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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Sorry Xenia...

588 replies

duchesse · 02/02/2008 16:58

...for starting that thread when I didn't believe you existed (and I genuinely didn't). I've done some proper research now, and realise that you are real person with fantastic real achievement. I apologise unreservedly for my previous thread, which was genuinely not designed to get at you since I did not believe you existed. I am aghast and incredibly impressed at how much you have achieved, and look forward to sparring with you again some time...

OP posts:
TheFallenMadonna · 05/02/2008 20:03
Grin
Judy1234 · 05/02/2008 20:03

Don't quote me out of context. My family spends their lives treating depression and there are a range of things that work from pills, therapy, diet, sunlight, exercise and yes sometimes having work you enjoy.

Habbibu · 05/02/2008 20:11

Xenia - you have chosen someone to take on much of the parenting of your children who doesn't fulfil the criteria you outlined earlier. Your nannies were not as highly educated and highly paid as those clever women you say will be better parents. My mother is NNEB trained, and is a fabulous, inspiring woman, and so I can well imagine you may have chosen a similar person.

I think a lot of what you say here is intentional hyperbole. I believe that you love your children very much, and would not "outsource" most of their daily parenting to someone you didn't think would be great at it, so surely that points out a fairly hefty flaw in your argument?

lucyellensmum · 05/02/2008 20:11

MrsMattie, that was me and to be fair, she did make some pretty constructive comments on my thread. Very blunt and too the point but i did appreciate it, i wont be getting a job just yet, although it seems my DP would agree with her. I dont get a job because i don't want to get a job, for my own personal and very complicated reasons.

Original poster
duchesse · 05/02/2008 20:13

Goodness, go out for 3/4 of an hour to try to track down idiot boy who's forgotten his mobile phone, and this thread explodes. I'm sure I shouldn't be laughing quite so much though. I ought to be ashamed.

Fwiw though, having suffered from depression myself in my dim and distant past (ages 13-24), I do actually think that keeping busy is key (learned from my mother in law, who kept herself going through the deaths of her son and her husband in three years- impressive lady). I also think that physical exercise is crucial to overcoming depression. I do not however believe that post natal depression can possibly be lumped in with "standard" depression. It is very different in origin and needs very different treatment.

OP posts:
lucyellensmum · 05/02/2008 20:19

will someone please tell me if cleverer is a word??? Really, im getting befuddled now

karen999 · 05/02/2008 20:24

LEM..if yu were clever you would know....

fortyplus · 05/02/2008 20:25

'Average' wage of £23K (I think that's the current figure) is actually a mean rather than a median figure. Therefore it's artificially high - the 'average' person earns less - according to friend who used to work in Central Statistics Office. (Public Sector so presumably no brains at all )

karen999 · 05/02/2008 20:29

Who the hell would pay attention to statistics? As DisRaeli once said there are "lies,damn lies and statistics"

chocolatedot · 05/02/2008 20:32

I don't accept that women over earning £100k are proportionately more likely to continue working after having children.

For some time now the graduate intake for Accounting Firms, Law Firms and Investment Banks has tended to average 50/50 between the sexes. However, women remain a small minority at Partner / MD level while women with children are an even smaller minority (a handful at most firms). Do you really believe this is due to discrimination or is it rather that many professional women find the pressure of combining a city career with children too difficult? Particuarly as in most cases their other half is a similar high earner with accompanying pressures and complete lack of flexibility.

Out of around 50 high earners I know, only one has continued full throttle and she does the whole 2 nanny thing.

Janni · 05/02/2008 20:34

I was quite fond of Xenia till the bit about milk in the fridge.

Quattrocento · 05/02/2008 20:35

What bit? Missed that. Am still fond of Xenia even though world view small.

Iota · 05/02/2008 20:36

Salary facts from "What Britain Earns":

Nearly 6m were in the lowest pay bracket of less than £10,000, including cleaners and hairdressers. The average British salary is £24,907, but two-thirds of the population still earn under the national average, while fewer than 5,000 earn more than £1m.

And to be in the top 10% of earners, you need to be on a salary of just £46,000. The findings were revealed last night on the BBC2 TV programme What Britain Earns.

link here

Judy1234 · 05/02/2008 20:47

May be it depends whether their partner earns more or not then as to whether they give up work.

Working parents, male and female, are parents and they bring up their children. They don't leave them for 20 years and go out to work. They parent on a day to day basis. My suggestion was they were better at it than housewives.

pankhurst · 05/02/2008 20:50

I am getting offended despite the high level of emotional intelligence of the woman in the thigh high leather boots. (no, NOT you Mrsruffallo!)

100K IS a massive sum. Not even half the women in the world earn that.

Have you been at Daddy's psychotropic bottles again?

Quattrocento · 05/02/2008 20:58

"100K IS a massive sum. Not even half the women in the world earn that."

Well it depends on your point of view. Incidentally I think less than 1% of women actually earn over £100k. And I bet most of them are GPs.

chocolatedot · 05/02/2008 21:01

I think that 2% of the population earn over £100k and I would have thought women are in turn a small % of that.

I'm afraid 20 years of senior roles in Investment Banking left me pretty ill-equipped for SAH motherhood. I have no patience, a burning desire to get things done and can only manage lego etc with the FT in reading distance. In fact I'm a rubbish mother compared to most long term committed SAHM's I know. Doesn't bother me though, I know I'm doing the best I can, my kids seem pretty happy and I love the luxury of time and freedom!

pankhurst · 05/02/2008 21:01

it doesn't depend on your point of view.

100K is relatively unachievable for most women (or people) on the planet.

Habbibu · 05/02/2008 21:03

Xenia, I'd really like you to answer my question. Is your nanny good at parenting your children? I mean, isn't she doing essentially what you say housewives do? Or does getting money for it make her better at it?

karen999 · 05/02/2008 21:07

Surely a nanny's job is to look after the children, to ensure they are cared for, fed etc. Their job is not to parent and therefore I would not expect a nanny to do that...if I paid a nanny that is what I would expect. I am the parent as is my dp. Just because someone else is looking after your children in the day does not make them parents...fgs, you can be a parent (and a good one) but rely on someone else to help you out.....

Habbibu · 05/02/2008 21:11

Karen, that's not my point at all. What I meant was that the nanny spends a lot of time looking after the children, and, as Xenia has said many times on other threads, being a person they love, loves them, does everything with them that a SAHM would. But gets paid a lot less than Xenia's "clever women who are better parents". So I don't buy that she means that completely. That's all.

Quattrocento · 05/02/2008 21:11

This is what I meant about it depending on your point of view.

If you happen to live in the UK, where the average wage is around £25k as opposed to sub-Saharan Africa, then your perspective is different.

If in addition to living in the UK you happen to be a highly trained lawyer with years of expertise under your belt and working in the City, you might actually think that this was below what might be your normal salary or profit share expectation.

It really does depend on your point of view.

karen999 · 05/02/2008 21:16

I can understand what you are saying....my problem is with the whole SAHM thing...I am at home for 16 hours of the day....I will just be going out to work for the other 8....my dd is pretty much at school for most of that time and my other dd will be at her grandmothers (with her cousin)

Women can do both....working and being a bloody good parent are not mutually exclusive.

lucyellensmum · 05/02/2008 21:17

karen999 - that is the most sensible thing anyone has said yet you must be the cleverest one here

Habbibu · 05/02/2008 21:20

I haven't said they aren't, Karen! My mum worked while we were at school, and I'm so proud of her. She was paid an utterly crap wage for being a nursery nurse, but was so so good at her job - I'd kill to be half as good at anything. And that's my point - Xenia's doing her hyperbolic polarization of mothers, but I bet she thinks the nannies she has chosen are brilliant at "parenting" her children when she's not there.