To be WILD at the news at 10 wording 'mothers who chose not to work'

[NotanOtter]

who are hardest hit by benefit cut

How bloody condescending...

Nip round here any day and 'choose not to WORK' looking after my kids

Xenia, what did you think my train of thought was, exactly?

Think about this paragraph:

"It's not domain of men to succeed and work hard and it's sexist to suggest only men want that. Many people of either sex want to work full time and work hard. Just because I'm female I don't assumptions made about me that I want to work part time and spend the rest of the time wiping bottoms and ironing a husband's shirt."

Success? Obviously nothing, here, to do with being a parent (for either sex). To work "hard" or "full time", you must be in paid employment?

I'd rather say that actually you prove my point which was not, incidentally, that all women want to stay home and mother and all men want to work out of the home

Our world is set up so that value and worth are attributed to paid work outside of the home. It doesn't much matter to me who wipes bottoms or irons shirts (though what a reductive view of parenting!): I think men and women should share this responsibility and/or have the option for on- and off-ramps from their careers in order them to be able to (should they so choose) spend time with their children without suffering a loss of financial independence or potential for career progression.

I don't believe all men love the rat-race. I do believe that there are patriarchal structures which sustain a general social belief that men are breadwinners and women are homemakers to the detriment of both sexes.

I don't give two hoots if you, or any other woman or man, wants to work full-time. The system, to be fair, is set up in your favour. Not only that, but working part-time to "wipe bottoms" and "iron shirts" is actively frowned upon (though I assume from your loaded paragraph that you share some of society's contempt for life's losers who don't care to "succeed" and "work hard"?).

I do care that success is defined in terms of career; that hard work is defined in terms of payment; that the business of raising a family is broken down to the most menial of tasks, stripped of all emotion and repackaged as unrewarding and unfulfilling labour. I particularly care that when a woman or man finds themselves questioning why they have spent most of their lives chasing a particular type of "success" that this is deliberately misinterpreted as being unable to hack the "world of work", looking for a get-out option, seeking the easy way out.

Enjoy your success, Xenia. You have what you want. That's fair enough. I'm not going to tell you that you are missing out, I wouldn't presume to be so arrogant about your life choices. However, neither should you seek to reduce the equally valid desire for a different type of success to lazily wiping bottoms and ironing shirts. Just because I'm female and would prefer to work in the home, I don't want assumptions made about me that I want to spend my time engaging in mindless tasks to avoid 'real work'.

I think that the media should be more careful to use the phrases 'work outside the home' or 'paid work' to remind men that we work bloody hard at home whether we have another job or not!
e.g. this very evening: My dh has recently been working very long hours and earning well because of it. I work 4 days a week for the nhs for mediocre pay and it happens to be my day off tomorrow. (When I will clean, wash tidy, organise etc. as well as GOING TO GET A MUCH-NEEDED HAIRCUT!) I commented that he'd better take me on a fantastic holiday soon after all this absence from home - he appeared not to have any idea what I was talking about - he's the one who's been working hard, right? I suggested it was quite hard doing everything on my own, mornings, bedtimes, bathtimes,swimming lessons, discipline, homework, plus occasional spasms of housework...what did he focus on - the hairdresser's appointment!

Halfcaff i sympathise over the much needed haircut! I haven't had mine cut since March

I'm a bit confused why a few posters seem to think they are financing SAHMs through the tax system. CB is not enough to live on, so unless a SAHM/D is claiming other benefits (and most I know don't) then the only person who is financing that 'choice' is the family bread winner.

Someone expressed concern a loooooong time ago in this thread about pension contributions. Apparently to maintain your pension contributions you should still claim CB and then it will be deducted from your partners salary via tax - nice and complicated - fantastic! Also, pension contributions are only made till your last child is 12, then you need to get yourself back to work. (listening to R4 does have it's uses!)

at the risk of being flamed - i am aware that there is an absence of women on this thread saying they stay at home to look after their children because they WANT to and believe it is the best thing to do.

Not only are these women a virtual 'underclass' in society but they do not feel able to speak up for what they believe in

Staying at home with your child(ren) is working - just unpaid

Well I'll put my hand up and I say that I want to, I believe it's the best thing to do and I wish that I could. We have my DH at home instead and that's the next best thing. If DH could find a well paying job that was secure I'd be home in a shot.

Also, I am currently on maternity leave with DC2 and I will assert that it is much much harder work at home than in paid work. I found that out with just DS before DD was born.

sometimes it is not just a straight forward choice - I am a (mainly) SAHM now, though I did return to PT night shift work after first two DCs. Then I got PND, my job was very stressful, night shift work exhausting - in the end as childcare costs were prohibitive to my working days, we decided that I should stop working.

I believe that most of the time a child should be cared for by someone who loves them ( but have reservations about the huge burden of childcare falling on grandparents' shoulders)but recognise that this is not possible for many people. I am aware that i am fortunate to be able to stay at home.

So, yes i choose to stay at home and look after my children because I believe it's the right thing for me to do, in our family's situation.

Would I like to go out three days a week to a nice job, spend 8 hours without weetabix/ snot on my clothes, and pay someone else to clean my house - yes I would love it! But I would feel guilty that I am not with my children. As it is I feel guilty that I don't do a proper job that contributes to society, and justifies my existance as a woman, because of course by choosing to not work, I am setting back the cause of women by 60 years. Surely the point of feminism is that we can make choices now that were not available to our grandmothers?

Also I realise that my above description of a working day is not the reality for most! It's just my ideal!

I also realise that I am wittering because it's late and I should be in bed

Plenty of grandmothers worked, and worked really hard at all kinds of manual labour, if they were poor enough that their families needed the second income. Children worked too in such families, as late as the pre WW2 era. I believe the task of feminism is to get the work of mothers in their own homes recognised and paid as work so that real choices can be made, not just the rock or a hard place choices that are available now?

But there is an issue of objective truth here. Most men and plenty of women regard hours of chidl care and house cleaning as prety low grade stuff they don't really want to spend hours doing. All societies and cultures and both sexes outsource it as much as they can (albeit whilst also enjoying time with their children). The fact some women might regard the choice to do taht as valid and not to be subject to criticism is a political issue which damages other women. Every womanoptin for that damages their daughter and the standing of women. There are political implications when so very many women and surprise surprise hardly any men, choose to do what is low paid/no paid boring stuff as it confirms prejudices that women like to serve for no pay and don't really want to be surgeons or leaders or fly planes or fight in combat or run companies.

We could certain ly work to increasing the number of men at home as househusbands so that they exceed women and then I would prepared after about 50 year sof men at home as the norm, to concede that we could then make neutral choices to stay home as women but until then women have a duty to other women to get out of the kitchen and into work.

"All societies and cultures and both sexes outsource it as much as they can."

There is nothing objective about that claim, Xenia. I know masses of people who outsource housework and childcare as little as possible because they really enjoy taking care of their homes and families. You should get out more!

"Every woman opting for that damages their daughter and the standing of women"

How so? Please do explain this "objective truth".

Think about what you are saying is unassailably "true" here: "most men and plenty of women regard hours of child care and house cleaning as pretty low grade stuff they don't really want to spend hours doing".

Perhaps stating this as the status quo is true, yes, but I want you consider how you casually conflate domestic chores with childcare here. Note how you attach a value judgement that it is "boring" to care for a child, while clearly, being a surgeon/leader/flying a plane/fightin in combat or running companies is stimulating and fulfilling in a way that such drudgery could never be.

Explain, please, precisely why women have a duty to other women to get out of the kitchen and into work. Explain why childcare (as distinct from household cleaning) is incontrovertibly boring and why you think society should uphold this belief.

"....the work of mothers in their own homes recognised and paid as work"

Paid by whom ?

A large number of working mothers still do the stuff that SAHMs do - the cleaning, cooking, school runs etc they just work as well. I see others have made that point on here

For a lot of women it is a choice.

Yes, I know the thing about childcare costing more than earnings and I do sympathise up to a point, but there comes a point when it does become your choice to stay home because you have chosen to have a large number of children for whom you cannot afford the childcare. Yes, the cost of childcare 'forces' you stay home BUT you chose to have that number of children.

That probably sounds a bit facist of me and I'm not trying to put down those with larger families or indeed those who SAHP, but I am saying that you cannot complain about affordability when it is as a result of personal choice.

Xenia
Why is flying a plane or being a surgeon more valuable or laudable than caring for children. You are perpetuating the opinions held by male dominated professions that their work is more important and that child care is menial and irrelevant to society - the children of today are the adults of tomorrow after all. I'm sorry Xenia, you have made me very by saying that I am doing my daughters a disservice by opting to stay at home and look after them myself

It is low paid and low valued because that is what our culture has decided and in Roman times women had slaves to do it. In many many countries cleaning and childcare is delegated to siblings of the children, to relatives, to servants now and always in th future and most British women choose to work because they know it's boring and very low grade dull stuff to do day in day out.

Children do best with working mothers and income is one of the best indicators of child outcome and women stilln eed to work very hard to show they can carry out jobs in the workplace. If they all give up to mind babies they are unlikely to keep the gains they made and will be bored to tears at home anyway most of the time.

So, let me get this straight: our culture has decided that raising children is not valuable so because of that cultural decision, we have a duty to go to work or it will damage our daughters' future prospects?

Indeed Xenia, why did feminists ever speak out about anything as clearly the only possible course of action in cases of cultural injustice is to accept the status quo blindly, taking care that our thoughts and actions do not jeapordise any gains we have made? Careful now.. down with that sort of thing etc etc

Can you please share your evidence that children do best with working mothers? That women who stay home will be bored to tears most of the time?

It's interesting how you polarise this debate. I don't recall anyone on this thread arguing that women should stay home, merely that caring for children should, in itself, be valued in and of its own right (regardless of who undertakes the role).

I don't see the relevance of what Romans did, to be frank. I also don't see how merely restating that you consider childcare to be boring and "low-grade" to be any sort of argument at all. Again, I will ask you to explain why taking care of children is boring but flying a mechanised machine is not. Both will involve repeating certain actions on a daily basis and applying a certain type of knowledge depending on the situatin as it unfolds. All roles involve the mundane and the repetitious. Please explain why it is "objectively true" that undertaking one task is intrinsically "boring" while another is rewarding?

Boredom, I would argue, is nearly always a failure of imagination.

In France (but these things vary from country to country), children do best with educated mothers. Nothing correlates more with children's academic success than their mother's level of education.

In Germany, on the other hand, children's academic achievement correlates most closely with having a SAHM.

I sm saying that all women everywhere now and in the past and around the world subcontract out cleaning and childcare whenever they can and that most women with children under 5 in the UK today work as well and that's because as we can see in our capitalist system it is low grade and low paid. Of course all working parents, male and female, delight in their chidlren and love to be with them and speak to them and cuddle and love them but most of us now and in thep ast have never wanted it 24/7.

Separately for the cause of women it is damaging if women not men appyl for flexitime or give up work after expensive training as employers of both sexes think - oh no, yet another women copping out of the work place to bake cakes why on earth employ them. If equal number of men and women did the same it would not matter.

If chldren do better with educated mothers it tends to be the educated ones who want to work and do work and the ones who never had much of a career with the lower IQs who tend to say home who could never earn much more than the minimum wage so on the whole the mothers athome are worse with childcare and bringing up children than the full time working parents. They are not better and their children dont' do better. They do worse.

Would you care to provide evidence that it is the "ones who never had much of a career with the lower IQs who tend to say [sic] home who could never earn much more than the minimum wage"?

Your argument, then, is that the children of women with lower IQ's have worse outcomes than those with higher IQ's, isn't it? I fail to see how this relates to your argument in the slightest. It's a variable that confounds it, I would say.

Your argument that any employer will assume that any employee who applies for flexitime or gives up work after expensive training is "copping out of the work place to bake cakes" rather underlines the problem of the lack of value placed on family life, wouldn't you say? Family life is apparently about wiping bottoms, ironing shirts and baking cakes? I fail to see how this degradation of what happens in the home offers any room for future equality of the sexes as, by your reckoning, anyone who cares for a child by choice is inherently less valuable to their society (by virtue of the fact that this work has been, historically, outsourced?). Hardly a rousing call to men to take their domestic chores seriously now, is it?

The misogynistic iconography you deploy in the face of an ill-thought out argument that appears to bear no relation to what has actually been said on this thread is interesting. The words you use sound like those of a 1950's male. I see no argument of any substance here.

Hey ho, perhaps it's my low IQ

Let me correct (dratted low IQ again! ):

"I fail to see how this relates to your point that children do best with working mothers in the slightest. It's a variable that confounds it, I would say."

These arguments are too polarised (as usual)

In reality, there are so many more shades of grey

Xenia - I think it depends very much on one's personal definition of "success"

Bonsoir - what about the women who have chosen to take a step down in their careers and put up with having a house where the furnishings are definitely NOT refreshed regularly and where their entertainment budget/holidays are cut in order to have one parent looking after the dc. Imo that doesn't rule out having a home that is a "hive of life and pleasure". Pleasure can still be found despite holes in the walls!

Apologies. Delayed in posting and thread had moved on.

Agree with Arses!! "anyone who cares for a child by choice is inherently less valuable to their society (by virtue of the fact that this work has been, historically, outsourced?). Hardly a rousing call to men to take their domestic chores seriously now, is it?"

Some of us will have to agree to disagree then (and I'm working so I don't have time to write much more).

When couples decide who will stay at home the lower earner usually stays at home or if the wage of one of them would not cover childcare that one will stay at home. Thus the vast majority of housewives did not earn much before. It's quite rare for someone on £100k to stop work when they have children. It's very common for someone who earns £20k. On the whole therefore the lower earners who are not giving up much at all are the housewives. Those who worked for years to become a senior surgeon tend not to want to stay at home as they were successsful before.

I do not think it is male or 1950s or whatever just because some women have my views. We are women too. You don't have to be a flexitime/housewife adherent to be female. Many many women are happy capitalists and love their work.

I am not the one giving a low value to childcare and cleaning skills. Every society on the planet does so - just look at the wages for it. If it's £6 an hour to work in a care home or childmind and £400 to give advice as a private doctor surely that proves the difference in value of those two things.

"It's quite rare for someone on £100k to stop work when they have children."

Where do you invent find your data? If that were true, why are the highest earning professions (banking, law, management consulting) full of women (

>50%

"If it's £6 an hour to work in a care home or childmind and £400 to give advice as a private doctor surely that proves the difference in value of those two things."

I don't think it proves anything except that society values are totally screwed up!!