Sorry Xenia...

[duchesse]

...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...

Message withdrawn

Pitchounette - those nounous are everywhere and entirely part of the official system - their salaries are tax-deductible precisely to encourage the employment of those people.

Message withdrawn

Ah, but Pitchounette - they are not subject to the same hours restrictions as people employed in companies. Wherein a huge difference.

Plus you can deduct money from their salary for lodging/food etc.

amidai- I know! My London (to distinguish from my Thai sister and French sister) sister's 4 yr old is full-time in a relatively cheap nursery. Costs her £900 a month.

There was another nursery attached to her son's school but the deposit alone was more money than she had spare at the time (and she earns a fair amount just shy of 40% tax band), and the fees were twice the cheaper nursery's.

My "Thai sister" incidentally has a full-time household help person who also does childcare and babysitting on occasion, for £400 a month.

Pitchouette, amidiawish, I think it is a great shame that women like you who want to work, find they do not have the choice or find it not worth their while, because of the high cost of quality childcare.

Most couples are both in paid employment pre-children and using it a big chunk of their joint income to pay for a joint mortgage and expenses. Once a child arrives, if one parent is forced to stay at home because of their wages do not or barely cover childcare, then it is double-whammy for that family: the parent at home is SAHM-ing, when they would prefer to be at work, and their household loses one income, lowering living standards.

The same thing applies for a parent who is forced to work despite wanting to SAHM. Though again, childcare would eat up a big chunk of their wages.

People are happiest when they are doing what they want to, whether WOHM or SAHM. Despite the financial sacrifices or childcare hassles, at least they have the choice and are doing what makes them happiest.

"Of course a lot of women don't have the get up and go or the brains or even the luck to do well but if you have a choice then surely pick better paid work you love rather than low paid work you love"

This is undoubtedly true (just as it is for men) but it does not tell the whole story. One of the logic blind alleys of this discussion is dividing roles into those at £12K and those at £100K - and leaving people there.

You might, for instance, have all the requisite motivation, brains, luck and to be on a "sensible" career path but find yourself hijacked by life when you are only earning a paltry £40K. Such hijacking might well be linked to aspects of your life that you also consider a priority. Take, for example, an individual who starts on her career but then chooses to marry and have children. She continues to work but chose to marry a soldier who moves around with his job frequently and is away from home for prolonged periods. She decides that her marriage is important and chooses to support his career choice becase that has always been non-negotiable. She decides to restrict the level of job/hours commitment she takes in order not to be away from home a lot as she feels this would be unfair on her children. Does that count as a silly choice or a pragmatic one? I guess it depends on the goal. If the goal is to be as rich as possible a an individual then yes, she has screwed up. If the goal is to to stary with her husband and provide a particualr environment for her children then she has not. Is she entirely happy? Nope. Struggling with the choices like most of us. I suspect Xenia is right in the many of us doubt that we are doing the right thing and worry that we are not fulfilling our potential but I cannot beleive that one path is the ony path and I do beleive that it is more complicated than some Brave New world model. Society would not work terrbly well if we all earned £100K plus. The world needs Xenias - but it needs the support mechanisms that allow her to succeed and exist in varied society. End of essay!

blueshoes - but how on earth does society get around the fact that good quality childcare costs a lot of money (and is therefore only available to the few)?

Sure, you can have a cheap childcare economy (like France) - but then you have, as a society, to be prepared to leave your children with people with very little education and unable to command a better wage elsewhere.

Ah well, that goes back to Xenia's argument that we should all be earning £100k - in other words make the good quality chidcare affordable to you.

It would be interesting if we could converse with the younger (and, presumably, less affluent)Xenia. There MUST have been a time she had to juggle like us mere mortals. Someone, somewhere, must have sacrificed something in order for it to all work.

Xenia - sorry to talk about you in third person but you have become a morality play figure - your views are becoming larger than you!

Elffriend, Xenia is a BRAND on mn!

Anna, the answer about being able to afford quality children under current circumstances in UK is a high income. No 2 ways around that. That is why Xenia keeps banging on about our dds going for high paying jobs and thus having choices.

As for low quality childcare in France, no one is forcing parent to use poor nurseries or unqualified nannies. I grew up in Southeast Asia where it is not unusual for working couples to employ Filipino maids to do a combination or housecare and childcare. Where the children are young, parents tend to use maids with a combination of nursery and grandparent or one parent at home.

Yes, the maids are part of the landscape. But that does not necessarily mean society will end up using them as ft childcare for littles - people are sensible after all. And I don't look down on these ladies. It makes financial sense for them to do this, as it does for your cleaner to work for you. Some of them are damn good, even better with children than the parents they work for, being mothers at home, and highly qualified as well. They want a better life.

"No one is forcing parent to use poor nurseries or unqualified nannies".

There is, however, not much in the way of alternatives unless you have very devoted grandparents around...

But there are good nurseries in France surely? And qualified nannies? Are there equivalent of childminders?

Not everyone is able to afford it, as in the UK, but just because nounous are available does not mean it is all-or-nothing between poor quality childcare or grandparents.

I know a Parisian couple, both working, who were posted to the London office of my company. They had a small baby and hired a nanny to look after her at great expense. The fact of nounous did not blind them to appropriate childcare for a baby.

blueshoes - I have visited what are supposed to be the very best private nurseries here in Paris and I would not leave a child there.

No qualifications for nannies exist here.

There are childminders. I don't know much about them, tbh, because people I know don't use them much - crèches and nounous are the usual solution, or students who do after school care (this is a big, growing industry).

"the answer about being able to afford quality children under current circumstances in UK is a high income"

pre children i was earning £60k - taking into account general rises in salaries, that would now be nearer £70k

that was not enough to put 2 children into nursery, pay for travel and the other associated costs with working out of home.

it is truly ridiculous.

I present one view but I am sure I am more of a mixture of views in real life. Let's look at the younger me. Let's take me at 24, 2 children - a baby and a 2 year old. We are just moving from a little terraced house to a semi in outer London. My ex husband and I are working full time. The new house cost £80k if I remember rightly. We were pleased to have a bigger garden. It's 1987. I would guess I was earning about £14k. I know it was £11,500 in 1985 or 86ish. It had doubled from 1983 because of the nature of the work that I did so that although in 1983 the cost of the nanny was 100% of either my salary of my husband's salary we knew that period of working for nothing, that one year would soon be over. This by the way is exactly how my daughter will be - will start on one salary and it will double within 2 years if she passes her exams etc. Only difference with her is she is 23 and doesn't have children.

So financially we just about managed. We couldn't yet afford a cleaner and we knew we wanted a third child very soon. It was probably the most tiring hardest time of our lives - both working full time with 2 soon to be 3 children under 4. I think whether you're a housewife or work that is often so - having lots of small children is very tiring but it's a phase you get out of in due course.

What did I feel if we go back to the 1987 Xenia? Much less career security obviously if you're young. So concerns about how I was doing at work (and I am sure I left earlier than lots of people). I felt I had a lot in common at work with people 10 years older which isn't a bad thing as I had the babies so much younger. Also if you go from student to mother paying a nanny then you don't get used to money. So it's less hardship than years of loose living and foreign holidays and coupledome followed by age 35 suddenly babies. We had no affluence to lose so buying all the children's stuff in oxfam and buying things like orange juice being an impossibility were just normal for us.

Did I want to work - absolutely. I certainly remember when I was breastfeeding the leaving of a baby can be hard but it was all working reasonably well. I think I saw a very long term picture that in my mid 20s yes every penny was hard to come by but that in my 30s or 40s there was all that hope that things could be easier. I did not anticipate an expensive divorce after I was 40 however.

Message withdrawn

Thank you for sharing that Xenia - both your experiences and the observation that you are probably a mixture of views in real life .

There was no way the me aged 20 something wanted babies and I never had any question that flat out career was what my life was about. I liked the loose living ! I still want (and have) the career but I am also still getting used to the changed dynamic of now feeling responsible for a baby. Perhaps I will be more in control and focused again once the baby/adjustment phase has passed. Perhaps I will find a more fulfilling role closer to home and be able to return to a full time role without feeling that I am letting down DS. Perhaps I'll let DH become a house husband (not likely. Been there, resented that. And he's a messy git.). Who knows. Life throws you wobblies (like an expensive divorce for example). You are lucky to have forged a lucrative career you clearly love and at which you excel. I admire that and your tenacity (and patience on here!) even if some of your views are slightly different to mine!

Ok, so that's your life, Xenia.

I got my degree and did my journalistic training (by the way, I came from a working class background and went to a bog standard secondary school, but still managed to get a good degree from a good university). I got my first job on a magazine. I very quickly worked my way up to Deputy Editor. I was head hunted by a broadcaster and became a radio journalist. Again, from age 25-28 I rose very quickly, and was a senior producer by age 27. At 28, I had a baby, went on maternity leave, went back to my old job for a few months afterwards, didn't want to be away from my child for such long hours - jacked it in.

After 2 yrs as a SAHM (with occasional freelance work - could have been more if I'd wanted it, but I didn't) I am now thinking about working again - only this time more flexibly, on my own terms, and in a way that can (hopefully) fit better with my other concerns - namely my family, and secondary to that, my writing. I have a 3 yr plan , which involves setting up my own business. I am still only 30.

I don't feel that my staying at home with my son for a couple of years has disadvantaged me in the slightest. If anything, it has enriched my life and that of my husband and son.

So - what am I doing wrong? Because it seems to me that you lump every woman who doesn't follow your exact model in with each other and label us as unambitious or stupid or subservient or lazy.

Please - explain.

Gosh MrsMattie, did Xenia call you stupid and lazy...

work outside the home. or stay at home. or work from home. if it suits you, do it. that's really all i have to say on the matter.

I don't think I've ever said anyone has done anything wrong. Some people become nuns or give their life to looking after elderly parents or go and found a commune. None of those choices are wrong but if you want to earn a decent living and find life a bit easier earning a reasonable sum of money helps. We certainly had some career sacrifice in our home too. Everyone does to some extent with a child. My children's father moved to follow my career and I am sure my leaving work reasonably early probably had an impact too but all parents even those who work full time make those compromises all the time.

What was may be different for me was the early focus, wanting to buy an island when I was 10, going to university at 17, wanting babies when I was 13 ... but I waited until I was 22.... clear things I wanted and a large family so I suppose I started younger whereas my siblings were nearer 40 when they had their children so their lives are a different way round - nearly 20 years of work/freedom or whatever you want to call it and now 40s bringing up children, although we all do work.

I'm not sure I really got myself back into that 1987 mind set. I'd have to look out my diaries to get a better picture. Then 1988 we had baby number 3. Not long after that we bought 2 buy to let flats and spent a lot of time decorating, plumbing, doing all the letting arrangements etc ourselves so that was busy - babies, flats, 2 full time jobs and then there was the theme of getting the girls into good competitive private schools when they were 5. So my 20s were full of buying properties, changing jobs, breastfeeding, dealing with nannies and nursery school and school entrance. It was a busy decade. I thought the 30s were easier, more money, more time, even when I had the twins. Better draw a veil over the 40s, abuse, divorce, deaths, dementia.....it's certainly a bundle of fun around here in the last few years.

Xenia, I'm sorry, but you have absolutely slated any woman who chooses to stay at home or work part-time on numerous occasions. Don't go all 'dementia' on me, now.

hmmmm, I detect a mellower and more intelligent thread today.

(Mrsmattie, do not underestimate the power of a good debate.)

We may all yet end up as the best of friends, and YOU shall write the story of our adventures.

On an island provided by one of the gang