Thank you Virginia!! For articulating so wonderfully what I, and I imagine a-lot of women, feel instinctually but is so at odds with the pervading culture. I remember the opening line when meeting with the mothers group being “so when are you going back?” . I felt such shame for not having a concrete plan and not feeling ready to let them go into care that when they all (bar one) went back to work it was all too easy to lose contact with them and any sense of local support/friendship to navigate matressence. In my experience of keeping my 2 at home for the first 2 and a half years, is that it’s a lonely place and that cities in particular just don’t do enough to cater for little people and facilitate mothers being full time care givers.