It aint like that. When they are old enough they will figure out what happened and they won't blame you anymore. Until then just be around whenever you can.

Blame that asshole, Simplex3. :p

I know I'm not in that mold. But from the sounds of some, any amount of daycare is the wrong choice.

The people Simplex should be talking to are the people that work 9a-5p but take their kids at 7am and don't pick them up until 9pm.

Not from you. One person. I lumped everyone else in. My bad.

My wife and I just had our first son, who's now 15 weeks old. I went back to work after 1 week. She went back to work after 6 weeks. We both are able to work from home and tag-team on care. When she has to go into the office, if I'm not able to be at home at that time, she is able to take him with her.

This will probably only last until the fall (9 months old). Then she will probably have to work part of the day in the office. I imagine we will have to look into a nanny, or day care part of the day.

Either way, I'm HUGELY fortunate to have a work/life arrangement that permits me to be at home helping raise my son each day.

For the record, I am in my mid-twenties and have been in a serious relationship for the past few years now. No I don't have kids, but we have talked about it and how we will raise them. Simply ignoring the comments/opinions of anyone that doesn't have kids is highly ignorant, and makes me feel stronger in my beliefs.

Personally, I don't understand why this situation has to be so black and white - can't you have a career AND have normal, well-behaved kids that you see on a fairly regular basis? Some of you act like putting kids in daycare for any amount of time is the first step in raising a degenerate sociopath.

I am sure when you are old you will forget all those shitty hours at wor but you will never forget the days when the kids were young.

I'll let Simplex fight the majority of that battle, but I don't think any of the others are suggesting what you typed in your last comment. I think the norm for most families is daycare for several reasons.

I put in bold the comment that made me chuckle... why would it make you feel stronger? Highly ignorant?

The comments on this thread made me do some googling... and as I did this, I've figured out that we don't do "daycare", it's "preschool".

Several of the comments on the "downside" list at this site are incredibly lame. There are some good points for either, but lots of BS too.

http://www.babys-first-year.com/baby...-and-cons.html

Another comparison:
http://www.babycenter.com/general/5937.html

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In the end, it's all about balance and what's best for the kid(s) in your specific situation.

It really boils down to this. Numerous longitudinal studies have demonstrated that the basis of the inate bond between a parent and a child occurs from birth up until the age of three or four. Of course, lots of bonding occurs thereafter, but the trust and confidence in one another is built at that time. These formative years, it is absolutely importatn that children spend as much time with mom and dad as possible. Yeah, kids may do fine in school and not get as sick yada yada, but having a trusting relationship with ones children is more important, because I for one would rather have my kids listen to my advice (at all ages) rather that that of their peers. Too much time in daycre will have them (according to these studies) trust the advice of theri peers rather than their parents. These studies also support the same evidence with single parent families. I was fortunate to be able to have my wife stay hame with both kids, but if I hadnt, we would have either cut back or waited until we could afford it. Not saying this is the only way, but the only way for us.

I'll respond to this before I read the entire thread. Shut the fuck up!

Well I had to stop reading the thread. The more I read the more I got pissed. I can't believe how many judgemental people are on here. Just because something works for you, does not mean it works for everyone else.

What happens then? The wife realizes that she might have to get a job and go to work everyday, and she tricks you into having another baby.
My kids are 7, 5, and 5 months.

Seriously though, my wife volunteers at school, is involved with all of the school and extra activities, and most importantly has my dinner ready and waiting on me when I get home from work every night.

Every situation is unique. Even if 90% of the wifes income goes to paying for childcare, there are lots of people in the world where that extra 10% makes the difference between choosing groceries or paying the electric bill. I would gladly trade my mom staying home, in exchange for me not having to wear ProWings and Rustlers to school.

There are a lot of selfish parents, including friends and co-workers of mine, that choose to put their kids in day care so they can continue to support their 3-car garage 3,000 sq ft house payments, furnished with Crate and Barrel furniture. These are the same people that take a day off of work, but leave their kids in day care. Why have kids? Because the Jones have kids, and they make such cute family Christmas pictures.

People keep looking at the one extreme of crappy parenting that involves day care, and try to apply it to everybody that has kids in day care.

Fixed your post. You'll really be pissed now!

I going to assume that's sarcasm.