Mumsnet Talk

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

here

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?

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

I thought it was very interesting.

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

Wonder whether the father regrets working?

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.

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

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.

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.

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">>

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Absolutely oranges.

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.

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!

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

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 '.

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.

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.

*got * twice as much I mean !