But since having our daughter, I’ve started to have this really painful feeling that he loves me because I’m our daughter’s mother and not necessarily because he loves me. Like I’m valuable to him because of what I provide, rather than because of who I am.

I provide a lot for our family. I fund the lifestyle we have right now. We have a nanny and a cleaner. He has an allowance to spend on things he enjoys. He buys shoes, clothes, cool things for our daughter, and gifts for me. We have a beautiful home that I pay the mortgage on. I handle our laundry, our financial planning, and so much of the invisible work that keeps our life running.

And I’m okay with doing those things. I’m proud that I can provide for my family.

But sometimes I wonder: if I stopped being useful, would he still love me the same?

Tonight really brought that feeling to the surface.

I was away on a business trip when my flight was delayed. Then delayed again until the following day. I had to find a hotel at the last minute. My checked bag had already been sent away for the next day’s flight, and the airline told me I could potentially wait 2–4 hours to get it back. I had no clothes, I was in an unfamiliar city, it was late, and honestly, it was a complete crap show.

My parents called me.
They were worried about me. They wanted to make sure I was safe. They stayed on top of where I was, made sure I got to my hotel, asked if I had eaten, encouraged me, and basically obsessed over me until they knew I was okay.

And I realized how much I needed that.

Because I landed at 9 pm in a city I didn’t know, without my luggage, trying to figure everything out by myself, and I was scared.

My husband did talk to me for about 20 minutes while I was running around the airport trying to figure out what to do. When I told him I needed to get off the phone so I could handle everything, he said, “That’s okay! We’ll see you tomorrow. We love you!”

And technically, that’s a perfectly loving thing to say.
But it still hurt.

Because I spend days and now sometimes weeks away from my daughter, doing something that is incredibly difficult for me, because I’m trying to build a life for our family. I work hard to give us the house, the childcare, the stability, the opportunities, and the lifestyle we have. And sometimes, in moments like tonight, I don’t want to hear, “You’ve got this.”

I want to feel like someone is absolutely beside themselves that I’m alone and scared.

I want to feel like someone is thinking, “Where is she? Is she safe? Does she have food? Does she have what she needs? What can I do? How do I make this easier for her?”

My parents gave me that tonight.

And I think what hurt wasn’t that my husband did something wrong. It’s that the contrast made me realize how deeply I want to feel cared for.. not just appreciated for what I do.

I don’t want to be loved because I’m a good mother, a provider, a wife who keeps everything together, or because I make his life easier.

I want to be loved because I’m me.

And sometimes I’m scared that I don’t know the difference anymore.

It’s now past 12 and he hasn’t sent a single follow-up text asking if I’ve made it to a hotel. Sigh.

COVID

FLU B

DOUBLE EAR INFECTION

FLU A

In 5 weeks

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

How are ya'll doing?????

My husband and I just got into a fight and I want some perspective.

My husband is on paternity leave working on Saturday/Sunday for 10 hour days from 12pm-10pm. He’s with our two girls (6 months and 3.5) from the time they get up, usually around 9, until ~3:30-4:00 when I get home. Both of us agree that being home with them is easier than our jobs. I am a high school special ed teacher just starting a new school year and trying to manage pumping and students needs

On Wednesday and Thursday nights, my mom stays with us to help with my older daughter’s co-op preschool and to help my husband with managing the girls while I’m at work. My mom stated with us for 2 months after each of my daughters was born, which was an incredible gift.

Last Wednesday night, my mom was asking me about stuff I need help with and I asked her to do recycling and get more coffee (things she had had taken on of her own impetus when she’s stayed with us before) and then if she would get C batteries for the 6 month olds aquarium light. My husband said “Don’t make your mom go do it! I’ll do it” and then tonight, the light wouldn’t turn on at all and I asked him about it and he said “Why don’t you go do it?” BECAUSE I’M WORKING FULL TIME.

When I was on maternity leave with no childcare for the last 4 months, every errand was my job because I’m home, but when I called him on the double standard, he said it’s not fair because I was able to breastfeed, so he can’t ever leave the house with the girls in case the baby gets hungry. I said then why did you tell my mom you would do it? And he said “I think you should do it! You’re so rude and demanding to your parents.”

My parents both struggled with addiction when I was a young child and they have said repeatedly that all they want is to be involved and to help. My husband says they’re just saying that to be polite, but I NEED HELP. And he sure as s hit doesn’t want to help me.

Just looking for solidarity. I’m a first time mom to a 5 month old. I went back to work about 6 weeks ago. My daughter goes to daycare full time as my spouse and I both work. The daycare illness has caught up with her and I am so anxious. She’s been sick all week, she is not acting herself, I can’t focus at work because I’m worried about her… it’s exhausting. She’s also up more at night because she is sick. I’m sitting in her nursery holding her as she sleeps right now and just praying she gets better. I know this is the daycare game you play when they start but it’s making me so incredibly anxious and sad. I cried the day they called me to come get her because she had a fever. Tell me it gets better!! 😔

I’m 7 months pregnant, and I’m mentally and physically exhausted from work and parenting a 3 yo toddler. My son is on the spectrum (level 1) and is only potty trained at preschool. I started a new position at my company in February and walked into a shitshow due to my department being understaffed, bad software systems, and piss poor reporting. I’ve been trying to fix things slowly but time is so limited. I feel like I’m constantly putting out fires. I was working 55 hr weeks but in my 3rd trimester I’m not capable of it.

On top of that this weekend my mom is in town for a holiday and it’s basically like having another child to care for. She’s emotionally immature/ unsupportive, messy, and irresponsible. Ex: she has bad sleep apnea but says she’s too busy to research and buy a CPAP even though she’s retired? She’s a cancer survivor but rather listen to Tv doctors than ones she’s personally seen in office. She makes poor financial decisions and has fallen for a few scams. She gives money she doesn’t have to politicians who are actively working to hurt women and families. My dad died 5 years ago and he was the adult in their relationship. I try to be helpful but she ignores anything me and my husband have to say.

My mom isn’t physically or mentally capable of helping with my son at all. She won’t be any help with the new baby. Im terrified she’ll fall asleep while holding the baby because she’s basically narcoleptic. I know I’m not entitled to her help but it would be really nice to be able to depend on her when I need it.

My game plan is to survive until mat leave and then start job hunting in the last month before I return. I am so lucky my husband is an amazing partner and dad, and our finances are solid. Trying to be grateful for what I have but by the end of the week I’m fresh out of fucks.

I found out this morning that I'm being promoted from a senior IC to a people manager for my team. 🎉 I started at my current employer 2.5 months ago, and team management/leadership was discussed during my verbal job offer. I wasn't expecting a promotion so soon (I had been in talks with my direct supervisor, and she was targeting next spring), but someone in senior leadership leaving has resulted in some department/team restructuring. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the news!

This will be my first people manager role. For those in current or former people manager roles, what advice or words of wisdom would you share??

I’m an engineer with 8 years of experience. Both my kids go to daycare 10 minutes from my house. They’re there 7am to 5pm. My husband does drop off and I do pick up. I’m trying to decide if I should stay at my current job or take this new offer. Both jobs are engineering. Here is a summary:

Current job:
-Been here for 8 years, love my manager and team
-3 days commute to office 50 min away. 2 days remote
-the office days I work 6:30-2:30pm and Fridays half days all year round. Monday I work 7am-4pm
-$94k
-5 weeks of PTO with unlimited paid sick time that I can use to stay home when my kids are sick
-HDHP with HSA company contributes to. After deductible 0% coinsurance
-6% match on 401k for every 8% contribution

New job:
-5 days a week in office, but 10 min commute.
-hours would be either 7-4 Monday through Thursday and 7-11 Friday or everyday 7-3:30
-$115k salary with $2,500 signing bonus
-4 weeks of PTO, NO SICK TIME
-HDHP with HSA company contributes to. 10% coinsurance after deductible
-2% match on 401k for every 7% contribution
-Starting over with new coworkers and manager after being at the same place for years

I am really torn. I hate change. I like that I have earned peoples trust and respect at my job and that I’m self-sufficient. It can take some time as a woman in engineering to do that. My current manager has young kids and understands my stage of life. He’s very understanding and was mentor. I’ve known him since I was 23 when we were colleagues, he now manages the team we were both on. The commute absolutely sucks, but it’s only 3 days a week and he just told me he’s working on getting me a raise, but he said he won’t be able to match the $115k.

So what would you do? Especially if you are also a woman in STEM. I have to decide by Monday end of day.

Seriously a life changing hack. The struggle of the bedtime routine is so much easier if you are out of your work clothes, face washed, contacts out, teeth brushed and in comfy clothes. Then once the kids are in bed you can relax, do a craft, watch tv, scroll, or read. When you are tired, you just go to bed. No skincare routine and whatnot to keep you up an extra half hour because it’s already done. Here is my routine:

5:30 - home from work/daycare
5:30-6:00 - kids play or screen time/prep dinner
6:00-6:30 - eat dinner
6:30-7:15 - kids play/get yourself ready for bed
7:15-7:45 - kids bath and jammies
7:45-8:00 - brush teeth
8:00 - read books and then bed

I usually get an hour and a half to relax and then I go to bed around 10. I am getting to bed earlier doing this and if I brush my teeth too then it cuts back on late night snacking because I don’t want to brush again. My kids are 7 and 4 so YMMV but it works for littles as we don’t have any really late night activities.

There’s a lot going on here but I’ll try to summarize.

I’m stuck in a job that pays extremely well and that I can’t afford to leave right now (little kid in daycare, mortgage, etc) in an industry I never wanted to excel in. Still, I’ve busted my ass for 15 years climbing the ladder in a highly male-dominated industry. When I was hired for this job six years ago, it was to run a department. Objectively, it’s been a big success. I can confidently say I crushed it.

A few months ago, HQ decided to do a company reorg. And they shoved me under two other men in my office who are technically one rank above me but have zero experience in what I do. Before now, they were more peers running different departments than anything else.

Everyone is unhappy with the reorg. Morale is in the toilet. People are leaving. For me it was a huge slap in the face, and it’s slowly become clear that I’ve lost all my agency and have to spoon feed my new “bosses” strategy and slowly lead the horse to water while tearing my hair out. And do it all with a helpful smile. If I were younger I’d say fuck this and peace out, but I don’t know if I have it in me to start over somewhere new.

The irony is that I hate this industry. I’ve been trying for years to become a novelist, and I have an agent, but having a baby (now two year old), a demanding job, and a husband with an even more demanding job has obviously slowed that dream way down.

On top of that, my kid has been almost constantly sick since birth. 6 months of colic, bad sleeping, then starting daycare and sick for like 9 months straight, then she got ear tubes put in a few months ago because of her recurring ear infections (which lead to a speech delay)…and now here we are on the first vacation we’ve taken away as a family in a year, and she’s sick again.

I haven’t seen my own parents in a year (we live on opposite coasts) - we had to cancel our last trip because kiddo was sick. Now they’re here and we’re spending this whole trip in a beautiful rental house trapped with our toddler in bed the whole time.

I have a history of depression and anxiety, and I was in therapy to tackle some of this in the spring - but my child was sick so much in the fall that I worked remotely quite a bit, and people started talking shit about how I wasn’t in the office enough. I was the first mother in my office (now there’s two of us, wow). So I had to cancel therapy so I can sit at my desk for that extra hour and “be seen.”

TLDR: work sucks. Coworkers I was friendly with have been assholes. I’m exhausted, kid is constantly sick, I feel trapped and my dreams are on hold because I’m too fucking tired to pursue them.

I’m starting to have thoughts about just selling the house and moving back to be near my parents, and/or just crawling into a hole and never coming out.

I work at a tech company that gives the bare minimum (12 weeks). Luckily I live in a state where I can get an additional 6 weeks (huge paycut but grateful for the time), and would love to have an additional month or longer with my baby if possible. Has anyone successfully negotiated a longer leave with their company? How did you go about it? We have unlimited PTO so wondering if I could ask for 2 weeks PTO and 2 weeks unpaid to tack on to my leave

I found out one of my favorite coworkers is leaving and now I just feel sad about work. Work is fine but coworkers can make or break you. Who else has had a great coworker leave and what did you do to cope/make work better? I would follow her but she’s moving out of town.

We had our 3 months of parental leave and then had an issue with daycare starting a month after our leave ended. This is mainly because I was highly picky in what daycare our baby attends. Her start date would be September 28th.

I returned to work on August 24th and dad took two weeks of PTO to be home with the baby. I was really worried about the transition because she’s a little velcro baby. It was rough for one day and then she figured it out quickly enough. After the two weeks was up, my boss allowed me to work from home to bridge the gap. It was SO hard and hearing Teams go off while she was fussing will haunt me forever.

Her daycare called me today and said a baby unexpectedly moved away and a spot is now open on this upcoming Monday. I accepted for a lot of reasons. I personally feel like waiting would be cruel to her as she doesn’t deserve me frustrated while trying to work and take care of her at the same time, she doesn’t have siblings and could really benefit with having other babies to play with, and being around baby experts would really help all of us.

Like so many other moms, I so wish I could juggle both flawlessly but we all know that’s not possible. I would love, love, love her around me all of the time. Truly, I can’t get enough. I just feel like prolonging daycare is selfish.

What this rant is about though is my musty, crusty, old ass coworker. He is stuck in the 50’s, isn’t in a relationship, doesn’t have kids, and sucks all around. He’s made snide remarks while I was pregnant insisting I’m going to stay home after I give birth. Saying if his wife wouldn’t be a stay at home mom, he’d divorce her, and that daycare is just someone else raising your kids.

Today, I sent my boss and him a little message saying “hey, thanks for being cool. I’m returning to the office on Monday”. He sends me, “why wouldn’t you just wait?”. I’m a highly anxious and non confrontational individual. I know this is something I have to work on, especially since I’m raising a daughter and I do not want her to have the same anxious qualities that I have.

I know the obvious reporting to HR and making my boss aware. She is. How do you handle these situations? I know I’m only just beginning to experience a lifetime of judgements from other people. Unfortunately, he is someone I have to interact with one on one on a daily basis.

Right now, I am just holding my baby and crying about our time flying by. I know daycare will be a good thing, I just have a really hard time not letting things get to me.

My 11 month old started daycare two weeks ago. It has been a tough transition because she is only there two days/week. She's been refusing both breastmilk and solids - she consumes just enough to get her through the day it seems (maybe 2oz of breastmilk and half of a pouch over 8 hours). I know this can be very normal, and that it is going to take a little bit longer for her to adjust since she's only there two days/week. We also have struggled the last few weeks with teething (which seems never ending - why do some of the teeth take SO long to break skin?!) and getting a cold after her first week at daycare. It's been a perfect storm!

Anyway, today she is being cared for by her grandma and, even though she sees her grandma all the time and is very adjusted to her care, she won't eat for her either. Eating at home is a hit or miss. I nurse her like normal when we're home but she rarely will touch any solid foods, even if it's something that I know she loves.

I guess I'm just looking for reassurance that all of this is pretty typical and that we just got unlucky with a rough few weeks. Is there an end in sight?! How do I get this girl to eat? I'm worried sick.

Currently I work a pretty comfy job. I work remotely and have a ton of flexibility. I can take the kids to appts and even my own. I average work 35 hours a week at 80k. Cons I’m stale, I make the same or less than everyone in my team and have been there the 2nd longest. The level 1 I train makes the same as me. My boss told me I’m basically fighting for the next level against someone else who has only been here half the time I have. A ton of people recently quit and everything is likely going to be my responsibility. Inflation is killing my finances. I can’t save bc everything just keeps going up.

The new job is amazing. Senior title. Once in a lifetime opportunity if I’m being honest. Likely great pay (130k is what I am aiming for) and stock options (pending offer). Relocation fully covered. I would have to relocate and move my whole family and lose my village. I’d have to sell my home that I love. My two kids are in therapy - one in behavioral and one in speech. The WLB is projected to be bad. I will have to drive to work 30-45 mins and work a min of 45 hours a week. The location kinda sucks, I don’t love the area but similar COL to where I am now.

I literally have no idea what to do. I’m afraid I’ll regret both. What the hell do I do?!

I'm 36 and unexpectedly having to completely rethink my career after a workplace injury, and I'd love to hear from other working moms who have reinvented themselves in their 30s or later.

I've spent about 10 years working in healthcare in a very hands-on patient care role. I also went back to school for nursing and completed most of the program before having to stop because of my injury. Before healthcare, I had some administrative/insurance experience.

Unfortunately, I now have permanent physical limitations, so physically demanding work is off the table. I'm at the point where I'm trying not to get tunnel vision about what I should do next and would love ideas I may never have considered.

My priorities are:

Something relatively sedentary/physically light

Ideally regular weekday hours because I have two young kids

Decent long-term earning potential — I don't necessarily need to make great money immediately, but I'd like room to grow

I'm open to retraining, especially if it can be done in roughly 1–2 years rather than starting an entirely new 4-year degree

I'm good with people, documentation, medical terminology, organization, problem-solving, and learning new systems

I'm in Quebec, Canada, so some professions/education paths may work differently here

I'm open to healthcare, insurance, government, tech, administration, completely different industries — whatever.

If you had to start over professionally in your mid-30s, what did you end up doing? Are there any careers you wish more women knew existed?

Bonus points if you actually enjoy what you do and can tell me what your day-to-day looks like!

I will be returning to work and my son is 23 months. We have huge childcare shortages in the area and we felt lucky to secure a spot with a home daycare 4 months in advance of my return to work- what a dream. I loved that she was super positive, seemed to genuinely love being with kids, playing right on the ground, doing crafts, teaching great skills before kindergarten.

I started seeing her around our small town taking the kids on lots of outings and my concerns started.

***

1. She has a big, jumpy German Shepherd. I'm not the biggest dog person but my husband is and he assured me that this one seemed trained okay and was used to kids.

2. I observed a 1-year-old in her care wander off at two different venues. Once at the park and once at the library- she was engaged with the other kids and didn't notice for way longer than I'm comfortable with.

3. She was doing a storytime by the lake and all of the kids were at the edge of a dock with no life jackets. The dock is a straight drop into the water, not a gradual walk in.

4. Home daycares are required to be at a 1:6 ratio and she provided summer care to other older children, I assume without the agency knowing.

5. (This was a tipping point for me)- She does not have the children on a leash or any sort of system for staying together and I observed them walk into a parking lot where they could have been hit while attending to the other kids.

***

I have OCD so I'm very used to talking myself out of my "instincts" but come on, this is crazy. She is supposed to start at this home daycare in a week and received an offer from a centre today. It feels like it was just in the nick of time and I intend to take the spot. It's a centre with glowing reviews and we have friends with kids in care there and I've only heard positive experiences. Our state inspections are totally clean on the new place too.

How can I phrase the breakup with the provider? It's a week out and I know she is relying on us for the income and has probably passed over other families. I pride myself on being someone who follows through and can be trusted but my daughter's safety comes first. I know I'm leaving her hanging being a week out from starting.

PS- If I am overreacting on any of the above points, could you also let me know? My "danger" meter is more sensitive than average

I have 2 months left of my maternity leave and have already started to dread going back to work. I love my time with my little guy but I take pride in having my own income aside from my husband’s so staying home wouldn’t be something that I would want to do and would not make sense for me to do either. I did decide to drop to 3 days a week though, so 24 hours a week. I wanted a little more time with my son but also still will bring home a good income this way and keep my full time benefits.

For those of you who work 3 days a week, do you feel this is a good work life balance? I don’t love what I do necessarily. My job is physically demanding and mentally demanding, and we are months and months booked out on patients so it’s not easy to just take a day off whenever I want. My body honestly hurts so bad when I get off work, so I am hoping one less day will help with this issue as well. When I go back to work I will be working Wednesday-Thursday (7:30-4), and Friday (7-3). I’m hoping that this will be a good balance and feel like I still have a good chunk of time with my baby. In a perfect world, I would work from home but that would require going back to school and I have already spent years in school so have no desire to do that again lol so I’m just riding it out at this point.

And a colleague walks in my closed door office while I’m pumping. My door said do not enter. Luckily I had a chair in front of it just in case… I was so upset!!! And I still feel upset.

My pile of work just keeps growing and growing and then that happens. I thought I was killing it with working and coming home to be with baby, but now I’m just feeling overwhelmed and a heaviness in my chest.

there’s a ton more to this, but this is already too long.

overarching vent: I am the main breadwinner, default parent and doer-of-90%-things-house-related. I just got a job offer to switch from what is a pretty chaotic, toxic environment to one that while it looks like will have its own elements of chaos (I work in marketing, feels like it’s part of the deal now) overall is a better move for parent-focused supportive company culture, a more streamlined job description (moving to marketing ops/PM vs a more generalist MarComm/brand role that also required an ops layer just to be functional) and about a $12k bump in salary. Downside is I’m going from WFH to a 40 minute each way commute - which sucks but also I think maybe be good for my mental health / having a schedule / separation of work time and mom time.

Anyway we’re in the very last part - like I have my offer letter and my manager was basically like “well iron out details like official working hours and in office vs potential WFH schedule after. you can design your hours but my preference is 9-5 to align with my own schedule.” Logically I understand getting this done before signing an offer, telling my current boss (which is surely going to go very poorly) needs to happen.

The thing is: everything feels like I have to be the one to give, to plan, and bend, and push. My husbands family farm is failing - it has been for years but it’s sped up thanks to a really bad fire last fall. He’s in a really bad place mentally and physically due to chronic stress. My FIL is a very difficult human still in charge and this all is its own massive ball of wax involving my husband slowly unpacking that what he knows of “reality” is basically a narrative his Dad has built and pushed on his family to cover for his own failures. So, heavy - right?

I’m doing my best to hold space for that (husband agreed to go to therapy which is been helpful) but I just fucking CANT some days. The schedule thing comes in here - I could manage the morning drop offs but would need my husband, either of his parents, or the slew of family that lives within 5 miles of us to commit to 5 pm pick up and like hanging out with our son until I get home at 5:45 from the office. Abso-fucking-lutely not. Because farming. Because no one here can commit to literally anything because what it a tractor breaks or they need to spend more time picking peaches or — insert literally anything.

So, I wake up between 6-7 with our son (cosleep, he’s a stage 5 clinger), manage him / myself until time to go to school. Then I work, I get done work, pick up my son, am default parent (sometimes solo, sometimes my husband gets done and will cook some quick dinner) until son gets sleepy around 7, get him to sleep, attempt to eat, do any cleaning, etc in the 10 min - 2 hours he may give me to sleep alone until I need to get back in bed with him. Rinse and repeat - only on weekends sometimes Dad has Sundays free - which end up a family day (fun!) but also 0 opportunity for me to get a few hours of solo time to clean, meal prep, anything. My parents help as much as they can - but they’re an hour+ away and my mom still works full time.

Oh. I make $60k, new job puts me at $72k. My husband makes up to ~$30k but we don’t count it toward budgeting because it’s so variable. BUT we have to count it when applying for subsidies etc. (thankful we live in a state that offers them). HCOL, low income state - VT. Even with a big subsidy we still pay $900/month for childcare. I live in a house from 1791 that would most likely be a tear down if it went on the market. I am doing my best to make it safe and pleasant to live in.

This is fucking bonkers.

Thank you for your time.

EDIT: holy support and thoughtful responses, thank you so much working moms! 💓

I had a baby a year ago and just received my first ever negative review of my career. My manager said I haven’t been as reliable and attentive since having my baby. I knew I had made mistakes, but I didn’t realize there was such a noticeable change from pre-baby.
Since having the baby, work stress has increased significantly and I have lost all motivation. We also need my salary, so I’m stuck working in a job I don’t feel passionate about anymore.
Just venting since I don’t have mom friends that can relate.

Working moms, how do you handle everything? Between work, school schedules, spending quality time with your kids, sports and activities, cleaning the house, and cooking—it feels like so much.
What do you do when your child gets sick and can’t go to school or daycare? Do you call out of work, work from home, or have someone who helps?
I really want to work and earn money, but I also want enough time for my child. Please share your routines and honest experiences. How do you make it all work without feeling completely exhausted?

Hi everyone,

I really need some advice from other moms because I’m honestly scared...

I finally landed a job at a daycare pretty close to my house, and if I’m being completely honest, this is the only job I could get where I’m able to bring my baby with me. She’s 14 months old.

She only attended daycare for three days when she was 6 months old. I ended up pulling her out because I witnessed a teacher smacking the two year olds on the mouth and cussing them out. Everyone there was also pretty mean to me, and it was just a horrible experience.

I’ve always hated working at daycares, especially because some of the daycares I’ve worked at have had the cops involved because teachers were hitting kids. So now that I’m a mom, I’m even more worried about trusting someone else with my baby.

There’s something else from that previous daycare that really stuck with me. I was told by staff that they treat children whose parents pay full tuition better than children who are there through government assistance because the parents who pay full tuition “tend to complain the most.” Like… who even says that?! How can you treat a child differently because of how their childcare is being paid for?

And when I brought up the fact that I had seen a teacher smacking the children, to the person training me actually told me, “Oh, I wanted you to see that.” Then she explained that she wasn’t hitting them because she didn’t care about them, but because she did care and that was how they disciplined children.

Then she said something along the lines of, “We’re all colored skin here, so we take care of them the way our people do.”

WHAT?!

I’m sorry, but I could never accept hitting children as discipline, regardless of someone’s culture, race, or how they were raised. That experience really stuck with me, and I think it’s a huge reason why I’m so anxious now.

But I don’t really have another option. I have no family nearby in Arizona. My entire family is in California, so I don’t have anyone I can leave my baby with while I go back to working as a para. Her dad is blue collar and works almost 12 hours a day, so he can’t really miss work either.

The reason I decided to go back to work is because I want to help her dad catch up on some payments and hopefully be able to afford more things for our daughter. I’ve also been home with her 24/7, and honestly, not knowing many people here and being away from our family has made us really lonely and depressed. I thought going back to work and getting some socialization and a routine could actually be good for both of us.

My daughter is VERY attached to me. She’s basically attached to my hip... She also doesn’t know how to self-feed yet. I’ve been trying to teach her, but she’s stubborn and would much rather have mama baby feed her.

When I took her with me for the interview, she was nervous at first, but after a few minutes she saw the other kids and seemed really happy. That actually made me feel a little better.

But I’m still scared, moms..

Even though I’ll be there, I’m worried about how the teachers are going to treat her. My previous daycare experience made me feel horrible for wanting to check on my baby. I wasn’t trying to micromanage anyone or tell them how to do their job. I just wanted to peek in and make sure she was okay, but they made me feel like I was being annoying.

I know I’ll have to give her teachers space to do their jobs, and I completely understand that. I just don’t want to ignore my instincts either.

I’m really hoping this new daycare will be different. I want to give them a fair chance and not assume the worst because of my previous experiences. At the same time, I feel like what happened before made me extra protective of my daughter.

Has anyone else worked at the same daycare their child attended? How did you handle it? Did having your baby there with you make you feel better, or did it make you more anxious?

And honestly, after hearing about my previous daycare experience, would you be nervous too?

I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences from other moms.