Question
I recently started to work full time since my son was born and he and I are having difficulties transitioning to the new situation. He is almost 5 years old and this is also the first time he is going full time to school in a new place. So there is the new school and longer hours situation plus mommy not being around like before.
I miss him a great deal during the day since I leave very early in the morning and we do not get to have breakfast together anymore during the weekdays. When I get home after work he does not want to talk to me . It has been three weeks since I started my new job but he hates it . He misses me and I know that and the way he is responding to that big feeling is completely ignoring me, being disrespectful and not wanting me to put him in bed and read a story to him. Now he only wants his daddy to be with him and not me.
My son is the most important person in my life and seeing him so affected by my new job makes me sad. It takes me back to my own feelings of abandonment I felt as a child when my mom was never around. I do not want to recreate that story with my child. So I am contemplating quitting my job and going back to being a full time mother until next school year.
He will be older and I can get a different work situation that allows me to be more present in his life. As I just mentioned, the only thing I really care about now, at his age, is to create a secure nurturing relationship with my son because I know that one day he is going to have his own life and I am not going to have him depending on my love and attention as much so I want to take advantage of this time where he is still “my little baby “ and have him have all my attention.
What are your thoughts about this?
Thank you!
Answer
Going to work or spending less quantity of time with our children doesn’t hurt them as long as the care given to them when we are away from them is quality care and safe.
It could take up to 3 months for a child to get used to a new caregiver (school) and they will stick to the caregiver that is more available (dad) to take care of their need for consistency.
Both of these results are healthy.
Yes, it’s heartbreaking for you but building his relationship with his father is a positive in the long term and will give you the flexibility to have someone else be his caregiver.
If you don’t want to end work then make sure that you take on at least one of the tasks of the daily routine. My recommendation is to take bath or bed time, the rest of the time let him choose. After 1-3 months of this new transition it will settle.
That being said, if you are not ready to be away from your child then don’t BUT know that he does benefit from having more than one adult care for him.
Also, although you did not mention it, another influence on choosing dad is part of developmental milestones. Children ages 4 to 6 begin to look around their environment and begin to process how they will express their gender.
This is the time when most little ones start proclaiming “I don’t play with girls because I’m a boy”. The other possible culprit for his rejection of you is his new found curiosity with gender.
Btw, to expand his knowledge of what it means to be a boy read books and expose him to the many ways boys can express their masculinity in the world.
This is very important since dominant culture says things like boys don’t cry and girls are weaker and as parents it is important to expand more on these values.