To wonder why people have children when they clearly put their career first, by having a 24hr maternity nurse from day one and a full-time nanny from 3 months?

[gogetter]

Call me old fashioned but why bother when you are going to see your child for maybe an hour a day on weekdays?
It's not financially needed for mum to return to work (far from) so why leave your teeny weeny baby with a nanny during the most amazing time of their lifes?

A bit strange I fear!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=1375&threadid=361594&stamp=070725113241
sorry everyone for interrupting - going now

Xenia - it's OK for you - you have a good career that pays well. Would you be so keen to work if you had to earn £5 in Sainsburys? Or would you just decide that it was better for everyone if you stayed at home?

I would be perfectly able to cope with my kids and have a good relationship with them and actually enjoy them if I wasnt trying to be supermum. It is not possible to raise kids, work to provide for the famliy (or keep sane), and run a house and raise kids, for everybody. It is hard work, and not everybody is able to master it. Enter the paid help!

I have a cleaner. I am looking for a new au pair, been without one since May, thought I could do it, I cant.

Maybe some of those who seem most capable and most financially secure, and have all this help, is actually crumbling inside?

How can you say they should not have kids?
It is so provocative to read this. Especially this morning, when for the first time in a long time I question my own parenting abilities, and wonder if I was right to bin my AD's (pnd).

I didn't say anyone else should not have kids,I said it would be wrong for me with my mixture of madness, selfishness, over sized ego and career dedication to have any more children.

Bitingold don't let them get to you!

It's lazy stereotyping. Every woman has her own different skills and limits. It sounds as if you are doing absolutely fine.

twinset don't think anyone meant you- it's the OP.

I don't understand this "naturally" thing. Most mothers and fathers adore their children and love to spend some time with them. However a lot of men and women do not particularyl like to spend 10 hour stints with them even if they could afford it. I don't see a lot of men rushing to do that and I don't blame them for it or think they are lesser children undeserving of having children. You can parent for a few hours a day and bring up children terribly well, arguably better than the example of moterh in service at hme with no wider role which is somethhing most women avoid in 2007 actually. It's the stay at home mothers who are an anachronism and deserving of criticism not the working mothers. So the thread is completely the wrong way round.

It is also a hugely sexist thread and also seems to imply fine for fathers to see children before and after work but not mothers.

I adore teeny weeny babies. Some of my nicest moments have been breastfeeding twins, all that cuddling at night, and interaction at weekends but I really have never liked more than 2 or 3 hours at time of it as most parents don't if you include fathers as parents and the 4 in 5 mothers who work.

Also you don't leave them with a nanny and disappear for 5 years. Both parents are usually hugely involved in the lives of their baby even if they work full time. Most of us had babies who were up a lot of in the night, usually parents share who leaves or gets home first and we always try to spend as much time as we can. It's absolutely great to work and have children. It's the route of choice for most parents and always has been.

If I earned the minimum wage in a supermarket? It's hard to imagine that but I think yes I would need the time away from the small babies, the interaction with other people and customers and the feeling I was contributing to soceity and showing my children we aren't in a sexist world in 2007 and that adults work and aren't kept by men like some kind of concubine who gives sex for money. So yes I think I would although obviously I'd rather chair the Tesco board or be the next person to invent something like Clubcard.

Twinset, I was not responding to you, it was directed at the OP and all those who condemn women for getting extra help rather than doing it all themselves.

Sometimes this is what has to be done in order to keep the family unit together and try to keep everyone in it keep their mental health!

Zzzzzzzz can someone change the record, please? Some have to, some want to, some don't. End of.

I won't even begin to comment on the points raised by the OP, it's a viewpoint lost in the dark ages, and threads like this always end up in viscious spats. There were 2,390,400 Daily Mail readers at the last count, inevitable that some of them end up on here....

How would the supporters of the OP view feel if we were to extend the analogy: Why bother going to university if you plan to give it all up the minute you have kids? Why not save all those uni places for people with penises?

Gogetter, if you really want to explore your position, why not go to a city meet-up and talk to the women there? Beats hiding on an anonomous thread, and you might wake up a little.

Xenia on Wed 25-Jul-07 12:19:27
"It's the stay at home mothers who are an anachronism and deserving of criticism not the working mothers."

Oh god not sure why I'm bothering but this is just so value-laden and offensive.

Equal rights for women should there to enable CHOICE not enforce a one-size fits all society.

Just as some parents do not want to stay at home with their children some do. We are all different and bring up our children differently.

I fail to see how it is sexist to say different women want different things.

Xenia, lol...sorry....but it's to ridiculous for words...

Xenia, would it be actaully possible for you to admit that a SAHM does actually have a valuable role. She is most certainly not a concubine, nor is she deserving of critism.

It is not your choice and I respect you for that, shame you can't offer others the same consideration. I find some of your comments aimed at SAHMs some of the most offensive personal attacks I have read on this site .

actually

Has anyone else asked why this comment is aimed at mothers rather than fathers? (It's not financially needed for mum to return to work in OP.) DH and I have similar jobs and earnings but noone has asked him what on earth he thinks he is doing going back to work. Last time I checked most children have 2 parents who at least in theory have equal responsibility.

I would also question the validity of making judgements about other people's financial circumstances (but that's just me!).

FCH - yes repeatedly - the OP (me) mentioned the mother due to breast feeding

Oh and further up the thread you will see I have extended my message to imply that I don't care who stays at home. they are very well off, not suffering from PND etc.......... I just think that from 12 weeks the baby being brought up by a nanny is a little harsh. I think the maternity/paternity leave rights should be used in their entirety or at least a comprimise with part-time work for a few months.

I think you have a perfect right to wonder why they made this choice, but only provided you accept that they had a perfect right to do so (in a "I wonder why - that seems a bit odd to me" manner rather than a "how disgraceful - that sort of behaviour should be banner" manner!

banned!

I wonder, Xenia, do you then also think as little about a man that might be a SAHP....
I mean, if in a 2 parent family one part works outside the home whilest the other part decides to be a SAHP, why is that so wrong. I feel that as a SAHM my job looking after the children is just as important as my hubbies Job workoing outside the home, and I am very glad that he doesn't share your views and possibly sees me as somehting less worthy or as his slave or something...!

A 12 week old baby is most certainly old enough to be cared for by a nanny whilst the parents work which incidentally does not constitute "being brought up by the nanny".

My DD has been in full time childcare since younger than that, and I assure you she knows who her mummy is. So does DS who has been with a full time nanny since... you guessed it... 12 weeks.

Your comments are very offensive. And your choices are not necessarily better than mine.

The comment is aimed at mothers because the poster and many people in this country are sexist to the core and need compulsory re-education courses.

But it's a none issue. Most women do work and housewives are dying out so it'a hardly even worth discussing. However I didn't start the thread. I am just happy to tell the original poster that it's better for children if mothers work and damage can be done to families by having a housewife at the helm.

I think the day that posts such as this one are as easily applicable to men as they are to women will be the day Xenia hangs up her boots and considers it a job well done.

Xenia may be extreme in her presentation (which probably wins as many fans as it loses) but I don't have an issue with most of her underlying views: so many posts just assume that babyrearing is womens work, and it is a real pisser because it's hard enough fighting the men to get on career-wise, without having to fight the women too....

"I think the maternity/paternity leave rights should be used in their entirety or at least a comprimise with part-time work for a few months. "

I'm sorry, but what planet do you live on? Do you want to pay my rent? Do you want to get me back my career progression when it is handed to a man because he won't up and leave them in a lurch for six months while he goes and bonds with his baby to your satisfaction? 2 weeks of maternity leave is compulsory. 2 weeks.

Xenia, if it is so unenjoyable to spend 10 hours in the company of small children how can you trust a nanny to enjoy this and hence do a satisfying job at it?