Children of working mothers are more likely to mug you

[chomalungma]

I know. It was 13 years ago. It's probably out of context. Sometimes you say things that rattle a few cages.

But it all builds a picture of our current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/04/boris-johnson-claimed-children-of-working-mothers-more-likely-to-mug-you

"“In the last 30 years an ever-growing proportion of British women have been ‘incentivised’ or socially gestapoed into the workplace, on what seems to me to be the dubious assumption that the harder a woman works the happier she will be, when I am not sure that is true of women or anyone else,” he wrote.

In the book, published before he became mayor of London, Johnson said an increasing number of female graduates tended to pair up with male graduates – a process known by economists as “assortative mating” – and that they then pool their advantages.

“The result is that in families on lower incomes the women have absolutely no choice but to work, often with adverse consequences for family life and society as a whole – in that unloved and undisciplined children are more likely to become hoodies, Neets [not in education, employment or training] and mug you on the street corner."

AIBU to think that his articles from the past reveal much about his views on women, Muslims, LGBT people....

One of the unintended consequences of the liberation of women is that a large number of households have two salaries coming in and as soon as this started to happen, the average cost of housing started to reflect this.

It's remarkable how quick people are to blame everything on women.

From my memory, house prices went up not with "the increase in women working" - which I'm dubious about anyway, as women from my background have always worked. What they went up with is the increase in buy-to-let. As soon as buy-to-let became common, house prices doubled and tripled. Before then they had gone up and down whether women worked or not.

how OP
Today 19:23 PanicAndRun

’Lisa I assume Pp is imagining some kind of ridiculous 50/50 split situation where things aren't equal unless each parent butters one side of a sandwich. Ofc everyone loses out and the partners become resentful in that kind of split.‘

What a strange assumption to make when no one has suggested anything of the sort

I will not accept women being forced back into homes to look after the kids. There's nothing idyllic about women being forced back into economic dependency on men and unpaid slavery in homes. All this and similar thoughts turn up every time the economy contracts - women get forced out of the job markets on spurious excuses. It happened in post-war times and it's happening now. Nor do I think that it is necessarily good for the kids to have women at home looking after everything. Look what that last generation of women forced out of the jobmarket into homes produced - the baby boomer generation. I want to see the ideal of men and women as equal partners, both looking after the kids, both with their own part-time work.

Nor do I think that it is necessarily good for the kids to have women at home looking after everything

Who the hell do you think you are to spout such crap?

@iamNOTmagic

Great point. Correlation is not necessarily causation.

I am no fan of the man and am loathed to agree with him on anything. I hate the scapegoating of single parent families, as most find themselves in this situation by circumstances and not exactly by choice. The hypocrisy by this serial shagger is also staggering, since he contributed to the whole problem. Austerity measures cut a lot of vital services that especially effected teenagers with fewer leisure facilities. But purely from a statistical standpoint and without judgement, there are a lot of teenage thugs in inner London, including my area and many do come from single parent families and are out roaming the streets with no or very minimal supervision. But the parents can’t really win because they are dammed if they remain unemployed and stay at home, or if they work full time hours.

Who the hell do you think you are to spout such crap?

"Who the hell" do you think you are to respond like that? You might like to mention what you're objecting to specifically. I am entitled to my opinion, as are you. The baby boomer generation are not universally admired. Women being forced back out of the jobmarket in the post war years is quite well-known.

So, I'm really sensitive to the fact that both DH and I work full time and DS spends most of his time elsewhere. I hate this set up but there isn't any other option for us.
When I heard this recently, I'm not going to lie, I cried. We bust our arses to give our son the basics but we love him more than anything and want nothing but the best. The truth is, if I lost my job, we would lose our house. I hate that our little 2 year old is judged because I work. I hate that I am judged because I work. What else am I supposed to do?

ImGoingToBangYourHeadsTogether

It's sad that you seem to think motherhood is so unimportant. As if there is nothing sacred or unique about it.

Well I wouldn't fucking be a single parent if my arsehole of an ex hadn't attacked me and shown himself to be a complete waste of oxygen, but we all know how Johnson feels about domestic violence since he's a perpetrator himself, isn't he?

Our prime minister can fuck right off, frankly.

Motherhood is pretty common
Not unique or sacred.

In what way is motherhood sacred? Being a parent is amazing and life enhancing but sacred ?? Bonkers.

I have a problem with putting motherhood up on some sort of quasi-religious pedestal. It's actually probably the most normal, banal thing a woman can do, but when it's treated like something super-duper special it "others" women and prevents them from doing anything else with their lives, because nothing else has as much worth.

Why isn't fatherhood described as sacred? Oh that's right, because men are off running the world and stuff. Leave the "sacred" bits to women.

Why isn't fatherhood described as sacred That's a very good point. There's so much discussion around what mothers should do, be like etc & I just don't hear the same about fathers.

Well, I think I speak from a fairly unique perspective of being brought up mainly by nannies and my father...yep, motherhood is unique and in vast majority of cases, mothers are the best people to bring up their children and should be able to do that if they so wish within being forced into work for purely financial reasons.

Motherhood is pretty common yes obviously.
Not unique or sacred it is for their children

How is it sacred for their children??

@Acciocats

Because you only have one mother and they are irreplaceable

Er yes... just as you have one father.

You haven’t actually answered the question though. Do you not understand what sacred means?

Well, I know nothing about your life but I spent more of my childhood without my mother than with her so I think I have my own experience to draw on. How about you?

Well of course we all have our own experiences to draw on. That’s stating the obvious. You seem unable to answer my question though

The overwhelming feeling I get from this debate is that many women see themselves as above child rearing...they consider themselves too clever and interesting for it and it should be outsourced as soon as possible to usually working class women on minimum wage.

The overwhelming feeling I get is that many women consider themselves as perfectly capable of raising their children while also having other aspects to their life, including work. And that many women partner men with similar aspirations to having a balanced life.

And you are still unable to answer my question!

I'm with @Acciocats