I doubt you can ever identify why your sons & your nephews are different (obviously you know this of course!) but I have a theory, as below.

Theory: if nurture (ie, children learning from messages given to them) is relevant to development at all, then the larger the arena from which the messages come, the more effective the messages are. Put simply: in a big family, a child gets messages about social interaction/what's annoying & what's not/independence vs. dependence options/role models as to how to entertain yourself & how not (& consequences of not doing so) - from all sides, siblings and parents alike. This must have a kind of intensifying/pincer movement effect. Put even more simply: your sons have, in this area, an advantage over your nephews.

(I was thinking about this because I was mulling over my own son's social difficulties (yet lovely relationship with his single sibling), & deciding someone like him would probably have really been best as a member of a great big Victorian-type family. Too late now, of course.)

I do think about this a lot. My sister every week asks me why mine play together (we both have non identical twin boys) and hers need her and it's not just that hers are 7 and mine 9. I think it's when mine interrupt me I try (don't always manage it) to break off smile, deal with them and then resume whereas she gets into a kind of awful state, shouts about how she never gets any peace etc and perhaps one of hers is just a higher need child and possibly part of it is in our house there are usually other people, older children, students etc so like any big household with grannies and uncles and even cleaners around the children may well be interacting with one of those others rather than just me all the time (and who wouldn't rather play vigorous garden games with 20 year old boys and girls when the alternative is a 40s mother... there is some method in my apparent madness in liking the older children around (free au pairs)

Xenia - maybe you've hit the nail on the head with breastfeeding! Mine would have been latched on 25/7, had they not been bottle fed - and then I would indeed never, ever have been able to do anything else!

I also have a slight cop-out in the form of my husband, who would read to our son after lunch when he was a toddler and our daughter was a baby, just so I could play the piano! Were it not for that, I don't think I'd have done anything other than see to their needs when they were that age.

That did seem to train them so that they now occupy themselves quietly and don't disturb me for 20 minutes. That said, it all goes very pear-shaped during a nine-week school summer holiday, when there's more scope for them to occupy themselves by squabbling very noisily!

But, yes, as Xenia says, they get older and easier, and then you can do more of the things you like doing because they are that bit less needy!

..also I remember when the youngest three were little and I commuted to the city to work how much more time for my own activities I got because I worked, that relief we both felt in handing three of them to our daily nanny at 8am knowing you had an hour to sit down and read a book on the train, chance to settle yourself at work, glance at the paper, have people in a sense serving you at work, then stroll out to get lunch even if it were a quick sandwich, ability to pace your day, no child asking for things all the time, time your breast milk expression sessions at your leisure (although I do prefer feeding to expressing), then take the train home with time to read that good book on the way and arrive at home having had that lovely break from children to their lovely welcome of you (or tantrum or whatever but much easier to handle because you've had a balanced day and life in having both work and children in it which is what most men want and indeed most women with under 5s achieve too as most of them work).

I have yet to have a toddler who would not come up to the piano and interfere if I played it. Same for my sister. Same for my brother. We might have particularly difficult children but I don't think so. On the other hand now if I want to play I just make sure I close the door (or else I'm accompanying them anyway) so it's always just a temporary problem whether you work or not. They get older and easier.

I am much more interested in the issue of time to do what you want when you have under 5s than I am about arguing over women working or not working.

We certainly found with 3 under four, baby, 1, 3 there really wasn't a second free not to be dealing with them if you had them alone (this would be days when we were home alone with them). I don't think that's because we were otherwise working parents and I am very non interventionist with the children. The now 9 year olds are very self sufficient even if I am in the house.

It was similar with the twins as babies except if they slept at the same time. It may depend on number of children. If you've got one at nursery school in the mornings and a baby who has a morning nap then you may get some time. If you haven't given birth to a baby whose ideal is to be latched your breast 24/7 (which seemed to be the preference of most of mine) then you might have more free time. I suspect it's an age of child and numbers of children you have issue.

But my sister's 7 year olds never seem to give her a second's peace and mine always did and she keeps asking me what is the difference. What has she done different from me that I can read the newspaper or even work on a Sunday morning and she can't even sit down for 2 minutes.

I used to tell her it changed at age 5 and they got easier.

Yes, it does get easier. When mine were one and three, the idea of being able to breathe for 30 seconds without someone needing something seemed laughably impossible. It was in the run-up to DS starting school (which I postponed until the end of Reception, glutton for punishment as I am) that light started to appear at the end of the proverbial tunnel!

it does get easier, my kids are 7 and 10 now and honestly, it gets a bit easier

Believe me, I do try very hard to leave them to their own devices for a while during the day... luckily I don't suffer from overcompensating guilty working mother syndrome

But mine are 4 and 10mths so there is absolutely no point in picking up a newspaper or starting to weed a bed because someone is guaranteed to kick off or need attneding to after 5 mins.

Happy, no delirious to believe that it will get easier though!

It also occurs to me, a propos of Pendulum's post, that it's arguably easier for SAHMs to be a bit more hands-off with the children than it is for working mothers, on the grounds that they see the children for a good 13 hours per day and it is therefore not unreasonable to spend some small amount of that time doing something other than actively looking after them!

Pendulum - I have them well trained with a kitchen timer. When it rings after 20 minutes, they are allowed to disturb my post-lunch piano playing .

DS was jealous of the piano for a number of years, but has now asked me to teach him (I think he has finally realised that this means extra attention!!)

Gardening is very easy with two toddler "helpers". For starters, they like pointing out which roses need dead-heading, and they love poking around with trowels. The can now tell the difference between flowers and weeds, which is a bonus. Writing does have to be done when they're asleep, but we do a lot of reading (my brain is so sleepy that Jake Cake is sophisticated enough for me during the day).

My children are a bit older now (4 and 6), but I have always sneaked some of my own interests into looking after them. I never mastered the "going to the loo without having to take two toddlers with me" thing, though...

yes one daughter's anecdotal opinion not transferable to everyone else situation

however working parents in particular women are subject to gross generalisations and stereotypes. so i don't think responses originate from insecurity. more having heard tired clichéd ole chunterrings does provoke a response to try redress the imbalance

Haven't read the thread (so shoot me - may skim it after posting) just the article and the OP but Bollocks is it WOHM bashing; unless you have a great big insecurity about your choices it is simply a personal statement about one families experiences.

MGMTFM nasty wee post to xenia, you berate her opinions and then you generalise about working parents

kettle
pot
black
go figure

fwiw it is erroneous to to anedotally speculate that chilcare is second rate and postulate daycare provision is somehow harmful.

how condescending to allow some parents a dispensation for working because they have to ehm aye thanks for that

you do what you want to do, without making sweeping statements about what other parents do

I think alot depends on the childcare, some is awful, some is good. (Much of it will always be low paid and low status while mothering/parenting is undervalued). I think many people, though, believe that a small baby is better off with one of the parents/loving relative for the first couple of years than in an institution which may be better suited to older toddlers/children who actually interact.

What thisis... said.

"but childcare is 2nd best after the child under 3 being with either of his/her parent"

Evidence please milky. Or is this just more of the usual SAHM, one-size-fits-all rhetoric we usually hear from you?

Im afraid im with Xenia on this one. I found being at home utterly boring and couldnt wait to get back to work.

Dottoressa, I have 2 under-fives and would genuinely like to know how much writing, reading, gardening and playing musical instruments you manage to fit into your day.

Part of the reason I WOH P/T is so that I can have a little independent time to think, reflect and just breathe. I can honestly say that every moment of my days at home with the children is accounted for by doing something with, or for, someone else. Am i unusual in this?

I guess it's the age-old each-to-their-own scenario. Personally, I find being at home extraordinarily interesting, partly because I find small children utterly fascinating, and partly because I have lots of interests at home (writing, reading, gardening, playing musical instruments and such like). I would prefer to spend my time on looking after the children and doing some fun things than staring at a spreadsheet or entertaining clients. To my mind, mine is the balanced life!

But this is my choice, just as it's Xenia's choice to do the opposite. I just don't see why one woman's preferences have to be used as a weapon against another woman with different views/needs/whatevers. Everyone muddles through in their own way!

I say no more than to balance out the bias in articles like the first on this thread and yet the press rarely makes the working mother's case, they just beat us over the head on a dailiy basis. Saying a few home truths about why most women with under 5s choose to work is a good thing even if people don't disagree with me.

I don't have a nanny because of the age of the children it's not needed and I've kind of bred the older children but I think there are a good few male role models around.

ALl I said was I couldn't understand how anyone finds it interesting to be home. Yes, I loved having small babies, toddlers, under 10s, teenagers, students. it's all wonderful but like most men I like it in the small dose that enables me to make it part of a balanced life rather than making it out to be some kind of career that it isn't.

xenia, i can't even be bothered to be drawn into this, so i'll just say my piece and leave.
you are the biggest woman basher on MN
for you.
shame that you didn't value your nanny work.
drade to think what your views are on the elderly or the ones that choose to retire early.
its sad that you feel raising children is worthless.
but its upto you.

some people need to work, fine

some people don't enjoy being with their kids all the time, fine

do what you want.

but childcare is 2nd best after the child under 3 being with either of his/her parent.
but you know what, sometimes you just have to acceot you can't always offer the best of everything, and where good enough, is acceptable to you.

i am a professional woman[pharmacist] and enjoy being with dd, much more than i have ever enjoyed work.
i grew up with a wohm and i did not enjoy it.

i find it odd how wohms {well some} find the need to make out its only woman with what you would class as lowly jobs, such as teachers etc.
that enjoy being a SAHM, because what they did before was so low-grade or uninteresting

heyho

i will leave you to it.
you sound like a very happy person, who has a really nice life

Good for you Quattro, having a male aupair and cleaner. (I mean that by the way - wasn't meant to be sarcastic).

I sometimes think that Xenia has no respect for men and very little for most women. I can't imagine her having male 'staff'.

I take your point about economic power but as with all things it isn't that simple. My DSs never see DH pay for anything. They are too young to understand the finer points of finance. They just see me pay for everything, even when DH is with us. He never has any money on him, he's a bit like the Queen in that respect - doesn't carry cash.

I don't have to ask to buy anything either - well, OK maybe something big like a new car but then I wouldn't expect DH to go off and buy a new car without asking me. Depends how equal your partnership is and whether your husband respects you as a grown up person with your own mind.

I know some men don't respect women in that way but I doubt very much it would make any difference whether their wives worked or not. As I said earlier my mother earnt more than my father but he would rather die than admit it and as far as he was concerned he paid for all the important stuff. He is a dinosaur but then he isn't alone in that.

Everything we own is half mine anyway. Without my contribution before the DC were born we wouldn't have a the house we have. If we are divorced it is half mine and I am no worse off than DH. Neither of us has much of a pension - don't believe in them really. More of the savings are in my name than his. Earning money myself would make me better off day to day but we don't want for anything so what would I do with the extra financial muscle anyway, other than add to the saving?

Spending time with my children is worth more than a few extra thousand a year.

And again this has become polarised - the OP started out that way so it isn't surprising. There seems to be the assumption that you either work full time all your life or you SAH until your children grow up.

Very very few people do either. Its a nonsense to say that working women or SAH women harm their children with unsatisfactory role models when in fact most women at some point in their lives, do both.

I understand that sahming may be liberating from low-grade or uninteresting jobs and I agree that it is simply not possible for every woman to be a chief in a world full of indians.

But apart from the issue of job satisfaction, one of the great things about wohming is being in possession of economic power. I can choose what I want to buy without reference to anyone else, I don't have to worry about pensioner poverty should we divorce or should my DH die before me.

I think women taking financial responsibility is being a good role model for children. FWIW we have had a male aupair and a male cleaner.

'No status, no money and very little job satisfaction' is very subjective. I have more satisfaction since SAH. I have always filled my time with study and volunteer at my kid's school often I love the feeling of freedom from drudgery that SAH brings for me (but realise everyone is different, some much prefer paid work) and the sense of liberation from the material and competetive world. I don't see myself as any more dependant on DH than he is on me.

Work can be very overrated. I don't see it as a step forward having both parents working 10 hours a day and bringing in a 3rd party to help with the kids, self sufficiency has alot to be said for it (parents sharing work/care or one at work one at home). Surely a step forward would be men AND women working part time and sharing care NOT both slaving away all hours. When labour saving devices freed people from domestic drudgery, surely it should have meant more time for family/leisure NOT lining someones pocket or working longer hours.

If cleaning and raising children is such a low existance why do so many people stay home and do that?
A cleaner and a nanny are just doing the mothers job while the mother does something else.

I don't think raising children is worthless

Xenia does you cleaner realise you feel this way about what she does for you?

Because if I were her I wouldn't work for you. I would want a little more respect than that.

Does your nanny realise you don't value her work and consider it beneath you?

I might also have a bit more respect for you as well if you had a male cleaner and a male nanny and paid more than lip service to the idea of equality. A male nanny would be a good role model for your sons too since they don't have their father around much. Redress the balance a little.

You seem to think that the whole world would be better off if we were just like you. Quite apart from the fact that I can't think of anything worse than being a commercial lawyer (I have a law degree and I have worked with many commercial lawyers so I am not just saying that on the grounds it doesn't sound very interesting) we can't all have professions - no society can exist where everybody is the chief and nobody is the indian. Your view of the ideal society is impractical and frankly, impossible.

Besides which you continue on this track of claiming you couldn't stand domestic work all day. Many of us have said to you that our actual domestic work is a tiny part of the sum total of our week, unless you have a small baby. Quite apart from the fact that it is pointless hoovering on an hourly basis there are plenty of much more interesting things to do with our days.

You sound like some out of date extremist feminist of the 1970's bra burning variety.

And I find it hard how anyone can be fulfilled by low grade domestic work day after day for years and years, no career, no role in the wider world, it's like something out of rural Pakistan! No status, no money and very little job satisfaction.

why such a mystery that one would not want to be SAHM?i had nursery place booked 12wk pg.never wanted SAHM role

Oh Xenia... how can we be in such profound agreement on private schools, and so vastly opposed on the all-women-must-work-or-be-shot front?! 'Tis a mystery to me.

Personally, I can't begin to understand why any woman who can afford to stay at home would want to do anything else. Ah well!

Xenia...Get a grip woman, not everyone wants to leave their kids to go to work, surely intelligent women are needed in the community, whether it is to wipe bottoms, run playgroups or teach children. In fact, some of the best bottom wipers I know are the most intelligent. You see you have a narrow view of society which values work more than other roles but what happens when the work is gone Xenia???

STAB, STAB, STAB!!!! WTF????

Lol Xenia.

You and the DM, women bashers both, just different ends of the spectrum.

I totally agree with you the sooner the issue of women working becomes irrelevant the better.

However, I think it should be irrelevant because we should all be entitled to do the best for our families and ourselves. You on the other hand think it should be irrelevant because you think that every body should copy you.

Quite apart from the fact that it would be economically impossible for every woman to have a high powered, high paid job, we don't all want or need it.

My mother was a SAHM, a part timer and a full timer during the course of my childhood(earning more than my father too). Her working life has had little effect on the way I have lived my life. She did her best for us no matter what she chose to do for a living and I have no desire to replicate any particular stage of her life other than to have it serve as a reminder that I have the freedom of choice. There is more than one way to live a successful life and to be a good parent.

She went to boarding school when she was 13.

Then Diana had the chance to catch up on all that mother-daughter time.

they are taking just one persons story and making out like that is how it always is.

there were times through my life where i hardly saw my mum. she worked long hours as a cleaner in a meat factory and supplemented her hours with looking after the factory owners children and ironing for them. she went to college on a night to do book keeping and managemnet courses so we didnt see her then either. she moved from cleaning to doing office work in the factory and is now an over qualified manager in a massive chain of retail stores and could be so much more if she wanted to be, but she is happy as store manager.

my mum is an ispriation to me. she did all of that with three kids and useless husband. im more proud of her than anyone else i know. i dont begrudge any of the time she spent away from us aas i know she working that hard to provide a better life for me and my sisters

What a load of sexist tosh.

I have older children of 20/21/23 and they don't have the same views as this particular student. She also seems a very sexist sort of child if she wanted her mother there and not her father. Her mother obviously hasn't done a very good job in terms of sexual politics.

Women are a whipping boy. They whip themselves and each other and they spew around in collective guilt because of their conditioning and genetics, guilt which gets them no where but which suits the agenda of many men and a good few women too. It is a control tool used against some women. Given most women work and increasing numbers earn more than their husbands the guilt doesn't seem to be holding them back.

High earning successful career women make by far the best mothers for a whole raft of reasons I won't go into here. Obviously this just some kind of low grade journalist who probably doesn't earn very much.

In the real world plenty of women and men run successful family lives and have children. It's how people live and always have both here and across the globe now and in the past and it will always be so. If women want to carry collective guilt with them then that's their stupid fault. Most parents of either gender do their best to bring up their children well. Few leave children with strangers and most work out childcare with which they are content.

But I don't agree our work choices do not affect anyone else. They do a lot. Every time some pathetic woman wimps out of a good career to stay home and wipe the bottoms of her children and in effect her husband she is stabbing me, her own daughters and most other women in the back. The sooner it becomes an irrelevance to discuss whether women should work the better.

We need non transferrable paternity leave. We need fewer women requesting flexible working. We need more women going into better careers. We need more women marrying men who earn less. We need more women to be showing work as huge huge fun over a 40 year period if you pick your work well.

Not that I seem to find many articles taking the opposite stance.

<Perhaps I should try writing one>

Just seems that the media likes to give women a tough time (of which these mummywars are just one example) and they don't seem to think that there is any value in celebrating any female achievments (unless there is a soft story - eg Rowling & her grinding poverty - to go with it). Nah, far easier to sell papers about drug-filled celebrity lifestyles and WAGS, and fill the pages with pictures of size zero's whilst lamenting lardy old mums and women with anorexia. Jeez, even the Indy covered the Britney story for a while.

<and breathe>

Well, seeing as the usual research that is cited (rowntree foundation being one trotted out the most often) is itself questionable (read the detail of the rowntree one and you'll find that it reluctantly admits that higher career achievement of parents has a positive effect) and seeing as the research tends to either avoid addressing the rather unfashionable idea that the presence of fathers might also have just as much of an impact (again the rowntree report buries in the detail it's findings that the effect of longer hours culture is negative if the father does it as well if the mother does it), and seeing as some nations such as Sweden managed to stick virtually all their children in nursery from about 12 months with seemingly no ill effects (other than poor taste in soft rock), and seeing as most 'experts' seem to be 'authors' and psychologists, as opposed to psychiatrists, then yes, I do tend to think that many such articles are shoddy.

Not all articles, but many. Just as I would probably find fault with many articles that took the opposite stance.

Of course people can feel as they like about any article, and all the more so if it's poorly researched and shoddy. However, many (not all: many) working mothers seem to think that any article that says that their children would be better off at home than in nursery/with a childminder is both poorly researched and shoddy!

"People don't have to fall for it or get annoyed by it!" are you a journalist? Are you seriously suggesting that people shouldn't have any feelings about shoddy, poorly researched (sometimes) misogynistic articles - that our choices are either agree or shut up?

Thinking about this article, what annoys me is that it's so damned lazy. The author is a BBC jounalist, surely she could have attempted a bit of analysis, a teensy-eeensy bit of extrapolation, even, God help us, some research.

There are actually two or three interesting points in the story, but all of them are left unexplored. The first is the role of the father and why the daughter feels no anomisity about his absence. The second is the daughter's own bias towards a career. The third and perhaps the most interesting is the different perspective of the mother and the daughters on the period during which the mother worked from home. The mother felt that little had changed and she was still chained to her desk but her daughters both felt that she was much more present during that period. Is that because she really did have more time to devote to her second child or because small adjustments in the way in which a mother works can have a big impact on children? If so, which adjustments and how could one take practical steps to make them. And is there any research or evidence out there, even anecdotal evidence, to bear that out. Now that would be an interesting and helpful article.

Bink - LRB is fab (and I am not saying that just because I have written for it myself).

Squiffy - I didn't accuse everyone on this thread of reading Heat! All I said is that some (note: some) anti-DM-ers read rubbish of a different kind, and presumably also believe they are well informed, if only about "celebrity gossip".

Kew - ingerprint article is the only one I can comment on, as I read it on the newspaper stand in Somerfield (!) Though my mum does get the DM (having switched from the FT, of all things), so I get some of it second-hand.

Generally, emotive rhetoric is quite good fun to write as well as to read. People don't have to fall for it or get annoyed by it!

LOL at the Colleen Rooney comment, btw!

Generally, I'd say that 1.7 million people believe things far worse than whatever views the DM happens to print. Yet for some reason, those kinds of things don't provoke debate in the way mummy-bashing does...

Er, what about your excluded middle, there, Dotto? - anti-DMers who don't fall into your Heat etc. double-standards category?

I too thoroughly appreciate a strongly-made argument, but I like it to marshal its facts and its arguments and do intelligent anticipations of rebuttal without resorting to emotive (and, let's face it, jolly thin) rhetoric [viz. the use of "strangers", as analysed below]. (See London Review of Books, if you happen to be interested in proper writing.)

Ding Dong suprised this thread still active.hang around and another ole perennial thread will pop up

same ole stuff

precious moments

wouldnt want mine left with the binman/strangers/deranged cruel nurses

avaricious greedy parents chose second best for children

my experience in RL is no one else bothered whether someone else child goes to nursery/CM

oh i love the
just live frugally
wear cheap scratchy pants
eat slops
dont have holidays
dont pay the mortgage
dont worrry about hike in fuel costs

Aye Right

in my word i want to work
i want to pay the mortgage
what has it got to do with anyone else?

why cant we all accept the myriad of choices and decisions parents make

one size does not fit all

if you are happy that your child is at home with you why get yer drawers in a fankle that someone else's isnt

dont think about anyone else choice.does not impact upon me

actually we all just strive to get by oh and frequently be happy (and solvent)

I have to say though, on the plus side, as I was looking for some rancid articles to back up my ranting, I did find this and it has cheered me up no end. Thanks to thedullwitch for pointing to it in another thread.

there have been about 28,600 copies of the Daily Mail published ovewr 110 years and all you can come up with is "but they did once run a good piece about fingerprinting children"

Even a shit newspaper ought to be able to come up with a better average than that surely?

I used to read my mums copy of the Daily Mail when I was younger and even before I grew a brain I could see that they were the worst kind of insidious misogynists.

Good Saturday TV guide though - better than Heat.

Oooo, get you dotto. Have a go at people for sweeping generalisations, and then accuse us all of reading Heat?

If you don't read it yourself, how do you feel placed to judge if it is shit or not? Personally, I know it is shit because I have a dippy mother who clips out about a dozen let's pretend-to-support-women-whilst-putting-the-knife-in articles a week to keep for me

Daily Mail articles don't make me feel bad or guilty, but they do mightily piss me off because at least the redtops don't pretend to be serious. People like my mum really do think their grandhcildren are going to be snatched by peodophiles at any second, that we are all going to be knifed every time we go the shops (if we don't die of birdflu first), and even better, all of this is the fault of (a) the sneaky left wing politicians or (b) the immigrants that are taking over the whole of society and filling up our hospital beds or (c) Cherie Blair and all other 'opinionated' and 'self-obsessed' career mums who at heart are some kind of alien species put on Earth to destroy society.

But they do quite like Colleen Rooney, so they obviously support some, ahem, 'working' women

And 1.7m people not only believe the shite they peddle, but also believe that as a result of reading this paper they are well-informed from a proper, high quality and impartial source.

Daily Mail readers: I fart in your general direction.

<and Breathe>

And I am not very good at waiting for my computer to register "post message"! Apologies...

As another aside (sort of): what's so bad about the Daily Mail? I don't read it myself, but they did once run a good piece about fingerprinting children. And, I wonder, how many of the people who slag off the Daily Mail buy vacuous dross like Heat or Hello? (Ohhhh, so buying Heat and Hello is ironic, right?)

Personally, I think that any paper offering a strong view is a good thing. If every article in every paper were a woolly mish-mash, it wouldn't be worth reading, and it certainly wouldn't provoke 271 posts on MN.

To my mind, it makes quite a pleasant change for a newspaper article not to peddle the usual conscience-clearing PC line of "your child will be damaged morally, educationally, and socially by staying at home with Mum until s/he's five"!

I just don't get the guilt thing, though. If you have to work because you have no choice, then why feel guilty? You should be proud of doing something to help your family. If you work because you find small children boring, why feel guilty? Accept that's the way you are. No article in the DM should make anyone feel bad if they are really sure about what they are doing, and their reasons for doing it. Presumably the guilt really comes about when people aren't honest with themselves about why they want to work and have children at the same time?

As another aside (sort of): what's so bad about the Daily Mail? I don't read it myself, but they did once run a good piece about fingerprinting children. And, I wonder, how many of the people who slag off the Daily Mail buy vacuous dross like Heat or Hello? (Ohhhh, so buying Heat and Hello is ironic, right?)

Personally, I think that any paper offering a strong view is a good thing. If every article in every paper were a woolly mish-mash, it wouldn't be worth reading, and it certainly wouldn't provoke 271 posts on MN.

To my mind, it makes quite a pleasant change for a newspaper article not to peddle the usual conscience-clearing PC line of "your child will be damaged morally, educationally, and socially by staying at home with Mum until s/he's five"!

I just don't get the guilt thing, though. If you have to work because you have no choice, then why feel guilty? You should be proud of doing something to help your family. If you work because you find small children boring, why feel guilty? Accept that's the way you are. No article in the DM should make anyone feel bad if they are really sure about what they are doing, and their reasons for doing it. Presumably the guilt really comes about when people aren't honest with themselves about why they want to work and have children at the same time?

As an about-to-return-to-work mother, this article is filling me with dread ! Though- on balance, both the mother & daughter need to gain some perspective, mother was doing her best at the time for goodness sake & nobody has a memory of childhood without the "you could have done better" parental accusations. More balance needed, Daily Mail & people in general ! Let's hope my son feels the same....

Can anyone tell me what this article was called and when it was in the Daily Mail? I can't find it on their web site.

Just read this article after getting home from too long day at work and horribly missing my ds and dd and have to say what about those of us who would love to stay at home but can't. I don't worship at the god of work. I have to work to keep the family. That's why it's horrible Daily Mail propoganda and working mother bashing because it's so simplistic about why we do what we do.

I don't if it comes accross differently, but I definately see 'not feeling guilty' as a very postive thing, that we should all aspire to as parents.

I do also not at all subscribe to referring to men as "single-cell organisms " or anything else equally patronising. Simply another way to block equally engaged parenting in my book..

It's difficult for us single-cell organisms to feel guilt.

Just found Home Front and this thread, which I had thought had been deleted. Squiffy, Quannoi.. my sentiments exactly.

It is really time we start thinking about joint parenting with regard to our parenting responsibilities and how we manage our work life balance. The SAHM vs WOHM discussion/argument needs move on and we need to start getting rid of our guilt..because whatever our situations, the Dad's are not feeling guilty.

Squiffy: "Parenting can be sliced and diced a thousand different ways, and last time I checked the psychologists (the ones who have undertaken 7+ years of medical-training; not the authors of parenting books) all seemed to be pretty agreed that kids are pretty resilient and unless you parent on the 'extremes' you end up having far less impact on their personailities and traits than you might like to give yourself credit for. Give them a happy environment and loving care (however you want to define that) and stop beating yourselves and each other up about it."

Amen, Squiffy - yet again. I have said that before about your posts on a similar subject.

Great post Squiffy. You've summed up everything I've been trying (and probably failing) to say on these Home Front threads.

Quannoi you have nailed my biggest gripe. The problem we have in society is not that mums neglect their children to go to work, it is that our culture does not yet place equal emphasis on the responsibilities of both parents, to the careers that their educations have given them and to the children they are jointly resopnsible for.

I don't give a stuff about women are gentically programmed differently from men; Religion may not be the opium for the masses any more but this persistent belief that mother is best in the home and dad is best in the boardroom certainly is. A woman is more empathetic? Great. Let's get some of that in corporate life as it certainly won't do any harm. Men are less nurturing? Great. Don;t smother them, take them to climb trees and teach them to stand on their feet.

Parenting can be sliced and diced a thousand different ways, and last time I checked the psychologists (the ones who have undertaken 7+ years of medical-training; not the authors of parenting books) all seemed to be pretty agreed that kids are pretty resilient and unless you parent on the 'extremes' you end up having far less impact on their personailities and traits than you might like to give yourself credit for. Give them a happy environment and loving care (however you want to define that) and stop beating yourselves and each other up about it.

The feminist battle will be won when just as many men work flexi hours as women and when companies are unable to predict whether mum or dad will take primary responsibility for the kids. Then the playing field will be level and parents will be able to determine what suits them and their situation best. I hope to Christ we get there by the time my kids graduate because anyhting less is an insult to both my daughter and my son.

Seriously - where is the Daddy bashing for working all day/long hours? Nowhere, equality my eye.

I'm the working party in my family, and much as I hate it and would love to swap with DH, I do recognise that I'm not actually the Devil for bringing home the bacon, and there's more than one way to look after your children.

What I do need is more help fending off aggressive employers who seem to think they can command my evenings and weekends too when they know the damage that can do to a family.

I know I'm going off at a bit of tangent here but I have read a few more of the posts. as i have said good childcaare is the key. I deliberately choose a nursery rather than a childminder/nanny (although could never have afforded one).

My issue was I didn't want to be reliant one one person. Like all relationships in life we 'click' with soem people and not others. I was concerned that my child wouldn't 'click' with a particular childminder and maybe I wouldn't find out until it was too late. I wanted my kids to be cared for rather than just looked after and I feel there is a bit difference.

I think the poitn has been proved to me ove the years. My two boys have gone to the same nursery and in each room they've been in there has been a group of nursery nurses in charge of that group. Each time my boys have ended up having a 'favorite' nurse and this favorite nurse has invariably had an obvious 'soft spot' for my child. In fact if you ask my three year old who his best friend is he invariably names his pre school nursery nurse. She is brilliant with him and always knows all about his latest crazes and is consequently an expert on transformers, Power Rangers Dr Who etc etc. He leaves there next week in preparation for knider garten and she already gets weepy just talking about his leaving.

Childcare is not a second class option by any stretch of the imagination. Both my boys are confident sociable children. In fact when my eldest first went to kindergarten it was the one child in his class who has a SAHM who had the most trouble settling in. At the end of the first term he was still crying and screaming for his Mum as she dropped him off at school much to the bemusement of the other children.

I have read the whole thread and as usual no-one can agree on whats best WOHM or SAHM, thats probably beacause we go through the same qestion in our heads everyday-some days I yearn to stay at home with my angelic girl, other days I cant stand it cause she is being devil child and am glad I am at work.Yes I coudl probably downsize, get lees stuff etc, etc, but how boring! My grandparents worked hard to give my parents their preferred choice of careers./professions, they never wanted them to be poor as they were-they lived in India,and both my parnts worked left me with childminder, as as 1 post said earlier those days were diferrent, it was just about playing and enjoying till you went to school! I am a doctor and there is no way I could give up my profession-would you as society like the fact that you train professionals-likely 2/3rd of them women at a cost of almost £200,000 for five years and they all stay at home?I dont think so.I work part time because I have the luxury of doing so, others have to work full time, and the time we spend with our children we make as fun as possible.

Thats it- you can choose either way and some of us will choose both ways and your child can still end up F**d up as thats life! We are humans with a tendency to be unpredictable.

My mother was a SAHM but once we kids left home I think she did feel frustrated and resentful at certain points because she went from completing her nursing training to getting married and giving up work to have children. However in those days that's what women did. By the same token I don't actually remember my mother spending 'quality time' with us (I don't think the phrase had been invented then).I remember that she always seemed to be doing household chores. Certainly when my first was born she seemd more concerned about the state of the house remaining pristine rather than ensuring my welbeing or my son's. She pooh poohed the idea from the health visitor that I should nap when my baby did. As far as she was concerned I should be doing housework when not attending to the baby.

It's all about balance. I LOVE my job but I also LOVE speninding time with my children and I probably love spending time with my children because I don't do it all the time. however I have never missed a school play parents evening, school play etc etc through work. i know how much it means to my sons for someone to be there (strangely their Dad doesn't seem to have the same concers). I just book leave and certainly all the working Mum's I know do the same.

Good childcare is also vital. My sons both went to an excellent nursery which was a safe stimulating and fun enviroment. They did things there that I would never have thought of doing (at two doing a project on Australia for example. My son loved hearing about kangaroos and boomerangs). In my job I see lots of SAHMs who's idea of being a SAHM is sitting in front of TV all day watching Jermeny Kyle whilst their kids are completely ignored other than to be shouted at when they start causing trouble (yes I know this is the minority rather than the majority). But unfortunately the simplistic view always seesm to be SAHM-good, Working Mum-bad. I see a lot of families where I just want to pack up the kids and take them to the nearest Childcare facility becuase the worst will be better than what is at home.

However as I say it is all down to balance. My son's enjoy afterschool club because all their friends go. A friend of mine used to work 7-3 shifts so she could pick her son up after school but that stopped when her son started asking if he could go to after schoolas all his friends did and he wanted to play football with them.

A happy working Mum is surely better than a depressed resentful SAHM. However my partner (the boys father)certainly doesn't have any of these worries.

Oh and kewcumber agre again with your last post.

I haven't read the whole thread (yet), but I agree wholeheartedly with kewcumber. Very well said post and very well balanced. I am currently a SAHM, my dds are (DSD) 15, dd1 5, and dd2 22 months. I am about to become a full time student and then will become a full time WOHM. My DH will look after dd2 during the day and pick dd1 up from school atm as he's not working. Then we he finds work my mum will take over the everyday childcare. I know I am very lucky, in having my mum to help with (unpaid) childcare. As without her I wouldn't be able to afford childcare and couldn't go back to studying, which will enable me to get a much better paid job.

I've not read the article, because the DM gives me a nose bleed at the best of times.
I've read through most of the posts, and don't have much new to say that hasn't already been said...
I remember my mum as being a WOHM, and my parents were also separated/divorced for a period when I was about 10 - 14 years old. I (and my siblings) remember being left with CMs, and also looking after ourselves for a lot of our childhood. I didn't really think much of it at the time, although I would say our lifestyle then meant that I always knew I would not have 4 children (who in this day can afford it...but that's a whole different thread...)
Interestingly, my mum now refers to herself as a SAHM!! I think this is in contrast to me...she worked in 'jobs' rather than have a 'career' (her distinction)
I don't feel bad about being back at work (FT - although I 'downsized' from being in central London to close to home) - we need the money. I also like being at work - I didn't spend 6 years in higher education to leave it all behind. However, I am bloody knackered. And I even have a DH who does his fair share (probably more, if I am being totally honest)
So I guess my overall thought on this topic is ultimately: don't pretend you can have it all, you just have to learn to be happy with the best you can do in each area.
Add ignore the DM - that way madness lies

As an aside...

I saw my Ds with his Cm's mum today and it was really quite touching as they obviously really really like each other, there was lots of hugging and kissing bye bye and laughing. He only has one grandparent and although I don't think in anyway she is a pseudo grandparent, I do think that as many people in your life as possible who think you are marvellous when you are a child is fantastic for your confidence.

Yes: it's the family culture thing again!

Much as I love my mother (who's never done paid work, though as we got older she did masses of voluntary things), I do think the very specific closeness I (in particular) had with her was not ideal for either of us - she is a strong personality, and I definitely absorbed a fairly rigid model, absolutely conditioned & defined by how she was, of what to do and what to be.

As a simple example, I remember chanting to myself (as a young adult) the phrase "There isn't just one way of things being perfect" - because I had to put effort into growing away from those very defining early experiences.

Hence, without doubt, my eagerness to have my children have lots of role models, see lots of different ways of doing things, experience lots of variables - and not grow up thinking there's only one way of things being perfect.

Lisalisa - am regretting my former supportive words about your situation after reading your comment:

" Paid childcare is always going to be second best to mother's care ( extenuating circumstances apart) . Why should the child get second best?"

Lovely! Thanks very much. Please don't pass on your guilt at finding terrible childcare for your children onto the rest of us who bothered to find first-class loving care for our kids. Perhaps you should have thought about all of this before hiring those dreadful nannies?

And maybe someone else will come along and tell you off for working until 3pm. How could you be so selfish when you don't need the money? (those wonderful extenuating circumstances that mean it is alright for mothers to work obviously didn't apply to you. And, guess what? Those words might hurt.

Never seen the need to write this before, but FFS.

"I envied my friends who had glamorous working mothers."

Interesting how one's childhood perceptions colour one's view of the world. The relatively few working mothers I came across in my early childhood were invariably much less fun and glamorous than the SAHMs and were always working through necessity, not choice, to make ends meet. So it didn't seem very aspirational from a young child's perspective.

LOL blueshoes I'm a super touchy feely sort

lisalisa - I'm popping in too just to say don't ever worry about falling out with me! - I don't think that's possible, really, given our history on here. And as to how my post comes across - well, as lawyers, we both know thoroughly how one side's careful marshalling of the concrete evidence [ie, what I think I'm doing, ever so rationally] can look to the other side just like the shoring up of a desperate case with circumstantials . And obviously this just isn't taken personally!

The big thing perhaps not recognised so far between your situation and mine is that I've only got 2, and you have 5. There is always a finite amount of slack in anyone's life - and among my colleagues I have noticed (this is anecdotal NB) that the full-time working pattern tends not to go on past no.2.

and if I feel it would be nice for DS to have me on a school trip occasionally then I'll take the day off. Its not beyond the wit of man you know! (or woman)

lisalisa - you are obviously struggling with some form of guilt over your childcare choices. I'm not. Guilt is a pointless and wasteful emotion and I'll be honest - I have generally very little time for it. You recognised that your nannies were not treating your DD1 very well and you chose to rearrange your working to be able to remove the need for a nanny. You are fortunate that you have that choice and you were unfortuante in your choice of nannies (I don't know enough about nannies to know whether they are in fact a strange breed of women who take exception to looking after 4 yr olds).

However in your example I would have to say that any mother who routinely leaves bedtime stories to the nanny is a fairly extreme use of childcare which most of us wouldn't recognise. As is the case for the original article, no I'm not surprised that the girl in question hardly saw her mother, she was in boarding school, I can't imagine your average working mother choosing that option if only because its so expensive.

My mother didn't pick me up from school after the age of about 7 and I genuinely don't see the need for any great anguish over that.

The problem is that extreme circumstances like the original article aren't representative of many peoples lives and trying to draw general conclusions from them just pisses people off.

But perhaps it is just that I have little patience with navel gazing as I don't have the luxury of doing anything but work and therefore fall into the rather patronising category of "its not the best thing for your child but thats OK because you can't afford the best thing".

Our family is a mixture of SAHM and WOHM (all rather touchy feely, which rather blows Anna's neat people who use paid childcare aren't touchy feely theory out of the water) and I can't tell any discernable differnce between the teenage children of the WOHM and the SAHM in out family. All have a close and caring relationship with their parents and seem a mixture of confident and shy fairly evenly spread cross the families.

IMVHO, people who are sensible parents and raise their children the best they can (and don't rely on a nanny to do bedtime stories every day or send their children to boarding school) without too much analysis, seem to produce fairly normal well attached children regardless of whether one, both or neither of their parents worked.

lisalisa, I feel sad about your posts. It sounds like something is very raw about your use of childcare. It is the worst thing to feel we have not done the right thing by our dcs.

I find it interesting that you loved your mother being there for you when you were growing up. And that it contributed to your confidence.

In my case, my SAHM mother was there for me all the time, but I did not value that aspect of things. I felt she could have encouraged us to have more outside friendships when we were younger - and looking back, I feel it did hold me back socially when I started kindergarten and school. I envied my friends who had glamorous working mothers.

I suppose it says a lot about the person I am and the person you are.

I do feel it is about balance. You seem to have got the balance right now, perhaps not before.

Believe me, as a working mother who is only at the schoolgates once a week, I miss out on spontaneous playdates. It does worry me sometimes, but then I just pick up the phone and call the mother of my daughter's friend and arrange one. I've got a few lined up these school holidays. It has taken me longer to get here, but you can compensate despite working.

And when my aupair mentions off-hand that so-and-so's mother suggested anything remotely like a playdate, I am doing that email to her to firm it up. And I attend as many birthday parties on weekends as I possibly can to form friendships.

But I am home by 4 pm everyday, so I do feel I am supporting my dd adequately. I am sure she could be the deflated one at school trips when I am not there to volunteer. But I prime my dd and am eternally grateful to the mother who held her hand on the last one. And then it's playdate city.

I do feel my aupair prefers the ds 1.10 to my dd, but then I ask my dd 4.10 about her day at school in front of the aupair, so I can get the details reinforced in stereo.

It is not perfect, but adequate for my conscience. You are doing what you can to redress your situation. I hope you find the right balance.

That's fine, anna, I am ok not to think too deeply about what you say.

Just to add to your musings, why do you think you followed your mother's side into SAHM-dom in your dd's early childhood, rather than your father's side? I am sorry if I am wrong, and I could well be, but I don't see you as particularly touchy or feely.

Don't read too much into what are little more than my online musings as to why some families feel that their children are not missing out (indeed, may be gaining much) from paid childcare whereas other families feel strongly that their children are/would be missing out by spending a lot of time in paid childcare.

Since it is a perennial issue here on MN and in RL, I'm just trying to delve down and get to the root of why some families feel so strongly in both directions .

In my own family and generation, I find it noteworthy that on my mother's side (very close, intimate, deep relationships - this extends to cousins/aunts etc despite the fact that we all live scattered across the globe) we have all been SAHMs (and one SAHD currently) with our little children, evolving into part-time and/or entrepreneurial jobs that work around the family; on my father's side (much less touchy-feely), many more of my cousins have used nursery/nannies than not. No difference at all in level of education or social class between the two families.

anna, I would agree that our families are different - which is natural and perfectly understandable. Though I am not sure what you mean when you say to me: "your "family culture" is at one with paid childcare".

If you brought up family culture in relation to the 'intimacy differential' point, I don't see how having a big intimacy differential necessarily results in whether the family culture is at one or not with paid childcare.

Although I do not sleep naked under the sheets with my dcs, we co-sleep and both dd and ds are extremely cuddly and tactile with me, enjoyed extended bf-ing, something which they would not get from a single carer at nursery. Yet they still love their nursery and in dd's case, school because they expect and get a different experience from it.

However, I would agree with your other point - it is more whether a parent feels whether the child is missing out from getting a less intimate care from paid childcare. The same child might be perfectly happy to get less intimate care from paid childcare with little or no adverse psychological effects, but one parent would feel the child is missing out (you maybe), whereas another does not (me).

Meant to say balloon deflates....

This discussion has moved on and is very interesting. I think you can distill all I wanted to say in one sentence: " Paid childcare is always going to be second best to mother's care ( extenuating circumstances apart) . Why should the child get second best?"

I knwo there are different reasons why a million differnt mums go to work and there are as many justifications for it too ( bink - whilst not wishing to fall out with you - I have a huge amount of respect for you and always value your responses to my posts and threads - your mention of nanny teaching your kids to walk miles is in my very humble opinion another justification. As Diana Appleyard's daughter said ( in her own words) " I didnt want to go riding, ballet etc - I just wanted to spend time with my mum~~~". In other words it matters little what extra skills children acquire as a result of more money being around or a nanny being able to offer or teach different skills - the kids still prefer their mum. Simple as that really.

When I was young I treasured the fact that my mum was at the school gates and even at HIgh SChool that she was there for me when I returned. The amount of chats we had about the minutae of school life and who had upset me/didn't want to be my freined etc made a lasitn g im[pression on me which translated as a huge amount of confidence in later life - it gave me the invaluable message that my mother wanted to be with me ( as she indeed did). She did hoswever work so that this is not intended as smugdom from someone brought up wtih a silver spoon....Oh no. My dad worked in a factory all his life standing all day and earning a pittance. My mum worked but from 10-3 so as far as I was concnered i didnt' ahve a working mother at all. When I was below primary age she didn't work. And it was hard.

Let me tell you how hard. Mum and dad ate out of tins in the early years whilst giving me the meat, chicken and fish I needed. The fruit and veg which were expensive in those days I had whilst they had apples and pears and other home grown veg from teh garden. There was never any spare moneyh around and mum made all my clothes. Dad moonlighted as a mini cab driver. We never went abroad . I went for the first time as an adult.

But I am what I am today - confident, self assured and succesful due to my parents and specifically my mother being there for me.

And I haven't given that to my kids. Out of some stupid misguided principle of having it all and giving my girls a good role model blah di blah and increasing standard of living togive them ballet and bloody riding ( yes my kids do these) I left them every day for years with nannines . Stupid me. Now its only part time I realise just how much things are differnt.

Case in point. My neighbour. She has 2 kids aged 4 and 2. SAme pattern. Nanny adores 2 yr old and finds 4 yr old a strain although she is the most delightful 4 yr old - polite and well behaved. I pick up my 4 yr old from school every day and also her 4yr old. I always give her the same hugs and attention as my 4 yr old. She never stops asking me " why doen'st my mummy pick me up?" Of course I tell her how much her mummy loves her etc and that she's working to buy her nice things but I sense it sounds stupid and hollow even to a 4 yr old. In the playgorund ( we have to wait half anhour after school eends until main school finsishe for my older kids) the children play and this 4 yr old is more subdued. More uncertain and more vulnerable as she doesn't have mum watching from teh chairs as a security base from which she can return from time to time.

Other mothers comment casually - not a trace of nastiness - just an observation " Oh where's x's mum? I never see her. I wanted to invite x but I guess I'll invite y for tea". I tell the mum not to worry - that she can invite x ( as x is only going home to the nanny for 3 hours till mum returns at 7pm by which time she'll more or less be in bed) and I nkow mum would be delighted if she had playdage but other mum seems unsure and says she'd rather check direct with x's mum and invites y instead.

X comments to her mum ( as mum tells me) that I alway s pick up and she misses her mum. Whenever I drop off x ( next door to her house) she always but always asks if she can come in and play. AS i feed my kids straight from school this inevitably involves feeding x which I'm fine about . AFter food the kids play and sometimes x stays for a bath. when nanny comes to fetch her x is crestfallen and her balloon inflates. She asks nanny if she can have a story that night to which nanny repiles ( quite reaonsably but my heart still sinks) " not tongight sweetie - I am a bit tired".

I dunno - I just feel sensitive and sensitised to the whole thing. I just don't feel we're doing the best by our kids using childcare..........

Someone made a link between articles like these and the wave of derogatory comments about working mothers from the likes of Alan Sugar.

A (male) friend of mine has an interesting theory that there is a correlation between the amount of media inventory given to such views and the economic climate. So when recession is looming and unemployment rising, certain channels start churning out more articles like this one, designed to destabilise womens' feelings about going out to work, and hopefully encourage them to leave the jobs to the boys.

Whether or not there is a shred of truth in that, I find these articles to be obviously ghost-written and utterly formulaic. Nobody without journalism training speaks or writes about their own life in that weird magazine style.

As for the daughter's own aspiration to get a job that enables her to work alongside her children, well good luck to her. I seem to recall at 20 I used to tell people I would have a 5-7 year break from my fantastic professional career until my children were at school, then return seamlessly to previous job on a school-hours basis

<hollow laughter>

Anna - I have to say I am completely charmed by your symbolic-logic distillation of "family culture conditions the extent of the intimacy differential between family and childcare" - and I completely agree. The only place we might not agree is on the psychological ramifications of that (or, indeed, whether there are any, as a (again, logical) necessity).

thanks archibaldandlilly for your response. was worried for a bit after posting that you think I was talking about you specifically. my dad was v flawed yet he did make us lunch when he was able, wiped bottoms, brought us to library and park, swimming etc. It's what I remember him for and am grateful for. I find it sad that some kids don't have that with their Dad even at weekends, evenings, hols etc. I spose being a Mum makes us aware of our own flaws and i like to think that dh is as likely to take days off when lo is sick (and he has taken off more days than me so far) or is just as likely to bring her food shopping or the shoe shop. Mums are brilliant but I'm not going to be a martyr (not suggesting that you are btw!) and pretend that I'm guilty going off to work when in reality I nearly skip out the door. I know I'd make an awful sahm, and feel guilty about that!I love all the earth mother stuff but know it's not me.. In the same way, that I'd never make a sahm feel bad "so you must be a boring old bint then", I loathe it when as a working mum you get the old "so you're ambitious/out working: surprised you had the time to schedule a baby then- spose you've dumped it with strangers who will emotionally retard your lo" makes me froth at the mouth.
<ramble ramble >

but i'm doing what works for me and my family and we're happy and i think as long as the family is happy then that's all that matters and every family is different - there's no one rule for everyone...obviously what this lady picked in the article wasn't making her kids happy and maybe she choose not too or just couldn't see it at the time, but it could work for another family, just not hers...

jamescagney - you asked me about my dad - to be honest he wasn't there in the same way as my mum, my mum was there for all the little daily things, she new what i had done at school, if i was feeling poorly, if i was feeling better, if i was sad cos someone was mean at school, if i desperately wanted that trendy new pair of shoes, when big things have happened like failing an exam or buying a house my dad has always been there, but in the daytime he was working normal office hours and not picking me up from school etc. I know people will disagree with me, but men and women are different as parents and women carry the baby and give birth and sometimes breastfeed and i think that does make us a little different, and children like the article seem to need it more from their mum maybe. My husband works in films, often in different countries and long hours and even if my son doesn't see him for a couple of months he is all over him when he does and doesn't seem to mind, but i sense that my son , even though only 14 months expects that his mummy will always be there each day for the little things he needs. but i disagree with you, i stay at home because i love my mum so much for making that decision with me, she was always there for me and available and i adore her for it and i know i'm such a loving person and have a beautiful relationship with my son because i learnt from her.

Fine - your "family culture" is at one with paid childcare - as was, for example, my father's family culture or my partner's family culture.

Anna, rather than 'missing out', I feel that my children are gaining from time spent with professional child carers. Whilst they have 'intimate' relationships with me and dh in the way that we define it, they also have 'variety' and 'social' benefits from their more transient carers.

I see that as a huge plus. Simply put, going to nursery gives my dcs an additional dimension to their lives (in terms of friends, activities, variety to their day) they would not get from me or dh.

As Bink has already eloquently described further down, the relationship with carers complements, rather than substitutes. Neither my dh, I nor my dcs demand or require intimacy from their carers, along the familial lines. Though of course, intimacy does develop to a certain degree as a matter of course in view of the length of time spent in each other's company and mutual affection for each other.

Bink - I quite understand about the degree of intimacy being different from one family culture to another - it was very different in my mother's family to my father's and French families are still to this day often surprisingly distant and formal.

And therefore family culture conditions the extent of the intimacy differential between family and childcare. And perhaps also the extent to which a parent thinks his/her child is "missing out" on something by being cared for by a professional rather than a family member?

and your dad archibaldandlilly? was he not there emotionally for you?
Why do Mums get the raw deal here everyone!
Or are people pretending that men and women are equal when really becase women have uteruses (uterii!)our little brains are best suited for little ones only.
<deep breaths> why is the child's emotional vulnerability solely the preserve of Mum; if Mums only are so fantastic at promoting well being and mental health of little ones then Dads have a serious duty to work every hour God sends so Mum doesn't have to work? Reasonable, no? Of course not.
Does that mean that Dads don't care enough - or, maybe, Mums care too much.
Be a SAHM, work part-time or full-time. I don't care but don't attribute whatever feelings you had as a child as your Mum's fault, even if true, it's hardly helpful.
Actively choose to do what you want, if it's to stay at home,fine. But don't do it cos of how you felt as a child, don't do it to retreat from the cruel world...

Sorry, Anna, missed that you'd made the time point.

Re your last question, I think you have a personal norm of intimacy there, which may not play generally? - as I can see that entire mornings spent mutually naked under the bedclothes is not a mode of intimacy anyone would think OK with a paid childcarer ... but neither is it a mode of my personal intimacy (which I think is perfectly fine) with my children. (I do realise though that we have some fairly fundamentally different views here.) So, er, that boils down to there not being such a big gulf (ie, in contrast with what there is for you) between my options for being intimate with my kids & my nanny's options.

a good article I thought giving both sides.

what shocked me was the comment at the bottom from a reader

"what a selfish child"

that speaks volumes

At the bottom of the article where people add their comments, someone has said 'You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.' Quite right.

I thought it was interesting that the daughter would remember how she felt, and feeling scared at such a young nursery age - i was lucky to come from such a loving family with devoted mum who could afford to just do part time work when i was at school so i never really knew she worked - i have no memory of being scared until i was way into primary school - my mum was always there to make me feel loved and wanted and secure - i'm a sahm currently , not sure about future but it definitely made me think, and i don't think daughter is wingy, lots of people have very bitter feelings about their parents up until they get old themselves so i think that's quite normal to think your mum should have been their emotionally for you when you were a child.

Um, why not? I think Kewcumber's points about her childminder are spot on; she is obviously a massive part of her son's life.

My brother- and sister-in-law spent stayed in touch with the au pairs who looked after them as babies, visiting them in Spain and seeing them as relatives.

And DD adores her carers at nursery. She may not stay in touch with them forever, but no way are they 'virtual strangers'.

As ever, it seems to come down to the personalities involved and the quality of childcare. Which is why, the original article got a lot of us so cross - you can't generalise about working-outside-the-home parents.

I still think it has something to do with behaviour not time spent together. My daughter sees far, far more of her paternal grandparents than she does of my sister, but she is thick-as-thieves with my sister and only just OK with her grandparents.

And surely no CM or nanny or au pair should have the kind of intimate relationship that family members can (though many don't, sadly, manage to) achieve?

not on a par with granmother in my house either. But way higher up the intimacy ranks than other relatives in our family, level of intimacy isn't the only important thing, you can't get away from the intimacy that comes with close daily contact, day in day out. My childminder has changed DS's nappies, mopped up vomit, cuddled him, drawn pictures with him, taken him to her childrens sports days (second in the todlder race this year ) and he was there clapping a cheering when one of her DS's was given a prize for sports achievement last week. And this happens three days a week for 10 hours each day.

My sister sees him for about 2 hours at most once a month. She does buy him more presents though.

I know which one he thinks is a bigger part of his life at the moment. Yes that may change over time but at the moment it isn't difficult to spot who is more of a stranger.

Bink - I made that same point earlier - that the length of time spent together isn't as important as the intimacy of the time spent together.

I'm not making any assumptions about the bond building activities between childcarer and child. But I am making an assumption that parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles/cousins will be present in a child's life forever, and that there are "family ties" that are very much stronger than the ties you can ever have with a transient paid childcarer or a teacher. I have absolutely no clue about what happened to my teachers or babysitters or other adults from my childhood. I regularly see, however, (and find vital to my life) my close biological family. My father and his brothers and sisters have never once seen in adulthood the nannies they had as children, despite their mother not being a maternal woman and not having done much childcare herself.

The point was about "strangers" and whether paid childcarers are or are not strangers. While not strangers they are certainly, in my family culture, very much less intimate than family members and certainly not on a par with grandmothers or aunts.

My CM's boys took great glee in teaching DS various new words and were proud to get him to display his new skills for me when I picked him up. In contrast my sister and her boys wouldn't have any idea what words he knew/didn't know.

It comes back to the point that you can't judge everyones position by your own. I strongly object to anyone calling my CM a "stranger" particularly when they don't feel their own childcare arrangements were satisfactory.

But, Anna, that still doesn't translate to a general lesson or principle. Because my children are still thoroughly au fait with their extended families and all of the tribal legends thereby entailed, despite my working full-time - you don't, I think, need totality of time-spent-together to build those sorts of bonds.

You're also assuming that childcarers don't share exciting bond-building stories of their own childhood with their charges: certainly ours have done - the Invasion of the Cane Toads being a favourite shocker . Perhaps you don't think that's relevant, not without the blood tie? I think it is relevant, and important, like the store of shared experience you build up with friends as you grow up. Anyway, my principle in all this is a simple one: the more the merrier, so long as everyone's happy.

When I returned to work, I never felt guilt/worry for a moment. I come from a long line of women who had to work. In fact, I am probably the first who had any real choice as to whether to go back to work or not. Knowing that everything was fine for all the children involved, that they didn't grow up feeling abandoned/hating their mothers/whatever was heartening indeed.

I suppose this historical perspective is/was more useful to me than the society that I currently find myself in (a different country/culture, in a more middle class, neurotic milleu). What my 'society' chooses to do is nothing to me - choose and enjoy!

What has happened to women through history isn't that relevant though. What is relevant is what happens in the society that you actually live in (there are lots of different types of society co-existing more or less happily on the planet today).

Most women will have worked in some capacity throughout history - the whole staying home and being a homemaker is a recent thing, and an option only open to a family earning over a particular threshhold anyway.

Maybe it's all a bit relative.

All my family are very intimate with my daughter - she thinks having a bath/getting into bed with a family member is just fabulous, she remembers every minute detail of people's personal lives (colour of cousin Lucie's bikini etc, name of my sister's hairdresser, exact colour of my mother's lipstick, the colour of the potatoes my father grows etc etc etc). So in comparison to her relationship to family whose homes she spends time in, any person she encounters in a school or childcare situation is going to be very much less intimate.

of course they have a different relationship though none of my brothers/sisters/cousins/neices/nephews have the relationship you describe with my DS and my CM has a far closer relationship. I'm not trying to claim that my Cm is a "mother" to DS but she is very much like an Aunt.

My comment was to the "lets face it - they are strangers" comment - they are NOT strangers.

I cannot imagine for a moment that any CM would do the same things that a parent does with children.

Of course, any "at home" carer (CM or nanny or au-pair) is likely to have a more intimate relationship than a childcare worker in an institutional setting

But only parents (primarily) and grandparents and brother and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins, surely, have baths with their children, take them with them to the loo, spend half the morning in bed naked having breakfast/reading stories and playing games under the duvet? Only close family members have endless, ongoing conversations about the minutia of their lives that they share under the same roof and with the same extended family that they will know all their lives and know all about?

Intimate, long-term family relationships are quite different to the transient relationships of paid carers or teachers.

my sister is far more of a strnager to DS than Cm - he would far rather be left with my Cm than my sister who is family. Which is just as it should be - I just marvel that people who haven;t ever used CM's (and thereofre have no idea what the relationship is like between a good CM and her mindees) persist in calling them strangers, which they really only are for a relatively short time.

yes I agree but what do you think that child-minders do with the children in their care. They don;t stuff them in a box under the stairs, they do what they do with their own children.

KC - my daughter's father was also almost a stranger to her at 11 months (as we lived in separate countries and only saw him occasionally). She certainly wouldn't be left alone with him at all when we first moved back to Paris.

But that relationship is quite different to the relationship with non-family members. It is not "time spent in one another's company" that defines whether or not one is a stranger, but "degree of intimacy" ie what you actually do and say together.

"lets face it - they are strangers"

As someone who was a complete stranger to my DS at 11 months I can promise you that even strangers can become very important to a child and a good stand-in for a mother quite quickly.

I worked hard to find childcare which worked for my DS and social workers and doctors alike are amazed at how well he has done despite his start in life.

I think a succession of not very good nannies doesn't give you a very balanced view of childcare at its best (or even frankly, reading your post, childcare when its adequate)

You are way are too liberal, ScottishMummy. Not yodelling surely.

i do smile at this dispensation given to working parents.you can work only if you are facing abject/poverty/imminent moral danger. otherwise best be a sahm.

Oh thanks for that!

is this dispensation applicable only to FT working parents or PT working parents too?who will assess the poverty and need to work?

what about working because you want to?

i work to

pay the mortgage - couldnt manage without 2wages.nor could i consider moving

put food in the fridge

maintain current standard of living.nope i dont want to drop standard of living either

pre-pg i worked and studied hard to get a mortgage and some fripperies like DVD player, TV, occassional bottle of wine, and some other extraneous items too

and
i like working
i enjoy the stimulation and social contact

i dont want to rock anyone world but i dont actually care/ponder what anyother parent does

you can
work
sahm
yodel
practise yogi meditation

i dont really care

Agree with Bink, lisalisa - you are talking about what is best for you in your circumstances and extrapolating that this should be the case for others ("i do strongly feel that its better for everyone's kids if the mother is a sahm").

I'm really pleased that you've found the right way for you and your children. But please don't try to generalise so baldly about other people's situations - "every child deserves a SAHM". My DD deserves the moon and stars (or so I think), but she can't have a SAHM because there wouldn't be a roof over her head. Instead, she's got parents who work flexibly to be there for her as much as possible and she loves nursery, where she is thriving.

Those are my circumstances. And if you asked every parent on MN, you'd find a million different situations. You just can't generalise SAHM = good, WOHM = bad. It's so much more complicated that that! Thank goodness.

Lisalisa, I want to say thank you for what you said.

It meant a lot to me as I have given up a very fulfilling full-time paid career in order to do bits and bobs as a volunteer and be round my children. I know it works better for ME, but my children are young so I truly don't yet know what the longterm consequences are.

Thank you for saying what you said. One of the promises I made myself was that I would always be there to pick the kids up from school.

Oh, and in my case there are no "extenuating circumstances" at all - I do things this way pretty much by choice.

lisalisa, while full of sympathy for your situation, I think you are doing a similar thing to the article: which is leading from one individual's issues to an extrapolation of a general lesson. (What someone else on the thread referred to as "Let that be a lesson to you!")

I, personally, do not think my children would have been better off with me as their single primary carer, I really don't.

I wouldn't have cooked varied meals for them; I wouldn't have thought to teach them playdate principles like "Nobody Ever Gets Left Out" (that was our nanny's idea, completely new to me, completely genius); I wouldn't have walked all over the park every day from age 2 (so that, age 9 and 7, we can take them for 5-mile mountain hikes without a whimper). I would have read to them and sung to them and talked to them about etymology and geology and opera and whatever; but I genuinely feel their nannies have broadened & deepened & enriched their lives, in a way which is complementary to - importantly, not a substitute & not meant to be a substitute for - what I could do for them.

I'm so glad your DD1 feels that way, lisa. But do you think that you are swinging from one extreme (long hours and nannies that you now feel was less than perfect) to recommending another - SAHM best? As you say, you have chosen to work p/t rather than be SAHM. So you must see some merit in that course of action?

You say that working p/t is for your own benefit - aren't you (and we all) entitled to that?

glad you are happy with your choice. i am very happy with mine

Scottishmummy - whilst i appreciate everyone's circs are very differnt i do strongly feel that its better for everyone's kids if the mother is a sahm. How can it be better for the kids if the mother is at work unless of course there are issues of dire poverty ( the type that would threaten the child's normal healthy development otherwise) or the mother takes drugs or drinks or somesuch so that the full time care by another adult is prefereable to the mother's care?

Otherwise care by a nanny is always going to be second best.

I understand that some mothers don't want to be sahm and feel that they'd be better mothers going to work. I also felt that for a good many years. And I still think I cope better by working every day ( albeit only until 3pm) but that is for my own benefit. Not syaing we don't need the money - we do - but, if I'm entirely honest we cuold give up my job and live in a much reduced way materially and not suffer. I mean no holidays abroad ( and proably not in UK eihter!) - we holiday abroad once per year - no eating out - we eat out about once per ten days - and not many new clothes etc.

So I'm full of contradictions - feel that all kids ( extenuating circs apart ) deserve a sahm but acknolwedge that not all mothers want that. However, juding by my own kids expereinces and also that kid in teh diana applyard article , most kids , if given the chance would firmly vote in favour of mother at home and at school gates. My dd1 tells me that the best thing I ever did for her is finishing work early so I can pick her up. And that is validation enough for me.

Having read this article, what made me laugh was the way she was talking about how they couldn't cope on her husband's salary alone - er no, if you have a big house in the country and all the things that go with it - of course you'll need two wages. If she was THAT bothered by her children's needs, they could have downsized and she could have cut her hours accordingly. Of course, the father also plays a part in all of this but because he hasn't written an article about the guilt he is feeling, its only natural that we aim our responses at what the mother should/shouldn't have done. She wanted her career before her kids - simple as that. Makes me sick to think that she didn't roll in before 8pm at night and tbh, I wonder why she bothered to have kids at all!! You can still give your children a nice life by working part time!

lisalisa i have read your contribution - shocking nanny story but "better" for you in your opinion/experience to be sahm.

but one cannot apply this across the board to all mums, all circumstances

i never wanted to be SAHM
need the money
chose to go back to work had nursery booked and deposit paid 11wks pg

so whatever suits the individual mum is best

Anna888 - i would be a SAHM. Simple as that really.

And how has it damaged dd1 - well, she's nervous, insecure and lacks confidence. Yes, yes, I know that it could hvae happened anyway but she wasn't like that as a young toddler - she was full of life and very extrovert. I just think it was years of nannydom tbh. Now I know that statistically there are good nannies around ( and I know there are few great sounding ones on MN) but I personally feel the whole concept of foisting your kids off on "strangers" ( as the DM said - and lets face it - they are strangers) is bad for their development.

I have had a mix of nannies - some better than others. Ultimately though they have all shared the simple crucial factor that they are not my children's mum and therefore do'nt have any long term interest and neither do they really, honestly and truley care if they grow up well adjusted, intelligent human beings or not. Their interest is usually limited to the duration of a year or two and revolves around peripheral issues such as whether they slept that day or did their homeowrk ( as they know I will ask). I suppose the crux is that as long as homework is completed ( in anaswer to my inevitable question ) the fact that the child may not have grasped any of it or that nanny , feeling tired and irritated , practically told or led child to the answerss without any feedback to me of real sitatuion, then the nanny's duty is done. The difference with a parent is that our duty is not done until our child has absorbed and understood the particular concept. This translates itself across the whole spectrum of nanny care so that unless the parent is there overseeing and retaining ultimate control over everything the child is in danger of being shortchanged.

My eldest dd suffered as , from the birth of ds1 when she was 2.5 she was always the eldest child. When she returned from nursery she was seen as a disruption and unwelcome irritation. A disturbance in the nanny's otherwise smooth ordered day with a young baby. A child of 2.5 who had to be amused rather than gazed at kicking on a playmat - one who demanded playdough, colours and , ultimately , affection. And one whose presnece the nanny would rather , thank you very much , not have. I remember clearly being asked over the last 10 yrs whether the children had holidays coming up and if so waht was being planned etc. All said charmingly but hte message being delivered was clear - I 'd rather spend my days with the baby - what are you , mum, planning to do wiht your older hcildrne.

This repeated itself each time I had a baby so that ds1 then became the older child and went through the same. Each time however dd1 was treated as older child and expected to be mature, not trouble the nanny and be older than she was.

We have also had a few bad incidents over the years. It's to be expected really as in 11 yrs of nannies there are bound to be a few bad ones but when we're talking about the care of the child rathe rthan a bag of apples we don't really want any mistakes.

I had the nanny who interpreted my wishes to have dd1 ( then about 18 months old) sleep in teh day to mean leaving her in the cot to scream. I only discovered this when dd became v reluctant to let me go to work and discussions with nanny disclosed she felt dd was struggling to sleep in day and needed "help". Neeldelss to say she didn't last too long after ( she saw nothing wrong with leaving dd to cry for up to half ah hour!!).

I had a nanny - charming one this - who decided , when same dd was 5 and not co-operating with bathtime- to drag her by the hair across the room. Luckily - very luckily - my mohter was downstairs and sacked her on the spot. Dd still talks about that nanny with hatred and disgust.

I could go on. But I won't. As a working mum I feel fully justified in saying that , although i love my work, it is better to SAHM if possible. your kids need you and its really only for a short time. now I'm working till 3pm it is so much better and I would really really recommend part time compromises wherever possible. I am still thinking of that article and that 5 yr old child clutching her essays and drawings in back of nanny car..............

i get tired of the same ole stereotypes avaricious,carer driven,distant mum slams children into daycare

this is what some people would like to believe.and they will twist, manipulate, and tell anecdotal tales to add weight and pseudo- corroboration's to their theories

i use nursery i know my LO is well cared for.
(please don't any tub thumper trot along and say ah well but do you really know etc)

such salacious stories are divisive and stereotypical

typical DM tosh

Lisalisa - I'm sorry to read about your bad experience. You say: "Shittaty shit. this article is quite scary and bloody true." Sorry if it is for you.

But I agree with Madamez (I think it was) who said earlier that the problem with the article is that it presents this as THE TRUTH ABOUT WORKING MOTHERS. And that's just crap. It's the truth about this situation, where the childcare doesn't seem to have been great and the parents (both of them) worked very long hours.

And yes, I'm another who 'dumps' her child with 'strangers' at nursery five days a week. SHAME on me.

(and it is all about shame from the daily mail isn't it?)

Do you not consider children's teachers to be strangers?

I certainly do: I don't the first thing about them. I never knew the first thing about my teachers when I was a child either - I certainly considered them to be complete strangers. I'd never been to their homes (or even knew where they lived), had never met their spouses and/or children, didn't know what they did outside school at all in fact.

Surely this article is saying that crap nannies are bad for children, not working mums?

And no one, even those with wads of cash, are ever happy with their lot.

My friend is a nanny and her two little charges adore her and she loves them.
If I could afford a nanny I'd hire her like a shot.

Alas, DD is stuck with bad tempered mum like me and a lot of lovely nursery ladies whom she has known for the last 4 years, but, by Daily Mail criteria, are, of course "strangers".

She goes to school in September, to another load of genuine strangers, whom she will know after a few weeks.
After that I shall, of course, find another set of strangers to leave her with

My mother worked all throughout my childhood out of necessity - my dad couldn't (for reasons that are not relevant here. I can remember toast and eggs sitting inside a warm oven waiting for me when I woke up, my mother already having gone to work.

I NEVER felt neglected or unloved, or like I missed out. Now that I am older and know more about the circumstances that she worked under (v crappy job, ill dh, child with major sn) I am so impressed that she was able to do it at all.

It never occured to me to feel hard done by.

I think I grew up in a different time - there weren't the expectations on mothers then that there are now. No one's mother arranged playdates/went to school plays (which were during school hours) baked things etc. Also, no one expected child care to be fulfilling - as long as they came back in one piece at the end of the day! CM certainly weren't expected to teach children/help them develop or whatever.

Anyway, this is quite rambling, but essentially I wanted to say, working mothers do not despair!

Oh lisa what do you mean by "somewhat damaged"? Doesn't it help your DD1 that you are around after school now?

Xenia, the voice of reason, where are you?

My mum worked full time and raised nine children. We cooked an edible dinner, cleaned the house a bit and worked hard at school. (well, most of us, most of the time)We knew how to iron, put out clothes etc all the skills you need for life
I felt sorry for my friends who had what we called 'clingy' mums who pestered the kids about school. I met these kids at uni, who raged because Mum hadn't packed their favourite shirt or sheet or saucepan or who rang home frequently looking for money, or who went wild without Mum's close Stalinesque supervision.
7 of the nine of us went to Uni, eight of us are in excellent professional employment (sorry if that comes across as arsey but its true). Only one of us is a sahm cos she is a lone parent. If you asked me at 20, I'd have said yeah Mum should've stayed at home,sacrificed her own independence, knitted and sewed and baked(actually she did all those!) and had no friends only us kids.Truth is, Mum is now a widow and still as active,now as years ago. She's a resourceful woman and she taught us to be able to provide for ourselves and support each other. This might sound all very Waltons but it's true. My little one will learn the value of education and that she needs to be able to support herself and her family. [rant over]
Anyhow, why isn't Ross Appleyard berating himself? What a poor husband that he couldn't provide the lifestyle that he and Diana agreed was necessary? Tut tut.
Oh, and sympathy to poor little rich girl, she certainly looks neglected, posing outside their hovel

lisalisa - with the benefit of hindsight, what kind of mother would you be if you had your time again?

And I'm at work and feel like crying.

I only read the OP plus half this article - everything that the mother said plus half of what the child said. Ouch. and double ouch.

I could only read half of what the child said because it felt so bloody true and ghastly.

Especially about having to find her own way through the car park and nanny never getting out of hte car. And her never showring nanny her pics and essays and being too tired to show mum at the end of the day.

This was so bloody painful that it hurts.

Why? Because I used to have such a career where I was out all day leaving my kids ith a succession of nannies. Each was worst than the last. REally. A trawl of my posts here over the last 5 yrs will support that. And why? Not that we didn't pay good money - oh, yes, it bloody bankrupted us at times . With tax we topped £600 per week . And for what? Nannies who, like Diana's, adored our babies and were irritated by our older children who needed their love and support possibly more.

I have experienced all that but was lucky as my kids told me that nanny x hated them or nanny y sat onthe computre all afternoon instaed of being wiht them. So out the door went nanny x and y.

Of course Diana's daughter is right. And you can call this article working mother bashing by the DM but this masks the truth. It is bloody correct judigng by the awful pain it has given me.

Now I work shorter hours. I still leave the house at 8am as diana says, waiting for hte nanny to take over so I can breeze out. Ouch. But - and thank god for the but - I am in teh playgorund every day at 3.30pm to pick up my children and I am so very bloody glad I am.

What you miss out on by not being htere is phenomenal. The amount of informaiton I get in the playgorund from tidbits from teh teacher ( which were never but ever communicated onward to me by my nannies in the days they would pick up ) to invites from other mothers for playdates to spontaneous arrangments etc. In those days my kids would come home with nanny not being able to spontaenously invite or be invited ( arrangments too complicated with 4 kids at time) and also i could never be relied on to answer office phone whilst owrking to confirm these spontaneous arrangments were ok and that I could pick up 3 dds around town after 6pm )as I would usually be in office library.

Now I invite and kids are invited, mums and I chat an dget to know eachother, I am a presence in the childrne's lives .

It still is an awful truth however that ds2 ( who is nearly 3) still cries when i go to work. He still asks in that little lilted voice of his every but every morning " ARe you going to work today mummy?" and still tells me to take off my jacket and sit down and read to him. I hate and bloody hate seeing the disappointment in his sweet green eyes when i say that, yes, mummy is going to work today and no, he cna't come wiht.

Shittaty shit. this article is quite scary and bloody true. Will pluck up courage to read rest later alone in bedroom.

One final admission - eldesst dd aged neaerly 12 is certainly somewheat damaged from years and years of nannies.

Now come and shoot me down - I'm already cowering in the corner.

and what about where mum is sole (or almost sole) breadwinner? Where Dad would not make a great SAHD because it would drive him insane and deprive mum of all hope that it might not always be this way (because else there is no chance that he starts to make proper cash meaning that she might be able to go part time).

Thats pretty much where I am and am likely to be for foreseeable future. Like most working mums I muddle through and do the best I can.

hmmm interesting.

I don't think the mother in that article is what I would describe as "typical" working mum. Kind of extreme.

Oh, and FWIW, the kid does sound like she's still going through that whiny teen stage - I know I was at 20.

Um, don't know if this has been said yet, but when I was a kid both my parents worked outside the home because they were in low paid employment and we needed the dosh to pay rent, bills and eat. It has always been the norm among the low paid for both parents to work while Granny/Auntie looked after the kids.

My generation of my extended family has been the first to have the option.

SAHMs are a middle class invention - but isn't everything?

Darth- surely a mother or a father?

What?? The Daily Mail bashing working mothers?? Never!

I don't think this child is a spoilt brat.
She missed out on emotional support and closeness with her mother and also on "fitting in" with everyone else. These things are important to the experience of childhood.

The daughter did well with material goods and holidays, most would view that as fortunate. Whether this was a good balance is debatable but the daughter says that she did not have a particularly happy childhood experience - so with the benefit of hindsight, something was wrong, and a lack of emotional support is a big deal for kids. This is not to suggest that SAHMs provide this better, but I think it is certainly a mother's responsibility to see that her children get emotional support in whatever way that might be.

The article isn't particularly relevant to most working mothers' experiences. The daughter sounds a bit of a spoiled brat - probably because she was given everything money could buy by parents who seemed to be hellbent on having 'the best' of everything. Like someone has said, I'm sure if her pony had been taken away she'd have something to say about it.

Most parents of either gender work because they have to (ie they need to pay the mortgage and put food on the table) and they enjoy it to a reasonable extent. Most workig parents don't work 8-8 and leave their childrne with a nanny 12 hours a day. Most of us cobble together some compromise that means missing out on promotions and on school plays occasionally but gives us enough of an income to pay the bills and have a holiday once a year. It's not always about barn conversions, ponies and ski-ing in the Rockies. It's usually about a bog standard 3 bed semi, a 10 year old Ford Focus, a couple of guinea pigs and a week or two in Cornwall. In this day and age, that often takes two salaries to achieve. Is that so evil? Why is it my 8 year old can understand that but some grown women can't?

rebel- yes. I'm self employed, and that is a great advantage...the disadvantage being that often I have to work late hours or something when there's a ryush on , and I can't "go home" and shut the door on it. but I do love what i do.

Xenia- well private schools broke up ages ago so she's probably gone to her island... (only jealous xen )

I haven't seen Xenia for a while, actually...

Yes and an even bigger difference if it is flexible, you can pick it up and let it go when you need to and you are not beholden to it.

I think jobs are just one aspect of everyone's life rebel; but it makes a huge difference if it is fulfilling.
Of course there's more to life than work.

There is so much more to life than a narrow set of job options. Don't get me wrong I have a great job but I have many other interests, it's just one aspect of my life. If you rely only on a job to fulfill you I think that's quite sad. I don't know many people who are wholly fulfilled by their work.

I'd like my dd to aspire to be happy and fulfilled, and she needs to select a career or vocation that enables that but I'd like her to be autonomous and think for herself and not think that only working for someone else brings fulfillment. I'd like her to see a breadth of options and have the confidence to pursue her passions.

It is a choice, and alot of us feel there is more to a meaningful and fulfilling life than bringing up children and keeping a home. Alot of people are fulfilled by that. And of course alot of people have no choice.

So where is xenia?

er no where in the article have I read that women should be in a kitchen. I think you insult every woman who is in the luxurious position to make the choice to be at home when her children are young and every woman like me has no choice but to work. Being at home doesn't mean you have to be at the sink, there are dishwashers and washing machines these days.

I think alot of it is to do with whether you find your work rewarding and fulfilling; I for one, want my daughter's to see that that in me. And to aspire to it.

Rebelmum, it's not so much that I object to an individual woman saying she wishes she had made different choices: the problem is the way it's presented as 'Look! Working is bad for women and it fucks up their children! Get back in the kitchen NOW you selfish bitches or your children will hate you.' And the woman described in the original article is not at all typical of the majority of working mothers anyway.

So there

I think you've lost the plot if you think striving to be a wage slave and juggling parenting is the nirvana. I don't want to work, neither does my dp we're striving and working together for a more fulfilling existence. Most men I know don't enjoy working and would give it up at the drop of a hat. I'd rather walk the dog and have a picnic with friends most days. Most people who work are bored.

Many women can't afford to stop working when they have children so it's unlikely they are going to read the article, think that's it I'm staying at home and down tools. What planet are you on?

I can't see why a woman isn't allowed to be negative about her experience as a working mother. Working mother's do have negative experiences I know I do. Maybe your lives and childcare are perfect and you are superior beings being able to do it all and have it all. I for one cling on by my fingertips most of the time.

Yes, I am a virtual stranger to the chidren I CM, and to their families.

I get comments, too about working parents 'dumping' their children with me but not many people comment on the fact that I also am a working parent

<<sigh>>

The article is infuriating on so many levels

Although the daughter was in childcare for very long periods, it seems to me (after a quick read of the article - both DSs sleeping at same time, so have to be quick!) that the main issues she had with it were that she thought the nanny hated her and that she got shouted at by the nursery staff - not the fact that she was in childcare per se.

And the "virtual strangers" thing really ticks me off, too.

I've scanned most of this.
I am a working mum, i dump my daughter at around 7am at the stranger's house and generally return about 7pm to take daughter home and ignore her spend quality time with her.

I do lots of things with her, we cook tea together so that we get to chat about our day etc, we read together most nights, i take her for her swimming lessons one night a week and we go swimming every weekend too. The rest of the weekend is spent walking/going to the park/ playing together/baking etc etc.

She has been minded by a stranger since she was 5 months old and has not been damaged in any way. I work very hard to provide and receive no maintenence from her bio father who has been missing since she was really quite small.
She is a happy well balanced child who does extremely well at school.

I don't think it matters a jot whether or not you work as to how your kids turn out, what matters is the morals you teach them and how stable and loving your home life is.
I'm fed up with the guilt trips about working, fed up with having the piss taken out of me for wearing a suit to school functions that i've legged it from work to attend.
I absolutely love my job, I've worked hard to get where i am, i'm good at what i do and a happy mummy helps make a happy child.

As for the comments about maternity leave cocking up your prospects, well out of the 36 people who went through the apprenticeship scheme with me when i was training as a marine engineer, i am the only one who is now a senior manager, well known in my field and well paid for it as well.
Having a child taught me about responsibility and commitment and has reflected in my general attitude to work which i think has contributed greatly to where i am today. I would never have fought so hard to get to where i am if i had not had a small child who needed feeding, clothing and housing.
I would have (i suspect) been quite happy to remain on my tools earning an average wage and spending it in the pub every weekend.

Who the f thinks that madamez? I think rights should enable choice, whether they be maternity or women's rights. In addition if we had equal paternity rights the likes of Mr Forward thinking Sugar would be less likely to spout such crap.
I'd love to read about women giving up their human rights???????

Wasabipeanut, yes, well spotted, there is a lot of this sort of thing going on at the moment. Expect even more articles about how women who give up their human rights and hand everything over to Perfect Hubby feel so much more 'fulfilled' when all they do is clean the house, raise the kids and open their legs whenever Hubby gets the horn...

Oh, and anyone reading this who thinks that feminism 'hasn't worked' or has been 'bad for women because it takes them away from their natural roles', then you'd better switch Hubby's computer off right now, hadn't you? Women don't need to be able to use computers. They have no need to vote, handle money, drive, go out of the house unaccompanied. They don't really need to be able to read to fulfill their 'natural' functions as domestic appliances, sex receptacles and walking foetus-containers...

I can understand the daughtter's feeling to some extent. However I do think she sounds a bit spoilt.

Both my parents worked long hours, the difference being we were a typical working class family, my Dad left his job to start up a business as a plumber so my mum worked in a shop to feed and clothe us, horses and private education were not on the agenda!

Any resentment I felt was directed against my Dad because he was never there due to him going out after work down the club with his mates.

Me and dh both work long hours ourselves now but our children understand that in order to have some of the stuff they do, we have to do that.

I was a latch key kid. 'Never did me no 'arm' etc etc.

It meant I could watch The Littlest Hobo in peace before Cubs. Result.

It makes me uncomfortable that this article is appearing at the same time as a slew of comments by people like Alan Sugar and Nicola Brewer on whether the "generous" maternity packages now available to women are actually harming women because they are having their cv's binned at the selection stage.

It all seems to be combining into a "womens rights haven't really worked out have they so why don't we all just go back to the way it was?" sort of message.

Which really pisses me off.

LOLOL at MI's post 'Admittedly I am no spring chicken but I'm not Emily fecking Pankhurst either.'
I agree- she is 9 years older than me, that makes her same generation as me I reckon albeit she had her kids a lot younger than I had dd...

and I don't think anyone's saying working 8-8 is a great idea, it's certainly not what I do and not what most working mums do

I don't think that anyone said men had to be the same? Any more than there is one specific type of mother which is best. I don't even think that anyone has said that her choices were necessarily fair or sensible for her children. It was more a comment on the complete lack of guilt/blame/analysis of the fathers part in the children lacking an active parent.

I go back to nkf's point - she's not exactly representative of the majoirty of working mothers.

Well, I think that 8-8 away from your parents is a shame.
I think it's good for the child's sense of security to be collected from school by their parents when possible.
And children do have a different relationship with mother and father, apart from breastfeeding.
It is a different energy and way od communicating, no need to pretend we are exactly the same for the sake of equality

Marvellous film that was.
Do you remember the scene where the poor daughter is taunted by classmates: "Your mum's a CONNUMIST"

<croaks>

Have I unwittingly offended you MotherInferior?

Well, as the mother in question was Ruth First and she was murdered, she got her come-uppance, didn't she, eh?

It's funny how every time the father is dragged out as a defence/reaction to such articles. I've no doubt that children would not naturally have a preference and just one parent would do. Of course children, especially when other parents attend, would like their own parent to drop and pick up fro school, see plays etc.

My DH regrets work pressures that have kept him away from concerts and assemblies this school year and the boys really missed him, it was really sad to see some of the children looking for their parents and seeing that they're not there and the children that are so used to no-one watching that they don't even bother.

I think it's unfortunate that we think of mothers and not parents, I think our children would (in a ideal world) like a both there, but family needs money and so one is a good second.

Hey, there's no right or wrong there's only doing your best.

'I suppose (trying to be fair here) Diana Appleyard's generation did see themselves as trailblazes and there were fewer matenity rights'...WHAATT??

SHE IS A YEAR OLDER THAN I AM, FFS. Admittedly I am no spring chicken but I'm not Emily fecking Pankhurst either. And last time I looked, most women of my ancient vintage are quite used to working, voting, having our own bank accounts and so on...

Children often do dislike something about the way they were brought up. There is a rather intriguing film (someone may remmeber the title) about a child in South Afica whose mother was big in the anti-apartheid movement. The mother was a really brave admirable person and the story was about the daughter's unhappiness about being sidelined for the cause. And the daughter's pain was very convincing and yet the mother was still admirable.

Sorry I'm rambling. But feeling short changed in some way is common among children at a certain age.

"of course you can't 'have it all' and there are days when I'm utterly frazzled trying to juggle household stuff and full-time work"

If you are struggling to 'have it all' then my tip is to give up the housework.

Gosh, some excellent posts there, especially from Bink, www and Kewcumber.

Just want to add that I grew up in a similar environment - mother a very committed feminist full-time solicitor (youngest ever to qualify in UK, very driven) - and desperately wanted my mother to collect me from school and show up for sports days etc. I was utterly miserable and bullied at junior school and my mother never even knew until another girl's mum mentioned it in our leaving year...

Aged 20 I would have said some very similar things (although I would have forgiven everything for a horse!!! ). Interestingly my sister is also 5 years younger and had quite a different experience as my mother was also slowing down a bit as my sister reached her teens.

But (and here's the important thing), at 34 I am now really glad that my mother demonstrated a different role model to all my friends' mums. Yes, I did want her to be around more and I still wish that she would have spent some time with me when she did come home after work instead of leaving the nanny to feed/bathe/put me to bed, but I am really grateful that I grew up with a different paradigm of parenting.

Its means that now, with 2 dcs I can feel capable of choosing to work full-time.

More importantly, it means I know how important it was/is to me to be able to attend sports days/collect from school at least once a week etc and so I have consciously and carefully chosen a career that gives me the flexibility to be able to do that. I could only do that because I went into my career choice 10 years ago with an awareness that this would be very important to me.

Of course I'm sure my kids will still complain about something (otherwise I won't have done my job right!), and of course you can't 'have it all' and there are days when I'm utterly frazzled trying to juggle household stuff and full-time work but at least I do get to work from home 1 or 2 days a week, I do get to finish on time to collect ds from nursery at least once a week and I do get to feed/bathe etc my kids almost every night.

So not perfect, but not a bad balance, I think, and entirely down to my experience growing up

Oh, and my mother is now 64 - she really was in the feminist vanguard...!!

(PS Sorry if a bit rambling-y, this touched several chords!)

on this particular board yes though not specifically from you its consistently used on WOHM debates (usually in conjunction with "dump" hence my confusion)

ah so it is just 'stranger' you object to

good point what the hell is "home front" am I allowed to post in it at work

What the chuff is "home front"???

I thought I posted this in "in the news"!!?

think I am unfairly maligning you with that one - it came from another thread.

who said 'dump'?

Chequers Anna had it deleted but it was a corekr (thinkI saved it on the PC at home...) but yes DS is divine isn't he. I smugly ignore all my inadequacies as a parent by looking at him and thinking - "its a miracle you even survived and here you are being divine in my living room"

It's bloody hard trying to do it all. I hate it and my DP shares tasks and we have an equal relationship. I do my share of DIY too. I'd write about it does that make me anti-feminist.

I suppose (trying to be fair here) Diana Appleyard's generation did see themselves as trailblazes and there were fewer matenity rights. And boarding schools have only recently gone out of fashion among a certain class.

I'm sure there are Rebel and I'm certainly grateful to be able (at the moment) to work 4 days rather than 5 but using language like "stangers" and "dump" isn't going to forward the cause of womesn choice only alienate those who choose/have to work.

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Some people are poor at choosing childcare. Some people are poor employers. That doesn't mean that childcare is therefore "a bad thing". Just that it needs time and care put into it, and that as parents you don't give up your responsibilities when you have found someone to look after your children. We have had a variety of childcare options, three nannies, a nursery, a childminder, their dad, and currently me. I think they were happiest with nanny number two, but of course we kept a careful eye on them all the time. I do think it isn't fair to be very absent, but from what I have experienced of colleagues, friends and family, most of us do our best to minimise the time we are away from our kids (perhaps mainly because our careers/jobs are not that exciting).

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A lot of women don't have the luxury of choice and have to work. Times are hard,cost of living is high so are they also saying get to work but tough shit your kids will suffer? There are hardworking mums that would prefer to be at home when their kids are young you know.

She is allowed to give a negative view. She has. In a national newspaper no less. Been paid for it too. It's the spin that is irritating. For many people, there are lots of negative sides to working and for others there are negative sides to not working. I think it's good to discuss them

What exasperates me about the DM article is the tone, the "Look at me. Let this be a lesson to you." I look at Diana Appleyard and think "I'll never in a million years be like you."

DaDaDA - not even close to exploding. Many years of unsuccessful fertility treatment and many years of social workers and bureaucracy tend to leave you sublimely indifferent to anyone elses opinions on the matter, as everyone does have an opinion when you are an overseas single adopter who works (nearly) full time... and they generally feel the pressing need to share their opinion with you.

(If anyone recalls teh single Russian adopter/Anna666 thread they will however recall me getting a tad cross then.)

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I think that is exactly what the DM is trying to say. Only they've found this oddball to do it. Which defeats their purpose.

You see I don't see why you would explode. What on earth is there to be angry about. Ok so she overdid it and didn't achieve the right balance and maybe her priorities slipped. What is there to get mad about? Perhaps her husband is an arse. Maybe she has left him which is why there is no comment. I can't see why a woman isn't allowed to give a negative side to working. I work and don't particularly want to but don't see a career break as giving up my rights in any way. I have a mutual relationship and likewise my dp might want time off or a career change in the future. Not working for a while doesn't equate to drudgery.

I think the main thing is not that the mum worked too hard when her kids were small and now regrets that a bit; nor that the daughter wishes her mum had been around a bit more, but that the Daily Mail thinks this is sufficiently newsworthy to put in a newspaper ! And that's why it IS about the wider debate we are having on here, becuase they're not publishing it to say "oh how interesting, here is a daughter wondering if her parents made the best parenting/childcare choices when she was young", they're publishing it to say "all you mums who work, you're damaging your children and here's why"! Or maybe I'm being too sensitive?!

Someone recently asked why DS was so premature - I said "I dunno I wasn't there" and went on to explain that I had outsourced the birth as far too busy to attemd

The article is rubbish. Or rather the spin on it is rubbish. Diana Appleyard made some (to me at least) strange and unwise decisions. And it's presented as a case against mothers working. I'd like to think she's just being cynical and cooked it up with her daughter.

I wasn't intending to attack everyone who has a child in child care and everyone who adopts and works and is single adopts. I have a child in childcare where she has been since she was 1.

I think the article is a load of cock. I think it's motives are transparent and despicable. I think Kewcumber is doing remarkably well not to explode.

I've found a lot of the attitudes on these Home Front threads over the past few days profoundly depressing.

I was just being clever to the clever person who pointed out that adoptive parents didn't fit my breast feeding, birthing criteria.

I wasn't talking about your CM I don't know your CM I didn't even know you had one

Maybe I'm not clear .. hmm moment of self doubt

I'm not taking it personally Rebel I'm responding to your question "Can you adopt if both parents work full time and care will be entrusted to a stranger?" - particularly as it is relevant to me and I know what I'm talking about. At the same time as trying to informand educate I took issue with your use of the word stranger to describe my CM.

I think your reading stuff into it. I didn't say that people shouldn't adopt, is there another thread in a parallel mumsnetiverse or something that I'm not aware of.

Good sensible analysis nkf!

Frogs - what I enjoy about "outsource" is that connotation of possibly steely businesslike efficiency ... that you are using your head to organise your childcare (and therefore, all hintingly, not your heart). With which I am perfectly fine, as I trust my head quite well.

Woah - lay off rebel! I think she's just saying that her own parents left her with someon they only met for 30 minutes and it didn't work out so she didn't do it herself.

sorry perhaps i misunderstood you rebelmum! were you referring only to nannies?

but rebel, that says more about someone's ability to hire good staff than about working parents!

rebelmum I think most women take a great deal of care to choose the right childcare for their children while they are at work

it's one of the hardest things to do when you are planning to go back to work-you desperately want to get it right and for your child to be happy with this person

"I chose not to leave my child with a person I had spoken to for only half an hour in sole charge" is a rather bizarre thing to say

do you honestly think this is what working mums do?

My child is in nursery Kew and before that was with a childminder which is an open caring environment. It is nanny's that I personally find questionable in my view because it isn't an open environment and there may never be any outward signs that there is a problem, such as the baby left crying all day which was what happened to me. Except I didn't have a nanny I had a male aupair who my parents did not previously know and interviewed for say half an hour. My brother sacked his nanny on the spot for neglecting his kids recently, she had been employed for a year before he found out. It is not the first nanny he has sacked.

Primary carer is the person that the child is most bonded to not the person they spend most time with. At a very young age (under say 3 months) the child will bond with the person they get most of their needs satisfied by - food, comfort, etc. After that CHidlrne can generally deal with any number of improtant and loving people in thier lives quite competantly - I even hear that some children are quite attached to their fathers despite only seeing them at weekends.

I didn't mention "most of the week" at all, did I? (Unless I'm going mad)

I'm not touchy I'm reacting and debating to your commetns (isn't that what we do here?) I said the same kind of things to those people who said "oh how selfish to adopt if you're single".

I also agree with the poster who said that it's not just working mother bashing. Of course the Daily Mail probably thinks it is and some people will read it like that. But the Daily Mail specialises in features from women most of us would regard as strange. Liz Jones for starters. And Diana Appleyard sounds strange to me. I can't for the life of me understand why anyone can write about never asking about the nanny and the choice of boarding schools and then say that work was the bit she got wrong.

I love 'outsourcing', bink. 'Delegating' is good too. Is it 'outsourcing' when I get a lovely Romanian student to pick up dc from school so that I can get an extra 45 mins work done a day? And I'm thinking very seriously about outsourcing the swimming lessons too, as frankly I'd rather stick pins in my eyes.

I also delegate the baking of fairy cakes for school/church cake sales to older dc as frankly ditto pins above.

But I am a self-confessed slack mum.

I don't think anyone has said women should give up their work. Perhaps I have missed something.

Why are you taking it so personally. Don't you think babies need contact with their mothers?

I am also finding the suggestion that this was all Long Ago Before Feminism a little, well, odd. The dame's a year older than I am. I've always expected that when I finally managed to entice a man into my procreational clutches, the poor sap would have to take on at least some responsibility for household stuff.

(This may, of course, be why it took me a decade longer than Whatsherface to find a suitable victim candidate.)

What a perfect demonstration of misogyny that is. Because one woman's daughter says she wishes her mother had not gone out to work, every woman should give up work, because after all, women are totally interchangeable, not really people, and they only matter in relation to men and children...

do you think a childmionder will run off with your child rebel, or hurt them or what? Because I'm sure you know that statistcially you are more likely to do that than they are.

There is also "outsource" (which I rate a bit more highly as rhetoric, actually, as it's just that weeny bit subtler)

Last time I did my maths 10 hours a day 5 days a week worked out as most of week?! But then I didn't count nights. Christ your really touchy.

"I chose not to leave my child with a person I had spoken to for only half an hour in sole charge" - me neither rebel - I don't understand your point.

Off topic I know, but I find it interesting how merely having been offered a job after 4 plus years of SAHMdom has changed my reactions to these threads...

And it's months before I need to dump my children with virtaul strangers

"Farm out" also gets an airing.

lol orm

I chose not to leave my child with a person I had spoken to for only half an hour in sole charge but perhaps I'm being over protective...

I'm with you, entirely. Also with not knowing, in real life, ANYONE who is irresponsible about childcare.

the adoption panel don't consider a childminder or nursery to be the childs main carer. Because they aren't.

Oh yes... forgot about 'dump'. It is in fact the only verb that can be used with 'strangers'.

x post kewcumber!

pmsl - great minds WWW...!

and whilst we're on the subject of emotive language... funny isn't it how you "dump" your child at nursery or CM but "drop" them off at school

Hey, don't forget, working mothers, you don't leave your child with a stranger skilled carer, you dump them. Lots of lovely pejorative words always float about during these discussions.

If arguably you are planning to adopt a child and plan to both work full time. The main carer would be a person unknown to the adoption board, not quite sure which term you prefer to use.

I think this is a pretty extreme example of a WOHM.

Where is the model I see with most of my friends/colleagues?

You know, the mother who works but also gets home in time to make supper, rarely misses concerts and important school events, always reads the bedtime story, works part-time when the kids are tiny, etc etc.

If they are going to take an extreme scenario then of course there will be disadvantages. We could equally be reading about "how I was smothered by my SAHM who never had a life outside the home and lived her ambitions out through me" or some other extreme example.

yes Bink I noted your post becasue its such a bug-bear of mine. My experience both RL and MN is that working mother often agonise over childcare arrangement for their child, but someone can always trot out the "but I know someone who dumped their child in a nusery at 3 days old for 15 hour days". There are four women in the country who do this at anyone time - apparently they all know someone on MN.

Kew ... but "stranger" is such a lovely convenient emotive word (see very first immediate reaction post on this thread, from me), how can we hope expect that people will stop using it?

I think use of the word 'strangers' is rather insulting. It implies no care has been taken in the choice or preparation. Most of happily leave our 4yr olds with teachers and TAs who are 'strangers'.

Diana Appleyard if she is for real and not just doing a bit of cashing in is untypical of mothers working or otherwise. By all accounts, she didn't ask her daughter what she thought of the nanny. She sent the children to boarding school. The idea that she represents the reality of working mothers is ridiculous.

but its particularly ridiculous in my case Cat because everyone was a stranger to my DS (who was adopted). He didn;t meet my sister until he was 15 months and has seen her about once a month for a few hours ever since, he met my CM (who also CM's for other MN children) at roughly the same time and he spends three days a week with her, goes to ker kids sportsday (came second in the toddler race ), prizegivings etc. Everyone would think leaving him with my sister would be lovely becasue she's family but in truth he knows my CM far far better.

This stranger thing winds me up a treat.

well if you leave you child with a stranger kew then so do I...

I guess CM's etc are necessarily strangers to start with as they are not friends or family (usually)- but not once your child has settled in and has got to know and accept them.

agree nkf - its not exactly the norm for working mothers is it?

But really no-one answered - just how well/long does my DS need to know my Cm before she isn't a stranger to him - or am I forever to be bleated at on MN about leaving my child with a "stranger".

She's quite extreme though. Very long hours and she sent the children to boarding school.

My first thought reading this was 'where is the dad in all this?' Both the mother and daughter seemed to take his refusal to take his share of responsibility for parenting as a fact of life rather than a choice that he had made (and that he was being allowed to make).
Maybe it's a generational thing - I can't imagine having a relationship with a man who didn't see our children as a joint responsibility but a friend of mine's mother said the other day that she didn't think her husband talked to the children until they were about four!

but agree that taking breastfeeding out of the equation (for whatever reason as the mojority of women don't breast feed for lond sadly) there is no reason why one parent is prefered by the child over another.

Studies recommend that a child bonds with a primary carer initially, never mind sex, it doesn't even need to be a parent (thankfully).

Oh dear Rebel we're not back to calling my lovely CM a stranger again are we? I was a stranger to DS at one time and as a working single mother I can assure you that they will accept adoptive parents who work provided that you have thought thorugh what you will do if your child required additional attention.

Generally the requirement for a parent to be at home is because many children in the UK care system do have additional needs. Apart from that they don't actually require some kind of uber-parent.

My point isn't whether children can be adopted by two working parents or not, I'm saying that: "But early on it's the mother the child needs more" doesn't necessarily apply to adopted children under rebelmum's criteria.

I am not sure but think that they prefer one parent at home from the ads I have seen in the past.

Can you adopt if both parents work full time and care will be entrusted to a stranger?

I agree rebelmum

What about adopted kids though? Your rules don't apply there.

its a very fair point reble that its only the mums that can get pg and bf.

Childcare is a joint decision or at least should be. My dp said no straightaway when he met the nanny we interviewed. We always make a joint decision, I wouldn't want to carry the responsibility on my own. Besides I don't think you can deny that
a) women are pregnant and men cannot do that
b) women breast feed and men cannot do that
c) the bond between mother and baby is quite different because of the above
d) If you take a career break or go back part/time you are taking a nose dive in earnings and prospects
e) because of d men generally earn more and are the main breadwinner

When the child is a bit older of course responsibilites and chores should be shared. But early on it's the mother the child needs more.

A nanny is a risk if you ask me. They might be fantastic or not you never quite know until it's too late. I opted against a nanny for that reason.

it would of been more interesting if they had the dads story too.
id love to hear his take on all this, and if indeed he would do things differently if he could go back in time.

its ll very well, us all saying that the dad is let off the hook, but what are we, as our generation of women, going to do to try and correct this?

make the dads do their fair share of childcare and chores

what else?

I found the article interesting because my mum worked FT from when I was little and went back to work quickly after my DBs and DSs BUT was also the major bread winner. My dad is lovely but a bit of a lazy arse so mum was also doing all the rushing around etc.

However, we were looked after by my grandma who was a difficult lady, very bright and very bored who didn't enjoy it. We were well looked after but time with mum was very special. I actually really value that I had close time with mum and didn't have to take the teenage angst stuff out on her because I had granny to do that with... Purely positive views of WOH for me then. I think it depends on the childcare!

I don't think it is that extreme my brother has had lots of different child care, both he and his wife work FT in jobs that also extend to working at weekends. His children have not had continuity of care and nannies have been sacked on the spot for neglecting the children. My own childhood experiences of being left were dire and I have mainly sad memories. I don't think this is an extreme example. I think it is probably fairly common.

It sounds like the parents were more bothered about giving their children the "perfect life" than spending enough time with them to figure out whether they were happy (and I mean the weekend activities, not the going to work). But the daughter in this case is only 20, so it seems a little surprising for her to feel it was extraordinary to have a working mum, I work with many women in their forties and fifties who worked when their children were young. I suspect it may have been the perfect life environment that might have been the problem. Agree about the 20 year old angst. Obviously they should have known she was unhappy with the nanny, but then I was bullied at school and I never told my mum until many many years later - I just assumed she somehow knew I was unhappy (and she was a SAHM). Also there is some sibling jealousy there too.

However I do think if as a parent (mum or dad) you work very long hours and do not spend time with our children you will miss out.

I work too and we don't throw money about and i still buy things from car boots. I don't consider that deprivation. DP is lucky to get a sandwich though for tea.

I think the article is a bit of an extreme example - someone who considered themselves a vanguard of working mothers, and obviously spent more time worrying about her job than her kids - justification being that if they could live in a posh house with a pony everything would be OK. Her daughter says it all - she was almost NEVER there! Some people have no choice but to work, but surely that is better for the kids than living in poverty. Are the kids going to judge their parents badly for that? I think the next generation will see it as completely normal for both parents to work. But I do hope that most of us WOHMs do not just hand over our parenting responsibilities to the nanny and only think about how much money we can earn. From what I see on here we all juggle everything as well as we can...and our kids mean everything to us!

hmm my mum worked and we were still skint.

You can't just dismiss the childs sadness because she's stroppy 20 year old.

My mother was a SAHM. This meant, in our house, Dad got steak ("He's got to go to work, Jill!") and we got sausages.

She was always there. She didn't do a great deal with us, she was too poor. I'd have loved riding, and music lessons, and ballet, and being driven about. What I got was walking around the town with my mum and two younger siblings, being told I'd have to wait until I got home for a much needed drink ("They cost a fortune in cafes")and being forced persuaded to spend my birthday money on charity shop clothes for summer when I was 10.

She had no more time for me than she would have had if she had worked - she was wrapped up with the younger kids anyway.

Maybe the girls mother did work too long. It's very unfortunate that she did seem to be left for rather too long in childcare. But it could have been much much worse. Her life lacked balance, perhaps.

totally agree with the daughters pov.

my mum was a fultime working mum, i was a v lonely child.
spent summer holidays alone etc

i would of loved my mum to have been there to pick me up from school and hear about my day, by the time she got home she was stressed and knackered, she say clear that back table, so homework would have to stop.
then she would make the tea and wash up and do other household chores.
so i never really got anytime with her.

and at weekends,sat was food shopping, and sun, we used to visit grandparents, who never used to let us touch anything in their house hardly[or thats how it felt at least]

so there was no time for fun

thats why ive cohsen to be a sahm, its not the life i want for my dd being the child of a wohm.

I think that parenting and caring for your own child just does not make a profit and so is not valued in our society, but the reality is that most kids would prefer a parent or lovong family member to collect them from school etc. I don't see what is wrong with that or a 20 year old retelling her experience. My mum SAH until I (the youngest) was 8 and then worked school hours and part time, she went back pretty much full time when she was 40 and we were grown up. I am very glad she was at home which has probably affected my choice not to work f/t (although I did initially after having DD1) We were pretty skint really but I think it has made me a very unmaterialistic person who values things an is hapy with the more 'simple' things.

Quite.

Women get in the neck no matter what they do. She might have been more of a fun parent if her DH hadn't been such a lzy arse.

I appreciate that 20 year olds are always moaning but I do think she has a point. Her parents (not just her mum) should have noticed that she wasn't very happy with her nanny. Good childcare and their daughters happines should have been a higher priority for them.

lol kewcumber

Fio I was lucky that although my mum worked very long hours she ran the lcoal shop and post office and we lived above the shop (I am Maragret Thatcher but don't tell anyone). So lathough I looked after myself made myself tea etc if I wanted a chat I could always wander into the shop. Of course that generally meant getting roped into stacking shelves so I didn't do it often...

Kewcumber -you're right. You still don't see those articles and it is still not news. the lions share of responsibility (and, therefore, guilt), still falls to the mother in most cases.

I wonder how many more generations that will take?

When I was growing up I was very happy that my Mum was at home when we were. I was the envy of all my friends, even as a teenager, that I didnt go home to an empty house and that she took holidays off

Haven't read the whole thread or article (so excuse me if I miss the point) but I had a SAHM and to be honest I don't feel any better off for it.

IMO it's more about the quality of time spent with your children not the quantity, though I wouldn't want to personally work long hours away from my children but can understand why some women do, especially in the current financial climate.

And lets face it, you can't always rely on the fathers to provide for the children.

Elffriend - my issue is indeed that - the article isn;t about him (who knows how he feels) but the articles are NEVER about how the father. Media doesn;t seem to care - fathers are meant to go out to work and not see their childrne and so they don;t see that its news.

From the daughter's persepective she did not expect to see the father - cos that was normal. She felt different from her friends because their mums were there (given that she is 20 now)

I'm not excusing fathers per se - of course not. However, I think it is true that 15 to 20 years ago the expecations children had of mothers and fathers were probably different.

I know my DH has issues with his dad never being around/never taking his side.

But I agree, as mothers we are practically guaranteed to get it wrong!

That is true talilac.

My dad was the fun parent and I loved him to bits. Mum was the boring one who told me off and worried about stuff

we all know what it's like before you have kids of your own.
the only chance you get to be the perfect mum. oooh, when I have kids I'll never . . . ., I'll always ......
along with typical teenage guilt trips.
I always thought (as stroppy teen) my mum should have gone back to work and was setting us a bad example as kids by staying at home- so there!

Both my parents worked, and we had a procession of nannies. A few were lovely and I remember them fondly. Some were out of their depth, but I remember them fondly too, esp the one that couldn't cook so used to take us to the wimpy for meals.

You know, I have many issues with my mum, but I don't ever remember her not being there for something important when she was working. She probably wasn't but I don't remember it. Most of my issues with her stem from later on after her business went bankrupt and she did stay at home with us while battling deep depression.

My Dad on the other hand, well I've always adored my dad. Its only really now looking back that I realise just how much of my life he missed because he worked so much, often abroad for weeks at a time. He's just as bad now he's retired, he's taken on loads of charity and village committee work, the upshot of which is that he's too busy to come to DD1's (his oldest grandchild) 2nd birthday next month. He laughed it off, saying it must remind me of all the birthdays he missed while I was growing up. Well, yes it does, and thats not a good thing.

Don't know what I'm saying really except that Mums get a pretty unfair deal, working or not!

None of it was written from the father's viewpoint - how do you know he does not feel guilty?

Agree that the 20yo would have found something else to moan about her mother if it wasn't this issue; makes me there are never any articles about Dad never being there etc. etc.

However, DS's classmate (8yo) is in a similar position, parents divorced (unlike this example), Mum works long hours 5 days a week and boy is dropped off at childminder at 7am and collected around 7pm, often sleeping during the week at childminders. One w/e he is with Dad, the other dragged off to the other side of the country to visit Mum's partner. he has never had a birthday party.

Whilst I am sure he is philosophical and it has been the norm since a small baby, I wonder what his take will be when he is 20.

quite right Orm

and the daughter didn't seem to have any issues with hardly seeing her father when she was growing up, she just remembered the fun times (when probably her mother was doing the washing or ironing or some other dull task which hubby handily didn't think was his shared responsibility)

women get it in the neck all the time, from all sides
am a bit sick of it!

most of us are genuinely doing the best we can, whether we work or we don't-life is not perfect, we are not perfect, things may not always be ideal THAT'S LIFE

Of course good childcare is essential. And both parents have a responsiblity to ensure that it is good. Not just the mother. And why should she be the only one to feel guilt?

I don't think she sounds like she's whinging at all. She's just honestly saying how she felt.

My DS had an au-pair who didn't like him and I got rid of him when I realised. But I have no doubt it affected him adversely and I wish I'd got rid of her sooner.

What a load of old horse shit, of course the father is half responsible, they are made of half his genes you know.

I disagree I think if your children are not being cared for properly by the carer you employ while you are not there you are guilty.

agree her dh is/was a selfish bastard

and what 20-year old considers they have had the perfect childhood? they'll always find something to gripe about...

well of course working crazy long hours isn't all that desirable (for mothers or fathers), tell me something I don't know Daily Mail!

Mind you it was only as a mother I was shocked by my own mother's choices and most of the awful stuff only came to light when I was in my 30's. I didn't have any issues with my parents as a teenager only silly stuff like how late I go out.

This society is unsupportive of women generally, I think.

If you're a SAHM, you're made to feel guilty for not earning an income.

If you're a WOHM, you're made to feel guilty for not spending more time with your children.

Other women contribute to these attitudes too - we really don't do ourselves any favours.

You don't get many men criticising other men for their decisions relating to their children.

It's all too easy for women to succumb to maternal guilt - it's thrown at us from all angles.

A mother's job isn't to make everyone happy all the time. That's an impossible and unrealistic goal.

A mother's job is to do the best we can in the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Same as a father's job.

We should all refuse to accept the guilt!

I fear that when my children are 20 they will say ...."but Mum you were always on Mumsnet.....!" and DH will be on their side!

Well see I wouldn't have thought of it and it made me think 'Oh bloody hell, how true' therefore it is officially 'VERY INTERESTING AND VALID'.

"Ross would cook, but he clearly saw childcare and the home as my responsibility. So all the chores that my mother had once taken all day to do were shoe-horned into the three hours which followed work and preceded sleep"

Um... the DM has nothing to say about her husband's selfishness?

My dd knows that I work for money and not through choice to pay our bastard taxes

Thank you Ranting - "very interesting and valid" is probably the nicest thing anyone will say to me today!

well both my parents worked - we still had no luxuries because my mother supported her elderly parents and her little brother, and I still think they did the best for us. agree the girl (and her dad in absentia) sound like spoilt brats.

If I'd written an article about my childhood in my early 20s, I would have written a long rant about how my stepfather didn't understand me, and how he made my life difficult etc, but ten years later, now I have my own kids, I find myself thiking "ohhhhhh - he went through this, for a kid who was not even his own? Blimey!"

Thing is - children/teens are never happy with their lot, so onlies want to be part of a big family, children of a big family want to be onlies, children of SAHMs want the pony, children of WOHM want SAHMs.

Its not a suprise that if you work all the hours god sends for years, it might not benefit your family. And one parent doing all the parenting isn't good either.

FWIW, my mum worked FT and I had a lovely childhood.

And DS knows his nursery nurses far more than any member of our families. Def not strangers.

I think it depends wholly on the childcare, and if there is extended family support. I personally think it is a big risk to hand over your children to a stranger. My mum did that and went back full time after 6 weeks. I was left crying for the first 6months of my life and had a male aupair who my mother didn't know from adam. My brother and his wife work full time and he has just sacked his third nanny on the spot. They need continuity of care and lots of love. I'd personally would prefer to do that myself and not take the risk. But lets be fair these days most women need to work.

Actually I do think Bramshott makes a very interesting and valid point there, I certainly thought I was 'hard done by' at the age of 20.

God I love MN, sometimes there's stuff on here that just gives you a different perspective.

*got * twice as much I mean !

My mum was a SAHM. We were always skint for the day to day things - she had to grow and make everything. She was miserable and totally lacking in confidence. If we are judging by personal experience I would never have chosen her life.

This will undoubetedly kick off.

However, is is not what most WOHMs fear? Whether we are SAHM or WHOM we all worry whether we are doing the right thing. We all worry whether the balance is right.

We all worry, in fact, that we will get it wrong and our children will suffer for the choices we make (even those we make on their behalf).

I'm with Philip Larkin on that one...

That story does not mean this is the case for all children of WOHMs - but it does ring true for that particular mother and child.

Hey ho. Life's a bitch.

Bramshott, I have to agree. If I had been asked write and article at 20, I would have written a long narrative about how my mother sacrificing years of her life to stay at home with us was ultimately a bad thing. I would have said this because of our own internal family politics. At the end of the day all parents do something that upset their kids.. this is just something we all have to live with and whilst it can be said to be an interesting article. I think it is far too simplistic to say, 'I should have stayed at home'. If I was the mother, I could instead be saying ' I should have insisted that my husband contributed more to the childcare,then our children would have go twice as much '.

Bramshott - apparantly thats what psychic etc rely on - "you have some difficult itmes in your childhood" most poeple think they did!

and - to add to what Oranges just said, my mother was a SAHM and I hated the fact that we were constantly skint, that I wasn't allowed the luxuries that Beth Appleyard had as a child.

So whatever you do, you're damned in the eyes of your children!

The daughter sounds like a right whingebag, tbh. I bet she'd have been the first to complain if her little luxuries had been taken away because her mother had had to give up work.

The whole tone of the piece made me want to vomit.

Absolutely oranges.

Thing is though - does any 20 year old think that their childhood has been great? Surely at that age, they are still programmed to rebel? Yes, her daughter has memories of searching for her nanny in the car park, or of her mum not being there for sports day, but she has those because they are strong memories - if she had had a different upbringing her strong memories might be the time she got lost in the shopping centre, or the time she couldn't go on the school trip because her parents couldn't afford it.

and the dad as usual gets away scot free - the wife just accepts that he gives her all the responsibility, and the children never think of blaming him.

Well my mum worked full time from when I was a very young age and although I missed her at the time, I don't feel damaged by it at all. Mind you my dad did his fair share of cleaning, childcare etc and I think it made me grow up thinking that that is just the way things should be.

As a result I don't stand for this silly nonsense that a man should put his feet up after a hard day at work and let his wife wait on him and none of my relationships have been like that (even when I was a SAHM), so it has had a profound effect on me, for the better I would say.

Its intresting that the daughter herself still doesn't want to be a SAHM when she has children, I dont think she is advocating being a SAHM over being a WOHM.
I think the point this article makes is the importance of finding a balance between work and home life.

my mum worked as far back as I can remember - didn't care that she didn't pick me up at school - loved walking home with my friends.

my dh grew up like this and him and his two sisters think it is the absolute best way to grow up. they have a very close relationship with both parents. they are far more solid in their personalities and lives than my sister and i and our mother was a 100% dedicated SAHM.
in different countries there are such different takes on this, where i work we have people from Latin America and Asia and the parenting trends there are completely different.

I don;t think its that interesting - woman works long hours and worries that her childrne might have suffered. Hardly news.

Would have been far more interesting to interview a man who felt guilty for the same reason and said he would do things differnetly if he had a chance.

DS knows my Cm better than my sister and spends more time with CM - no-one calls my sister a vitual stranger though.

<<KC wonders how long her lovely CM has to know the family before she ceases to be called "a virtual stranger">>

No www, you are probably right, the father no doubt, has no such concerns about his working life.

I do think the daughters opinion should be heard though.
I am a working mother (4 day s a week) and I believe that my children are ok and well cared for and happy. It will be very interesting though, to hear what they thought about their childhood when they are older . I could be getting it all wrong.

Whilst my mum wasn't a career woman as such, she still had to work full time from when I was quite little.

Tbh I can understand how the daughter in the article feels. I didn't get the ponies and my M&D always spent all of the weekend focused on me and my sister, but I still wished I had a mum who dropped and picked me up from school, who came to award ceremonies and sports days, and who would be home to cook us tea.

I don't think it's a coincidence that my sister and I have both chosen to be sahm's.

But it is written by the mother,not by the Daily Mail. I found it interesting. And thought provoking.

I actually thought it was quite interesting and to dismiss it simply because it is Daily Mail woman bashing, would be to deny the very legitimate feelings of her daughters.

Wonder whether the father regrets working?

Interesting to read the daughter's point of view and how she felt about spending so much of her childhood in the care of nannies/nurseries.

I thought it was quite a well balanced article actually. To call it WOHM bashing is too much of a simplistic, knee jerk reaction to discussion of an important topic

I thought it was very interesting.

(It's the slimy squirm-out-of-it spin of "virtual" that gets me. By the way.)

oh yes - it even has my total favourite Shibboleth spin of WOHM-bashing (see other threads): all paid childcarers as

"virtual strangers"

Sigh. You might as well call your child's teacher a "virtual stranger".

But it just wouldn't have the same ring if you said "my child was looked after by dedicated familiar professionals, would it?

but if anyone is interested this article gives the child's perspective on growing up with a mother who works very long hours.

here