To be sick of reading on MN that you are a "good role model" to your dd if you go back to work??

[ssd]

have read this over various posts on MN over the years

usually posters give various reasons to return to work, all viable and good, but then the poster throws in the "good role model" shite

why always harp back to this?

if you love your kids, teach them to respect and care for others, learn manners and discipline THEN you are a good role model

most of us eventually will return to work at some stage and if we don't we will still be good role models unless we are lying about the house taking drugs and leaving the kids to go feral, which I;m sure not too many of us do!

I know I'll get slated on here as the going back to work to be a good role model line seems to be very poplular round here and I'm not trying to wind up posters who use it, it just seems to me people work out of necessity, not to be a role model

And BTW where's all the role models for ds's??? or is just loving them enough?

When did this all get to be such a contentious issue?!

Bottom line is - most adults want to have children and most adults work. It's no big deal - just part of living. Men and women are not totally different species you know - they can both enjoy being a fully involved hands-on parents and earning a living. It isn't rocket science! I bet this debate just didn't happen in the past because people were too busy just getting on with it!!

I still agree with Xenia.

Xenia - if you read the thread more closely you would see that many of us do not follow the maternal example

My mother was high flying up - stupidly educated and woh

I choose to be a full time mother

I am NOT a house wife

my dh irons for me or the ironer

Unfitmother what a delight - you must be so proud

whoops the 'up' bit was part of a sentence i thought the better of

It's the number of people on here who think it's o.k. to mock and deride people for their choices. It wasn't you at all Kew. I understood exactly what you meant by not raising to the bait and I have to say, I wish I could do the same.

Luckily, though, my dad was a great role model for self pride and good old fashioned fight.

Having said that, I shouldn't waste my time on people who are too rude to share space with....and Quattro, though you are clearly happy to be condescending, you're not the worst by any means. Mind you, the addled brain thing was nice....we SAHMs are all the same in that respect! Clearly unworthy of the WOHMs out there.

Only read op.

Being a good role model is being there for you kids. Not necassarily being a sahm though.
But being a sahm should be seen as a fantastic life choice.
I would be more than happy for my daughters to choose looking after their families before a 'career'
Working all hours as a high flying career woman is not great you cannot possible give your kids the care they need if you are off being Mrs career, now THAT is a crap role model.

Squilly, I don't think that there is a WOHM and SAHM divide like this.
I believe, to a large extent, it's just people doing their best with the hand they were dealt.
On here however we always get extreme views of people trying to lord it and their experiences over one another...hammering down other posters throats that their way is the best and only way.
I don't know anyone, in real life, who judges women according to these terms or values but I chose my intelligent and rightminded friends sensibly and I'm lighthearted but hardcore in my defence of mothers and motherhood.
I too shouldn't rise to the bait of obviously imbicilic, inflamatory posters who in real life could be hairy truckers or Mary Poppins. (I'm somewhere inbetween btw)

It is ridiculous to suggest that children follow their parents careers. I would be hopeless at either of my parents careers. I also remember arguing with my parents over all sorts of things as a teenager as teenagers do.

In response to Xenias post at 10 last night I would argue that the working mums are having an impact on society, in that whereas 20-30 yrs ago it would have been possible to pay a mortgage or school fees on one good salary now you normally need two. Now it is the norm for 2 parents to work more people can afford bigger mortgages, luxury holidays and it just puts the price of everything up for those who are trying to live on one salary while they have very young children.
Therefore fewer people can afford to take time out to be SAHMS.

I don't think part time working damages the economy in any way. If people have chosen to be part time they probably have more energy to do their job as they are not working flat out in paid employment from dawn to dusk every day. Leaving your job to start a family and having a career break for a few years is no worse than taking early retirement after a high pressure job in the city..don't see many people criticised for doing that. My company benefitted from me not returning after maternity leave as a year after I left the division was shut down..so they did not have to pay me redundancy for 10 yrs employment. You cannot make generalisations.

I think if one choses to be a SAHM the only drawback is the loss of earnings/pension which is borne by ones own family. I am the only parent who is helping out as a volunteer in DS primary class at the moment. If I was working they would have no one to help out and a few of the children would never be listened to with reading as some parents don't listen to their children read in the evenings. If every mother worked full time there would be no school trips as there would not be enough adults to look after the children safely.

As I've said many times on this thread I have no problems with working mums I just get fed up with the unpleasant remarks towards those who have taken a few years out to look after their children.

'it's important that people can see women working like that, realise they could do it. '

Absolutely true.bt that doesn't have to be me; the boys see my Sisters working, they'reaprt of their lives also, indeed my boys are agahast at the idea anyone thinks women are less able than men; they may not remember me working but they've certainly see me achieve outside the home sphere.

Unfit: Niiiice.Parasite. I would be very upset with my also AS son if he said that. Fortunately he understands that we each are different and have a different path to follow. One of those as he realises through having a more disabled brother is being a carer.

I do not accept the argument that it is my job to protect the ability of other women to work. Certainly it is neiter my rle to criticise their choices or judge them for it, but I will not give up the things that make me personally happy and work for my family in order to be ,iserable away from the boys. One day i will ready to return to work, in a few years and when DH can be around for ds3's school needs or Ic an find a job that maanges it- until then I am happy knowing I am doing the best to make a comlpex family work,and that other women are able to make the choices they want. I will fight for the right politically of women to make the choices they wish, but that includes sahm as much as wohm: choice is everything.

Hijack Riven...... can you e-mail me? met a Mum yesterday who is a Carer with MS. I wondered if I could let her have your e-mail?

I shall CAT you it

Superior? I think on average most working mothers tend to be the ones who had good careers. If they earned £13k a year then they probably don't have a career worth continuing and childcare would be expensive unless their husband could fund it.

It's great for children to see both parents realyl enjoying their work, contributing to society and working hard to support their family. It's a really good role model. if children just see all women doing subsidiary pin money jobs, following a husband's career and then giving most of it up to do domestic jobs at home then that's the pattern they are being shown -0 that men work and women serve. In countless homes even where both parents work full time women do more of the chores adn those women have to answer for taht too in my book because by tolerating that inequity they will breed children who also perpetuate taht view that whoever works women end up cleaning afetr men and children. Therefore you have a moral and political duty to ensure there is some fairness of domestic tasks ath ome and that women don't just do the dross nasty ones whilst men play.

Notice you don't have any answers to my post Xenia.

If you earn 13K a year the government probably pays your childcare so often it is the mums on lower salaries who go back to work.

Squilly, LaQuitar, jellybeans, Riven
Can none of you read?
I said I was shocked when ds called SAHM parasites and I also said that he had Aspergers.
I distinctly made the point that I was proud of the fact that, after debate with me, he managed to alter his position which is not easy for the autistic.
You should be ashamed of your judgemental, narrow-minded, opiniated posts about my ds.

Have any of you considered that the reason for all this judgementalness is that people do not just have the confidence to do what they want to do.

For goodness sake, do what you want and let others think what they like.

In terms of the 13K - whether you got your childcare paid would depend on what your partner earns. If he earns 45K then you won't. If you have 2 kids under school age it is barely worth working if the second earner is on 30K.

Many women earn more than their partners too.....

unfitmother, where do you think he got that idea from in the first place then? These things come from attitudes within the home/immediate family

Unfit I think yu will find Riven has a son with AS. I seriosuly doubt she ahs narrow minded opinions about it; she has been lovely to my boys when we have met up.

Xenia, you live in a fantasy world. Very, very few people have a the luxury of really enjoying their jobs.
The vast majority of people work because they need the money, they do the graft, the boring shitty jobs that keep the wheels of the country/world turning.

I have a friend who was in the fortunate position to have a rich father, she worked as a teacher, like me, but had no clue whatsoever about 'real people'.

She was of the opinion that everyone had the right to do the job of their choice, do the career of their choice. She thought everyone could be a dr if they wanted, it was their right, no one should have to do the shitty, low paid and unskilled jobs.

I pointed out to her, as did many others that the world simple could not function if that were the case.[hhm]

Someone has to collect the rubbish, someone has to work in a checkout, someone has to...., someone has to.....etc etc.

To an extent Xenia if both parents work in fairly white collar roles. Your POV is off kilter if the man works in a physically labour intensive job, works two jobs etc.
Or if either party are physically or mentally incapacitated.

It's wrong to suggest that only the highly paid or highly educated working population can be role models.
They come from all walks of life.

brettgirl..my DH pays higher rate tax...therefore if I worked we would pay the childcare cost whatever I earned. You are right the childcare would only be paid by the gov if both salaries were lower.

As the government pay the childcare for the lower salaries there is most financial incentive for the woman to work if either she has a very high salary and has a decent chunk of salary left after paying childcare or alternatively if both parents have much lower salaries and don't have to pay childcare costs.

It is also wrong to suggest that white collar jobs are necessarily more enjoyable.