to feel sorry for Amanda Holden re her article about Mumsnet

[GrowSomeCress]

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2305111/Why-I-hate-negative-judgmental-Mumsnet--Amanda-Holden-Britains-Got-Talent-star-accuses-site-fuelling-mothers-guilt.html

Seems to be newly posted.

I think sometimes it's forgotten that famous people are actually real people with genuine feelings.

Don't agree with her about mumsnet just being negative and judgemental all the time though, really excellent support available on here.

So long as your children have their noses wiped, and are protected, and know they are loved, they don't need their mother, specifically, to do all those things all by herself.

In the past, extended family would help care for children in parts of society, and in other parts of our society, people would be employed to do this.

This is reflected in the animal kingdom, where, for example, some meerkats look after the babies, while their parents look for food, protect the colony, and so on.

Some people are better at childcare than others. That doesn't mean that the others don't love their children, or won't do their best for them, or even that their children won't be happy and loved.

I find it very arrogant of parents to feel that they, alone, know what is best for their children, without trying to learn to be better parents, and without questioning their actions, to ensure that they are parenting in the best possible way. I think it's sloppy parenting, and not in the best interests of children.

Who says Sanity that sahp aren't doing that and who says wp are?

I agree Xenia,

You can always tell the shams and the wombles apart on here;

shams talk about hairspray and other inane matters

wombles attack sturdier more political type issues.

Just like in RL.

I thought she was bloody funny on Graham Norton last night. As for the comments about her hair - for the love of God, stop NOW.

Square, sorry, no, I don't agree. I see many children too, I have also been volunteering in a nursery for 3 yrs. I can see that whenever a child has "problems" is largely due to the way the parents parent, or whether there is something massive going on at home (bereavement, bitter divorce, depression etc).

No, I was specifically answering your ROFL that any parent could learn about childcare from anyone else.

I stated that I had learnt some things about childcare from nannies. You thought is was ridiculous. I, in turn, think it is ridiculous of anyone to think that they cannot learn to be a better parent, whether a SAHP, or a WOHP.

That was to Square.

And sorry I don't think parenting and childcare are the same.

A nanny may not even have her own children.

Sorry Franca volunteering in a nursery for 3 years isn't the same as experiencing children coming out the other end and going through school.

I too have nursery experience.

And what are the things you say you see sqaure?

Anyway my only real point is to show younger women that taking a very short leave perhaps even as I did - work until you go into labour, back full time in 2 - 6 weeks is a perfectly good option and can very often work fine for everyone. I am not sure that option is presented to many women these days as a possibility and some feel peer pressure to take 6 or 12 months off work because all their friends are doing it. Leaving in, going back, can be huge fun and better for babies.

Quite right.

Parenting is much broader than childcare. Part of parenting is being a good role model. Part is being there for their emotional needs. Part is making wise financial choices for them, and making choices, and as they get older helping them with choices, about their education.

There is no reason why a parent should not have someone else to do part of the childcare, while being an excellent parent.

I'll give you an example of parenting outside childcare, from my own family. Recently there was a serious mental health problem within DD1's friendship group at school. (They are 13 and 14.) Of the approximately 10 girls who knew about the issue, DD1 was the only one who was able to come to a parent for help and advice. She knew she could tell me in confidence, and that we could work out, together, what to do for the best.

So, despite the fact that I allowed other people to change some of her nappies, she can still rely on me to be a parent to her.

Good lord. Do please credit women with a modicum of common sense and free thinking. You really do think very little of the rest of your gender who don't do exactly what you did, do you? Just the attitude Holden is bleating about too ironically.

Women might well chose to take the maternity leave that suits them not because their friends did. You really think that when a grown woman takes maternity leave the first thought when she squeezes that baby out is to wonder about what her friends did or didn't do? None of my close friends had babies when I had mine. I chose all by myself to stay at home with him(and get a cleaner). Going back to work wouldn't have been fun. It was a job, not a fun. I didn't and still don't need a job title to make myself feel like a whole person. If you want to make it your life, go right ahead but don't assume the rest of use think of work as the be all and end all and that somehow this is wrong.

And please link to respected journals with this evidence that being left is good for babies? I am willing to believe that so long as you don't leave them in a nursery from 2 weeks old you don't do them any harm, but To say it does them good kind of flies in the face of what I know of research, having a masters degree in psychology and all. (Who'd have thought it, a SAHM who was well educated...... Just like all my SAHM friends actually. All of them have good degrees and professional qualifications).

I think mumsnet is very judgmental and negative at times tbh

I don't give a rat's ass about her working arrangements, but I judge her for being mean about Susan Boyle on the Alan Carr show. Very unpleasant. I'd forgotten about that; she was a bitch of the highest order.

Karen Brady

"I went back to work three days after having my daughter. I had to go in and sack my manager. Phrases such as ?work-life balance? didn?t exist 16 years ago. What people don?t understand is that a career lasts a lifetime and when you have a family you can take time off. You?ll still be working in 25 years, never mind 25 months. I campaigned for women to take more time and for that to be respected rather than for women to feel under pressure if they take time off to start a family.

I felt pressure to go back but it was pressure I put on myself because I wanted to be the perfect mother, the perfect employee, the perfect boss? unfortunately, perfection doesn?t exist. I realised that after a couple of months of total exhaustion. My mother used to say to me: ?You do realise you?ve just had a baby, don?t you?? Sometimes you need to take a step back. Things have changed slowly for the better.Fortunately, there are very few bosses left who believe they shouldn?t employ women because they?ll go off to have a family."

Getting thats EXACTLY what ive been saying on here. Its the bullying and her hypocrisy i have a problem with. NOTHING else. And yet i was getting told that i was being horrible.

BBB, babies need to bond so going back at 2 weeks means they have routine from birth, mummy, daddy and nanny (our first nanny stayed 10 years). That is a massive loads of stability and breastfeeding for a year etc. So psychologically it is bound to be better to return quickly than wrenching the baby at 9 months from its routine of mummy 24/7 is surely much more damaging.

So let us assume that the baby is with (let us not use terms like "left") its father, granny, childminder or nanny. Its needs are met. All is well. So psychologically we are win / win so far. Most cultures share childcare. So if you set up a culture at home of mother 24/7 it is not surprising she gets stressed and is not great with the child.

Then we move on to money. So we have a child of a working mother who is secure and happy, perhaps happier than the child with mother 24/7 at home. The mother at work probably protects her children's future better particularly if she worked hard at school and made wise career choices. The 8% at private schools get about 50% the best university places and end up having about 50 - 80% of the best paid positions of power in the UK so if mummy can afford school fees that is a huge indicator of child outcome even if it is just extra money for good food never mind school fees.

Finally, if you want your daughter to become a leading surgeon and understand women work and men do as much as women in the home then the last thing you do is model an example to her of mother at home doing all the childcare whilst daddy is out there earning the big bucks.

Xenia, you are the best advertisement for being a sahm without realising it, you really really are.

I don't think that's fair actually, I think Xenia speaks a fair amount of sense.

Granted Xenia is at one end of the spectrum but I agree with some of her points. As a child growing up I saw my SAHM as a drudge and my WOHF as some sort of God. My father did not treat her as a drudge at all but she was the one doing the 'boring' stuff while he had the high powered job.

Now I am older I understand that was not true at all but it certainly coloured my view of SAH'ing. I like the fact that my dds see me jetting around with my job and being in an equal partnership with my DH.

In my own group of friends/acquaintances the relationships between SAHM and husband seem very unequal indeed. I appreciate this is only my experience.

What does WOHF stand for? Sounds like something a dog does!

Xenia BBB, babies need to bond so going back at 2 weeks means they have routine from birth, mummy, daddy and nanny (our first nanny stayed 10 years). That is a massive loads of stability and breastfeeding for a year etc. So psychologically it is bound to be better to return quickly than wrenching the baby at 9 months from its routine of mummy 24/7 is surely much more damaging' Some of your posts make total sense (esp ones about women setting the bar too low), but that's not one of them. I have often wondered what you do for a living, but you are clearly not a psychologist. It just doesn't work like that.

Mum - WOHF - Work out of home father

Why would a SAHM need to be in the kitchen more than a WOHM? ( serious question).

GG, but I have 5 children and I really think I would know if they weren't bonded to me. I have experienced all that lovely pregnancy and then the hours of breastfeeding and baby sleeping next to you skin on skin at times and what certainly at the time felt like hours and hours of time with them every day and night except I waso ut between 8 and 6 in the week. I don't think that stops a baby forming good bonds at all.

If we took my daughters' friends and they and looked at who had had a mother at home, who had had a mother at home plus a full time nanny and who had had mother out at work and who had had a father at home and mother working I don't think my daughters would be and feel any different because I wasn't there within those hours. They have both graduated how. I don't feel remote and they don't have mental issues (most of my family are psychiatrists by the way so I am not particularly ignorant of psychology and I have spent more hours caring for children presumably than any mother on the thread surely - if you add the hours up of 5 children over so far nearly 30 years - no one will have done as much childcare as I have so I am probably the best qualified person to write on this topic and I have the proofs of the pudding - ie some of the children are adult.

Xenia, i would be happy to accept you theories if they were backed up by some half decent research. As yet you have failed to provide any other than you own skewed view of the world. I'm afraid I have to take your views for what they are - stories about your own experience. This does nothing to change or inform anybody else's view or experience so for all you pontificating you change nothing. Samples of one really don't have much credibility, do they now?

Would you seriously accept an opinion that is not backed up by evidence in the course of your work? I don't think so.

at the idea you have done more childcare than the rest of us. Only if you had at keast 10 years btween each child and cared for them one at a time.

And sorry, the fact you family includes psychiatrists doesn't mean that you know more about psychology than the rest of us (which incidentally is a different subject, they aren't interchangeable). Or are you saying that all your family are equally well versed in your discipline just because you are a family member? That would be the logical interpretation surely?