to get pissed off with all those surveys that say working mums screw kids up...because I'm fine ..are you guys? did your mum work? we need to sort this argument out once and for all!

[MicrowaveOnly]

Because that's the real question some of the age old threads could be asking

My mum worked full time which never screwed me up. I'm lucky enough to work from home around all the other stuff going on and hoping I have a good balance.

O.K., my mother was a career woman, and worked full time from having a young family. I told everyone how proud I was of her and I didn't mind her being at work so often. But in reality, I hated it, I hated coming home to an empty house, or having childminders when we were younger. I hated walking home seeing other families together, hated having to pull the curtains on an evening and put the fire on. I hated having to look after my younger brother and, well the list goes on.

I have never told her how I felt, and never will, but I made the decision to give up work and be at home for my children, I now work from home and study part time. I know my children will never appreciate this, but I am not doing it for thanks, I just don't want them to feel like I did growing up.

That feels better, I've never admitted this before.

MrsMills - they may not appreciate it because they know no different but they will have a sense of warmth and security which will stay with them.

I have a friend who was the only child of a single, working mother. She's now a SAHM to four. She happily admits she's trying to create what she wished she'd had.

MrsMills, that is so sad. But, honestly, I would have preferred that to coming home to my deranged mother.

my mother worked from when i was about 2.5. I think she was part time in my tweens then went full time. She did childcare swaps with other working mums. I was often a latch key kid.

It made sense to me. I had a questionable diet sometimes, but I wasn't emotionally damaged. And they barely seemed to notice when i left home - which was good. I was totally bemused by all those parents who pop up to see their kids every other weekend the first term of university.

Interestingly, she often 'created' professional opportunities for my dad (who was in the same line of work, but rather myopic with regards to office politics). I WOH, and I think it is because I saw that my parents were a more sturdy economic and emotional unit with two jobs in the family.

My gran worked full time from when my dad was a babe in arms. There are issues arising from this - mainly along the lines of that my gran seems to be intent on getting her share of parenting in now she's retired and my dad is middle aged.

Other gran worked full time from when my mum was 1 ish. Dunno about issues - but (like I said) my mum worked, so couldn't have been such a deep scar.

i preferred it when my mum went to work - i was ten - she was happier (less lying on the sofa!) and it gave her interest and independence that lasted til she retired - she misses it now. I think she could have gone earlier.

my mum did what she wanted to do.i am doing what i want to do.Both happy

no you're not being unreasonable to be pissed off but neither are the sahms who also get a load of sh*t thrown at them for NOT going to work and showing an example to their kids.at the end of the day,it's no one else's business!

My mum worked and I would have thought her odd if she didn't. I mean, why wouldn't she?

I work. I'm fine (re my mother working). My kids seem normal.

"Your OP is hardly balanced though is it Micro? SAHMs seemed a bit dull? "

I REALLY didn't mean to have a go at SAHM..that was my perspective as a child, I cannot apologise for that. I have done both worked and stayed ay home and have no axe to grind, that wasn't the reason for the thread!

I thought that an answer to this debate lay with us, i.e. do we think we were screwed up by either out mums working or not working. And it seems like most of us certainly weren't . So how can all these supposed surveys that come out by Rowntree and the like say it does affect kids so badly??

..I wish I could find a survey that talks about bad effects but I can't

maybe its all a figment of our imagination! maybe there are no real surveys afterall..

this is a summary of the Joseph Rowntree Trust research that was being referred to on the other thread.

My Mum worked until she retired through ill health at 55. 35 years of slavery in the NHS, but she was at the top of her career and achieved loeads for her hospital, the profession and really advanced diabetes practice in the north west.

When we were babes she worked 3 nights a week and then came home to look after us. She was determined we wouldn't look like "church mice" like other clergymans kids (Dad a CofE minister). She went without and provided every opportunity for me and sister (except for the horse grrr ). She was feisty, proud, hard-working, organised and totally independent. A fine example to look up to and I feel proud of her not negelceted or hard done by, myself and little sister feel no ill effects whatsoever, apart from a very strong work ethic.

That siad there's absolutely nothing "wrong" with being a SAHM. I just think for those who choose/have to do it it's important that retain some of their own identity. Too often I meet women who's conversation centres round kids and housework and they seem to have lost a piece of themselves. It's a shame because one day the kids will leave and I know a lot of women who've stayed at home wonder where "themselves" have gone.

My mother NEVER worked even before me and my brother were born.
She has manic depression and all through my childhood she also had Agrophobia so would basically not leave the house at all.
My Dad worked and still works from home doing publishing work on the computer for a foreign firm.
He has strict deadlines and can stay in his room for up to 14hrs a day.
Even from the age of 11 i used to get myself and my brother up, have breakfast, walk to school.
My Mum would still be in bed and my Dad also as he sometimes worked through the night.
When we got home, Dad would be out getting some documents at the University and my
Mum (as usual) would be in bed.
She would go through periods of taking to her bed for days on end.
My dad did all the cooking and cleaning.
My Mum just never had the confidence to do anything, she did an OU course once studying Geology and was really enjoying it.
Then her Mum died and she just gave it all up.
I don't feel that i've been messed up by all this but my brother who is 3yrs younger than me is turning into my Mum.
He has low self-esteem, is on anti-depressents, he is 35yrs old and has NEVER EVER had a girlfriend and he is not interested in men either and because of all this he is on long-term sick.
But he has so much potential just like my Mum had...but it's all getting wasted.

thanks pw..but look at this..

^Longer periods of full-time employment by mothers when their children were aged one to five tended to:

• reduce the child's chances of obtaining A-level qualifications or their equivalent;
• increase the child's risk of unemployment and other economic inactivity in early adulthood;
• increase the child's risk of experiencing psychological distress as a young adult;
• reduce the chances of daughters giving birth before the age of 21.

Longer periods of work by fathers when their children were pre-schoolers tended to:

• reduce the child's risk of unemployment and other economic inactivity in early adulthood;
• reduce the child's risk of experiencing psychological distress as a young adult;
• reduce the child's chances of obtaining A-level qualifications or their equivalent.^

So working fathers seem to improve the chance of employment in early adulthood, but working mums reduce the chance of employment.

However working mothers or fathers reduce the childs chances of obtaining A levels.

Now that last one makes no sense at all. That means both parents should reduce their workload to imrpove their childrens chances of getting A levels...what

I don't know about screwing up but I was pretty cheesed off when my mum couldn't attend parents evenings or school plays or concerts I was in because she'd be teaching evening classes. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't get a job that meant she'd work mostly daytimes.

I reckon parents can never do right. Whatever they do. They can only do their best. Excepting cases of abuse, you can blame your parents for only so much. Everybody has stuff to deal with.

Ripeberry ..maybe Bidulph is right, that boys are affected much more by their mothers being there for them, than girls. We're a tough bunch huh!

My mum worked not only full time but also very long hours (I have not only A levels but a degree and a profesional qualification). On the upside owever She ran the shop wich we lived above so although I came in and made myself tea and looked after myself from about 8, se was around if necessary (ie I could just wander into teh shop).

Se always made sure she came to parents evenings though we rarely went on holiday (I can remember two). My Dad worked away a lot and my mum effectively was a single paretn for quite long stretches. I have huge admiration for her now I know how hard it is.

I can;t say her wokring was or wasn;t a problem - maybe I would ave done better academically if se hadn;t maybe not, who on earth knows. I know it wasn;t a coice - we needed the money and I had to work in the sop myself from about 12 wich was hard wen my friends were all going to town on a saturday and I was working.

owever it never occured to me tat a moan couldnt do exactly what they wanted to - work/stay at ome/get an education - because tats what my mum taugt me.

There was a formal debate in scool at one time "A woman's place is in the home" and I asked my mum what she thought, her answer...

"a womans place is where she wants it to be".

i find biddulph preachey,alarmist and judgemental but as a slammer i would say that

I found this quite interesting:

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/mar/06/childrensservices.money

Isn't that a personality thing though, anniemac, about whether once your children are grown you're able to truly let them go?
I've heard some really famous, accomplished women talk about how devastated they feel when their children fly the nest. I would hope that if you felt satisfied you'd done your best by them as they were growing up that you could really enjoy your own later life period - whether working or pursuing other interests. I think there's a real skill to being a parent to adult children.

Your mum sounds lovely though, I'm just musing out loud really!!

By the way the DM is prejudiced, racist, right-wing, mysogynistc and unasahmedly biased CRAP and is tixic to those who regard it as "news". I would never take what it purports to be "fact" as anything other than facist clap trap.