I am in a state of feminist rage

[EllieG]

...because of stupid reports about working mothers (because fathers clearly have NOTHING to do with it) and sexist DV t-shirts from Topman and then having a conversation with one of the secretaries from work which went like:

Her - 'I think that women who just keep popping out babies to get housing off the state should be given no help' (Me - does anyone actually really do that? I think the Daily Mail just makes it up personally) and then she said 'I think it's wrong when a parent (but she meant mother) doesn't stay at home for the child's first 2 years having a career is selfish'. We were discussing a working single Mum who wants to go on secondment to another city for a bit and take her little child with her (thereby disrupting him for a bit) because - heavens above! - she has said she needs to do this for her career which is quite important in terms of providing for her child's future needs as her feckless ex (who does not agree and is using court to block her move) doesn't give them anything and she is the one who will have to pay for everything and she wants to be able to, and, even worse - She Likes Her Job. Awful, awful woman.

So it's OK to be a single mother if you -

a - just have one
b - provide for it yourself and have no state help (if you have state help are a feckless sponger who should Go Out And Get A Job)
c - don't try and have a proper career though, that is very bad. Especially if you might be quite good at it and enjoy it and might be trying to earn lots of money because then you are hard-nosed career woman who should have child taken away because you are going against you inner motherly nature.

[mumwithdice]

Offs! Her, not you obviously. And I say this as a SAHM. Women and babies are individuals; what works for them will be different depending on personality.

[edd1337]

By the logic of provide for it yourself and have no state help (if you have state help are a feckless sponger who should Go Out And Get A Job) then WTF????///

So if you are working class and refuse state handouts which in turn may give the child a life of poverty, that's ok? No. If you accept state handouts you're a scrounger

Damned if you do damned if you don't

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

I would be very tempted to smile sweetly and say you don't want your child to grow up without any decent female role models. But that wouldn't be sisterly.

It is really irritating, all this 'selfish' nonsense ... just designed to make mothers feel guilty no matter what.

[Anniegetyourgun]

The obvious answer is not to have children until you retire. Now we are being urged to go on working till at least 70, mind you, that could be a bit of a drawback. Solves the over-population problem though.

[EllieG]

It takes a special kind of lack of logic to say that both SAHM and working mums are bad. I think she basically thought that the only kind of good parenting was the kind where you are married to someone who has plenty of money and therefore you HAVE to stay at home irrespective of whether you may or may not want to. If you do that, then you are OK. If you make a choice to have a child and you have to have state support, woe betide you. If you work when you don't have to - tut.

What a bunch of crap.

[HereBeBolloX]

The thing is, some people are just thick.

There's no getting round it,

[EdithWeston]

I take it she's not a parent.

I have to say, I also concluded that she must be quite young and that possibly none of her immediate circle are yet parents. Because the "stay at home for the first XX time" seems to me to be quite common amongst those who have yet to embark on parenthood. It's not dissimilar from those unrealistic thoughts of what you will always/never do with your child - dreamed up when pregnant and almost immediately dismissed as risibly improbable when you actually have a baby. (Apologies if I'm wide if the mark).

I'd ignore the DM/benefits stuff. For the rest, I'd just smile and say something along the lines of "That's a lovely ideal, but life so rarely works out like that in practice".

[HereBeBolloX]

Yes maybe she's just young

You are more charitable than me EW

[Ormirian]

"It takes a special kind of lack of logic to say that both SAHM and working mums are bad"

Ooh no it doesn't. Honest! Just accept that everyone has an opinion about rearing kids, ergo about mothers too. And most of them will think they would do it better.

[Anniegetyourgun]

The bit they tend to forget is what happens if/when you have a family with a high earner who then dies, gets arrested, or runs away with his secretary. You can't send children back where they came from, so do you have them put down?

(I left out "or turns out to be a bastard" because obviously in that scenario you just have to try harder to make it work. Or "not be with someone like that in the first place." )

[cecilyparsley]

she's sounds young and dumb and has swallowed all that sexist old rhetoric about women being inherently selfless and self sacrificing.
She might yet learn to think for herself though

[EllieG]

She is not young, and she is a parent of two kids. I think she is just stupid. There's no other excuse really.

Anniegetyourgun - yes, difficult then because then obviously IT'S SO FAIR TO MEN when he is expected to pay maintenance for the wife and the court says that the mother was primary carer and kids should stay with her. Because obviously the silly lazy bint should go out and get a job despite having sacrificed her working years and earning capacity to parent the children.

[EdithWeston]

Oh! that surprises me.

Did she stay at home for 2 years with each of hers?

[aliceliddell]

Many of you seem to have ignored the universal truth that if you are female, then you are wrong. That is all.

[Catitainahatita]

I think you've got it one there Alice.

[aliceliddell]

Cat

[colditz]

Single mothers are supposed to go to work, but they must be very unhappy in their job, and only work enough hours to keep milk in the fridge. If she's buying lipsticks and having fun, she's working too much and is a Bad Mother.

[ChristinedePizan]

You're only allowed to be an SAHM if you're in a relationship.

There was a thread on here about single mothers on benefits in the Lone Parents topics and we got a really hard time from pretty much everyone who posted on it (I can find a link if you like).

We are all supposed to go and get jobs IMMEDIATELY. Even if childcare costs are more than take home pay or if there is no after school care or holiday clubs where we live. I presume that is because we are single parents and so must suffer.

[MarionCole]

We can't win. If we go to work then we're neglecting our children. If we stay at home then we're scrounging.

[ChristinedePizan]

Yeah, it's funny how that 'children should not be in childcare' argument dries up once you say you're a single parent on benefits. I wonder how much a couple claiming max tax rebates costs the country? I'm sure there isn't a huge amount of difference financially but morally, there is a chasm.

sAf - have you considered developing a really pronounced limp or something? I'm thinking of sticking a loaf of bread down the back of my tshirt so I can at least look like a social pariah

[garlicbutty]

Did you read today's Faily Schmale? I normally enjoy the middle 'magazine' section but had to skip this one (Thursday's) entirely. I rechristened it the "Back To The Kitchen" issue. There was, from memory: a woman who'd let her kids down by divorcing; a woman who'd lost eight stone in about a fortnight and now feels human; a Working Mothers Are Bad feature and assorted other misogynistic balderdash.

In Mailworld, of course, all benefit claimants are heinous cheats except ancient war heroes and crippled spinsters who look after their senile mothers (and they could squeeze in a cleaning job if they tried harder.) OP, how does secretary woman square working with having 2 DC? Couldn't she find a rich enough man to keep her in the kitchen? Fail! Perhaps you could suggest the 8-stone-in-a-minute diet to her, as being bigger than size ten is usually the source of all female underachievement.