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.

Why do some women tolerate the sexism in some men and be run ragged though and how can some of us ensure that doesn't happen. It can't all be about how we were brought up surely but may be that's all it is and tehrefore the housewives will have daughters who are conditioned to be drudges and the daughters of working women will have nice happy balanced lives and as soon as the boyfriend says wash my shirt they don't say yes sir but laugh in his face.

the thing is xenia, there are just as many men coming home and mis-treating their successful working wifes. i would hope my daughters husbands love and respect them no matter what they do.

I do agree with Cathpot that women are different from men and they are in loads of ways. But I think many women can easily get used to leaving a baby. It's like being in love -at the start every second apart is torture but after a while you get used to being apart and you still love each other and enjoy your times together. Most women who go back to work when they have a baby as I do just get used to the new routine. But I can still remember 24 years ago when I had the first being separated. I actually find toddlers who cling to your legs and can kick and shout about it whether that's being left with daddy, granny or their nanny are the harder ones to leave or leaving a 3 year old at nursery school in the mornings when it's crying. That's hard for all parents and probably harder for women.

They did a study in Sweden. Men who had been the sole carer of a child when they chose a nursery place at 2 years found they were emotionally upset at the separation whereas fathers who were not daily sole carers were just interested in was the nursery safe, were the staff qualified. Despite that I do think there are differences but not so much that they stop women working. most women work now and always have in the UK and abroad. I read a useful book on the female brain which confirmed what I think - the differences between men and women etc but those differences aren't so big that women don't have the brains to become a doctor or the skills to run a nation or the ability to carry out jobs, just as men aren't so different that they never make good full time carers of babies.

Would people who think women and men should both work after having children, agree then that in cases of divorce, shared custody/residence should be the norm? Or does anyone think men should get custody (and then maybe society will accept men as carers?) Alot of articles/posts I have read by f/t working mothers with SAHDs complai n about it being unfair if their DH gets custody in a split, even though the man is the f/t carer. If the view is that mothers are no more important than men/paid carers for looking after a baby, then surely men should have custody in just as many cases.

Also why are so many 'anti-SAHMs' ok with dads being SAHP? Never got that one.

Who is 'anti-SAHM' here jelly? It's all about using the choices that feminism has won for us.

I have recently read some very sad cases about custody decisions going against mothers because they were spending slightly more time in the work place than the dads. Dh and I talked about it. I would be distraught if I didn't get custody and am prepared to ensure I take charge of childcare arrangements etc for that hopefully unlikely eventuality. However, Dh would also be distraught. It's not an easy situation to have answers to. The courts try to do the best by the children and I think that is what they should be aiming for. I do however think it must be incredibly hard for women who lose their children in a society that will assume they were in some way negligent as a mother to have ended up in that situation.

Well the case law's pretty clear.
The carer with whom the children spend more of their time should have residence.
Just common sense really.

I agree Xenia (good lord the planets must have aligned) that men can make just as good carers as women, and I absolutely agree that this is not a debate about interllect or aptitude (or spelling, apologies). I am also using as a benchmark my own, very lovely, DH who finds daily child care hugely unappealing- he is of course not all men.

Having said that if you dont acknowledge the fact that in many households the bulk of the emotional support for young children comes from women, you run the risk of missing a trick when it comes to thinking about what childcare requirements many women actually want. Do we all want subsidised childcare from 8 to 6, 5 days a week or do we also want a more flexible approach to career breaks and working days. Well loved children can of course thrive in a any number of different arrangements but I want to be around for mine, for them and crucially for me. In the end there will always be careers that need a fulltime commitment with long hours etc. In those cases you make your choices based on your own family.

Thinking about it more carefully, I didnt feel torn if I left them with DH (after the madness of the first 6 weeks), or with my mum, and of course it gets easier as they get older as they are happier with other people. DD1 went to nursery a couple of mornings a week from just before DD2 arrived aged 2 - and loved it, and DD2 if we can find the money will go at about 2.5. But I couldnt do it 5 days a week, no thats not true, I wouldnt be happy doing it 5 days a week and I can choose not to. Part of the problem may be that we are in a society where many of us live away from immediate family, and we are having to leave our children with strangers, in the most part very lovely strangers, but it makes it harder.

Honest question here Xenia, do you ever regret any of it, or has it alwasy been black and white for you? I ask as I am happy with my choice but it doesnt mean I dont miss working, or dont miss being able to state a profession when people ask about what I do, or worry about getting back into work. I think a polarised debate doesnt always reflect the nuances of the decisions people make.

Should add the proviso that everything else needs to be equal - and one parent isn't a junkie, or has joined a cult

Most studies show mothers of young children want to work p/t if at all. I also think fathers are just as important as mothers but them having a different role is fine, many mothers WANT to be the main carer f/t, many men do not. There is something to be said for carrying a baby for 9 months and breastfeeding meaning that mothers may be more 'needed' for an infant or want to be the carer for reasons other than cultural and social.

I would say anti-sahm is those who think SAHMs are damaging ALL women and daughters etc.

OrmIrian, there are quite a few posts on here which are implicitly anti-SAHM ...

How about "housewives will have daughters who are conditioned to be drudges and the daughters of working women will have nice happy balanced lives"?

Didn't see that one stillstanding. And I see your point. But I still maintain it's fairly rare. Certainly rarer than the almost unconscious sniping against working mothers that is such a regular occurence. I suspect the nastier comments get made when folks get wound up.

Do I regret anything I don't really go round regretting things. I regret some of the aspects of how our parents brought us up which had longer term implications for me. I also regret not having the skills when I was 20 to know what my ex husband was like. I don't regret staying married for nearly 20 years as I wouldn't have had the children and an element of stability but I probably did stay with someone fairly abusive for too long. Those are the things that are more important to me than the children and which obviously have had a huge lot more of an impact on my family than any issue over who worked and who didn't. Obviously anyone ever reading anything I write is likely to conflate - if that's a word - my working and my marriage "failure" but the two aren't linked.

I used to leave work in the city at 6 or 6.30 when I was breastfeeding most days, really until the third child was about 5 when I started working for myself and that is obviously an element of career sacrifice because I wanted that balance of family life and home and it worked out fine. I could have done it with the work all night, day and night nanny, not breastfeed, boarding school at 7 type of option but I love being with the children and spent quite a bit of time with them.

But I'm sitting here finishing some work when I could be listening to them singing in something and I've actively chosen not to go and we're going to the carol service next week anyway so that's a balance of work and leisure and children example.

If anyone wants to debate whetgher women whose mothers were housewives and did all the domestic work are more likely to have girls who do the same and boys who are lay slobs please do so. Most people are most affected by what we do more than what we say. The example we lay for other people in how we treat people etc is much more notable than most of us think.

Orm, that's what I said that feminism isn't about dictating that women must be like men! you quoted my post but didn't read it properly I think.

We agree. Feminism is about women having rights and choices the same as men, but respecting our differences. 50% of people are women! we are not some tiny minority.

This is what I've been saying all along. IF women give birth that's for the collective good of the species and it's not right that women alone should make all the sacrafices.,

The housework thing is a bit of a catch 22

If women talk about it as something like drudgery that we would like to be free from, then how can we 'sell' it to men (or women) as something that is not demeaning?

Women who don't go out to work are very helpful for the ecomomy and community if they are active. For example I don't have time to do the school fair stuff or volunteer in some way, but I'm really glad other people do.

But until women are equal in the boardrooms and government we aren't really moving forward with feminism.

But if 'high-powered career women' are just working to further patriarchal things, like, say, working in banking and taking clients to stripshows, then them working does not really do anything much for feminism.

Not until they run the bank and stop that bank investing in anything that demeans women worldwide.

Men can make just as good full time carers if they choose. Most don't choose that path however.

"it usually is the woman who decides to have children...."

lol

But you can't be too sexist about it. Genuinely when I met my husband he was better around the house than I was. He'd had his own home for a few years and I was a student. He was the one showing me. Just because you're male doesn't mean you're idle. I know masses of couples where the man cooks for example and if you both go back to work full time as many people do then it's much less likely you get saddled with too much at home.

Also you have a duty to stick up for your rights. If he's going to play golf for 5 hours on Saturdays then you've an obligation to yourself and other owmen to ensure you are out every single Sunday for 5 hours too. If he's oput with mates 2 nights a week or working late make sure you are out too. Obviously it doesn't have to be identical but far too many women enable the behaviour of men by allowing it to happen. Also not getting much credit on this thread are all the men, possibly most where both people work full time, who do more than enough at home and some do more than wives. Some women are lousy around teh house and very messy.

mt; i'm sure in 95% of cases it is the woman, i wonder how many young men dream of settling down and having children? i have 4 children, i know my dh only wanted 1 or 2.

even today, if a man admits he doesn't want children not many eyebrows are raised..if a woman admits it... she's seen as a bit weird....you know i'm right.

you are incorrigible DP.did you know 83% of randomly made up statistics (like yours) are wrong 99% of the time

lol SM. You might be right DP. But like SM says...

LOL ScottishMummy!

(Am I allowed to whisper that in my RL experience every single woman I know was the one who initiated the "shall we have children now?" discussion. Although how this is relevant is completely beyond me ...)

I didn't! it was DP here. Tho I know it's all about statistical significance so my experience might be meaningless when putting together the bigger picture