I have two disabled children. Only one can attend school at all. Both are gifted (99.95 centile on Wechsler).
They are thriving because I care for them. Nobody else could do it as effectively or well as I do, because nobody can make them feel as secure as I can. And in one child's case, my work has saved the tax payer in excess of £100,000 a year, which is what an agency providing the same level of EOTAS I do for the eldest would charge on top of the £45,00 provision annually I secured myself for him via the Tribunal system. I can link to such agencies, if you are dubious.
Unless your taxes exceed £100,000 per annum, then I contribute more to society than you do. And that's before examining the fact that most kids like my eldest end up in SEMH schools (costing the above sums) and many end up in PRUs, after which they end up in Youth Offending residential settings. In excess of 75% of the young men in those are above diagnostic thresholds for various neurodevelopment disorders. The cost to the tax-payer in mental health provision, benefits, and prisons runs into the billions - yet many, many kids I know are home educated by women determined to avoid their kids suffering that level of harm and distress. And my two may be significantly disabled, but they're also gifted. 99.95% scores on the Wechsler. My son is doing A level algebra for fun at the moment. At 13. And my daughter was reading the Faraway Tree at 3. With the right care, support and education, they could be higher rate tax payers - and that's the level of care, support and education they get with me at the helm.
I suppose I could have used my Cambridge education to work insane hours in a Magic Circle firm, and paid for a specialist SEN nanny - or rather, a chain of them - to look after my two. And then of course forced the state to provide the agency education mentioned above. But as it happens, I love spending time with my kids. They're hilarious and fascinating and loveable.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018. At the time, my odds weren't great. And all I could feel was huge relief, because if my time on earth was short, then I'd spent as much as I possibly could with my then 4 and 9 year olds. I was grateful beyond belief that I'd not gone back to work, as planned, even if the reasons for that (my son's diagnosis) had been painful, at the time.
There is no one size fits all for a life. Some women thrive and excel in careers, and it's appalling that barriers still exist to their doing so. Of course parental leave should be split, too, along the lines it is in eg Sweden. But human beings are social and familial animals, not robots, and it's rather sadly conformist, as well as blindly capitalist, to value a human being's labour contribution solely by status and earning capacity. There are other elements: happiness, and a sense of achievement and worth. I get that from caring for my kids. I know I do it well, and I know the benefits are manifold, for all of us. You can believe that or not - I have to say, I don't really care what some strangers on Mumsnet believe about the reality of the life I live, because I know my life far better. As, of course, you do yours.
I think women feel huge guilt, whatever choices they make. I think that while we attack one another, we ignore the far larger issue: that we are being blamed whatever we do, rather than the system being shaped so we can make positive choices about what best suits our lives, and our children's care. In some cases, that will be their parents. In others, a bored, bitter and fed up carer is worse, however closely related, than a loving nursery or dedicated child minder. It's not a cloned system, and it shouldn't be.
But I would point out that while parents work, someone else must look after their kids. And that someone is, almost always, a fairly badly paid woman. And I also note that it is inherently misogynist to devalue, denigrate and dismiss as valueless labour so closely connected to female biology - our reproductive capacity. It should not be forced upon women, absolutely. Our horizons should be wide open. But nor should it be demeaned, in a slavish adherence to the idea that only traditionally male labour contributions have value or merit. There is nothing liberated or progressive about that at all - and as women won't stop having babies, and many won't stop having a huge urge to care for those babies themselves, all such an approach does is perpetuate misogyny and the denigration of the female sex.