To think that all those generations of women who battled for equality for women have actually achieved nothing!

[flixx]

All that has changed is that women are now expected to go out and work and well as still being souly responsible for the vast majority of domestic stuff and childcare.

Womens lives aren't better or easier, infact they are now so complicated that half of us are so stressed and knackered we don't even remember who we are anymore.

The role of a mother is less valued by society than it has ever been when we all know that it truely is THE hardest job ever.

daftpunk, as regards policies which pay mothers to stay at home, you and I DO get child benefit. Don't spend it all at once.

It's not just the taxpayers who would object to Daftpunk's daft manifesto. As a mother, I would object most strenuously to anyone suggesting I should stay at home on the minimum wage watching years of investment into my career shrivel up and die with each passing month. Would be awful.

I'm lost with you Daftpunk. You've got this rigid view of what women should do, combined or perhaps driven by a terrifying sense of helplessness ("I would not be able to cope" etc etc). Women mostly aren't helpless unless they are depressed/ill or unless they choose to be (like those benighted stepford wives). Where's the joy in helplessness?

my mothers issue with staying at home wasn't how hard up she was but with the years missed from the workforce which she never successfully reclaimed on her pension, a potential career rather than a series of low paid jobs (which also resulted in a lower pension).

Out of interest is your manifesto going to match the salary of the job given up?

Unlike Quattro I do know a few working women who would like to stay at home but can't afford it and I don't know any men who say the same (although I strongly suspect that is because of the stigma that would attach if they were to say so).

But none of that is the point. The point is that you should be free to make your decisions without your sex being a factor.

Until such day we live in a sexist society. End of.

Don't agree with much of what daftpunk is saying, but I do think that carers in general (of pre-schoolers, elderly relatives, high-needs children/adults etc) should receive a living wage from the state. And no, child benefit wasn't a living wage last time I looked...

This is to be paid for by taxing Quattrocento until she leaves the country in a huff

I think my SAHm friends would cope perfectly well with being WOHm is they chose to. You cope, you make compromises, you stress/guilt about different things, life is different. Not better or worse, just diffferent.

The children of my WOHM and SAHM friends don;t seem to be significantly different in terms of happiness stability etc to me.

This is where Xenia and I differ. She is strangely attracted by the idea of living in Bulgaria with a 10% tax rate. I'm here for the duration. You'll just have to put up with me.

I definitely won't support a living wage to SAH. I would like to know who is going to fund it. Also, not all parents or even the parent who is going to stay at home is necessarily a good parent. It is just a licence to pop children out. No way, UK will lose all its competitiveness - don't knock all those taxes that keep the public services limping along.

Sorry- pw No- I was talking about my situation (see my pretty detailed post!)- I would be an utterly miserable person to be around if I was at home all the time- I hate housework, and to me it is drudgery. Being a SAHP for me would not make my DC happy at all- in fact it would be extremely hard on them.
Yes- everyone is different- I think that is a real positive.
The problem is that society makes assumptions about us predicated on the fact that we are all women therefore we are all the same and we all want the same.
I just felt daftpunk was making the same assumptions.

"yeah well, you may mock..but i can guarantee if i became the next prime-minister "

Oh this thread just gets better all the time. If you became the next prime minister? I don't think women can be prime ministers in your pre Victorian world.

I have both WOTH and now SAH. I don't want a job on top of what I already do but am glad of the choice for those who want to. What I don't like, and this isn't popular, is the assumption that men and women are the same and should do the same things exactly. Yes we are capable of the same things in regards acheivement but IMO we should celebrate the differences too and realise some mothers want to be the main carer and not work etc. IMO work is overrated anyway, why sell your time to someone else if you do not want or need to? There will never be enough well paid jobs for all women anyway even if all mums wanted to work. I have savings and pension plans etc but if i did end up poor in old age then so be it, this is the most inportant time of life to me and time with my kids and to myself (I study) is precious.

I have both WOTH and now SAH. I don't want a job on top of what I already do but am glad of the choice for those who want to. What I don't like, and this isn't popular, is the assumption that men and women are the same and should do the same things exactly. Yes we are capable of the same things in regards acheivement but IMO we should celebrate the differences too and realise some mothers want to be the main carer and not work etc. IMO work is overrated anyway, why sell your time to someone else if you do not want or need to? There will never be enough well paid jobs for all women anyway even if all mums wanted to work. I have savings and pension plans etc but if i did end up poor in old age then so be it, this is the most inportant time of life to me and time with my kids and to myself (I study) is precious.

daftpunk "why would any educated woman decide to go ahead and have a child (or two) knowing full well that she will have to go back to work? paying half her wages to someone else to look after her child, that is fundamentally wrong imo."

Erm I'm educated to degree level, baby was unexpected nice surprise, had no idea that child care was so incredibly expensive.
Consequently gave up work because childcare was absorbing about two thirds of my pay and the rest went on travel expenses to get to and from work.

Whilst I do sort of agree that I can do a better job of raising my child than a nursery could, I DID NOT choose this, really had no option but to stay home.

I would actually love to go back to work but would need to be earning in excess of £20k a year which just isn't going to happen unless I uproot my family and move to a major city to find work.

That would be selfish of me.

Jelly, you've got some good points but there is some self-limiting thinking in there as well.

"What I don't like, and this isn't popular, is the assumption that men and women are the same and should do the same things exactly. Yes we are capable of the same things in regards acheivement but IMO we should celebrate the differences too" NOTHING CONTENTIOUS IN THAT.

"... and realise some mothers want to be the main carer and not work etc." SEE THIS IS WHERE WE DIFFER, I THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID SOME PARENTS NOT SOME MOTHERS. THAT WHOLE COMMENT WOULD BE VALID IF YOU SUBSTITUTED THE WORD PARENT FOR MOTHER.

"IMO work is overrated anyway, why sell your time to someone else if you do not want or need to? There will never be enough well paid jobs for all women anyway even if all mums wanted to work." THIS IS THE POINT WHERE I DISAGREE. THERE ARE LOTS OF WELL-PAID JOBS FOR WOMEN. I HAVE ONE. WHAT STRIKES ME ABOUT SO MANY WOMEN IS THAT THERE IS THIS CURIOUS SELF-LIMITING THING GOING ON IN THEIR HEADS. IF YOU BELIEVE THAT ALL YOU CAN DO IS A RELATIVELY LOWLY JOB THEN THAT WILL BE A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY. BUT IT IS NOT (OR NOT ENTIRELY) SOCIETY THAT IS AT FAULT HERE. THE LIMITATIONS ARE IN YOUR HEAD.

Fair enough EPPM - just checking!

I absolutely do not believe that anyone should assume that a mother wants to stay at home, or is 'better' at parenting than the father (if there is one), or anything along those lines.

As to a living wage for carers - I really think it would be the mark of a more civilised state. Carers actually save the state a great deal of money - my father, for instance, probably saved the state tens of thousands of pounds by nursing my mother at home until she died. Fortunately for them, they were solvent enough for it not to be a problem that he couldn't draw down a wage at the same time, but a great many people are not in that position. Why should those who choose to care for their loved ones themselves - thereby saving the state a great deal of money - not be entitled to a living wage?

Anyway, in a society that values only those things that have a monetary value attached, a carer's wage might encourage the pluto-philes (is that a word?) to re-assess the value and status of those who spend most of their time looking after those who need it.

On the last point quattro, what I don't understand is, assuming that some mothers had good well-paid jobs before they had a baby, why do they now feel unable to get such a job afterwards? Babies don't suck out abilities and brainpower with their mothers' milk.

I keep hearing that women SAH are saving the state a great deal of money. Why are they? I've yet to see anyone getting all or even a lot of their childcare costs paid. Am I missing something?

i had my finances worked out and knew what i would be paying for FT nursery.had place booked 12wk pg over a year in advance

i am solvent,maintain my career and cpd.my lo attends an excellent nursery,i had it all worked out

Fundamental good planning and organisation keep it all together

It is interesting isn't it- the sheer amount of work that has to be done in a family - earning income, raising children, running the home....
DH has always said there should be 3 sexes, and that the ideal family unit would actually contain 3 adults- so that everything that needed to be done would be less of a burden- I think there's a lot of truth in that.

Daftpunk- I am not sure why you think a mother is the sole person who is best to raise a child. We are very insular in this country- in many other nations effectively the whole village raise the child- children move from home to cousins', grandparents', neighbours' homes freely. When a woman has a new baby- her sisters or mother look after the older ones for a while- in return when her sister is the one with the newb, she takes the older ones off her hands. Even in the not-too-distant past in this country grandparents were still in the family home, helping to raise children of their children.

Care-workers (cms and nursery workers) are an extension of this. Yes- we have to pay them, but that is how times have changed- you paid a wet nurse or nanny or fed and housed family memebers in the past, now it's a cm or nursery worker. My DD has a very close relationship with her day-time carers. The lessons she learns from them are invaluable- such as there isn't only one right way of doing things, that people other than Mama and Papa can care for or love them, that different behaviours are suitable for different occasions or environments, that sometimes we have to wait our turn (her sibling doesn't arrive until Jan, so she's still a pfb), that people come in many different varieties- all important parts of growing up. We are lucky to have my MIL very near us, and DD and she have a very close relationship. I may be a FT WOHM, but my DD is very much loved, well-cared for, and absolutely thriving- as I said above having Mama home 100% of the time would be a very different story.

I don't understand why women give up either Orm. I think it is because most people make strides in their careers in their thirties, which given the average age at which mothers give birth, can have a radical effect.

Never heard it said that SAHms save the state money. They don't do they? It's not the state's obligation to pay for childcare.

Twas in pw's last post. But I've read it many times on MN. One of those things that I've seen many times and never really challenged but then it struck me that I didn't understand it.

Orm - well as a SAHM I didn't receive maternity pay, and I don't get any statutory holiday/sick benefits. I've also never claimed any free childcare. May children don't take up any places in state nurseries either. So I reckon I've saved the state quite a bit, actually. That's not the only point though - caring is valuable, and it should be accorded proper value and status IMO. You've only got to read some posts on here to see the utter contempt in which some posters hold SAHMs (although they are never so foul about SAHDs - funny that).

jelly: "There will never be enough well paid jobs for all women anyway even if all mums wanted to work."

I find that statement sad. Why worry about how many wellpaid jobs there are out there (who knows?). You have a choice to go for it. Don't worry about anyone else - this is YOUR life. It is self-defeatist talk to think along these lines.

It is like saying why combat poverty? The poor will always be amongst us.