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?

ps fivecandles, my Mum worked and it has made me determined not to have five balls in the air and only two hands to catch them with.

Since when was being a SAHM a form of rebellion? It's a choice. Would you rather we took choice away from parents?

Life is not all black and white. Perhaps your life is black and white fivecandles, but your argument just doesn't hold water when applied to the larger population.

People from council estates become doctors and nurses, even when they've had poor role models. People from well to do housing become drop outs, despite having high achieving parents.

I think you'll find there is a correlation between private school and high achievement but it's the very few who get into private school and still you'll have kids who aren't taught the values they need to prosper in life.

If only life was this simple...working men and women producing rounded, balanced, working kids just by going to work and setting an example.

My mother worked for 13 years as a teacher but gave up and she was so so resentful of that. Used to go on about having done 5 loads of washing that morning and she was trained to much more. She round it so so tedious at home, not that anyone stopped her returning to work. Anyway I've always worked full time from when the 5 chilren were tiny babies and it's been wonderful and I believe my children have had a loevly role model of someone happy, successful, earning a lot and loving being a mother and having a great job.

fivecandles - I went to a selective all girls school and have a Bsc 2.1 from a top university, had a career for 10 yrs yet I am currently a SAHM while I have a pre-school child. Whats wrong with that...

I think the important part of that role model though is the 'happy' part. You are confident enough to please yourself, and so are many SAHMs.

I am confident, intelligent, articulate and I also find doing five loads of washing quite boring, but if I worked, I'd still have to do five loads of washing.

Luckily I don't really get too upset if people think I'm not a good role model. My children won't look back and think that.

I dont see my job ( teaching as low status), those headteachers started off as teachers as well.

But I did what I wanted, I could have done any job I wanted bar medicine but chose teaching.

Xenia, I wholeheartedly believe that you are being a great role model. The important thing for me in that statement was that you are happy, successful, loving being a good mother and having a great job. The money is a bonus!

I didn't enjoy my job. I also didn't have the chance to have as many children as I would have liked, so I took the opportunity to make the most of the one I had.

I am a happy, successful, SAHM who contributes to the house in so many ways and is bringing up a lovely, confident, talkative dd who is so interested in the world around her that she has loads of role models already!

squilly would you be happy if when your dd grows up, she has your life?

Absolutely.

I have a great life.

But she won't have my life. She'll have her own life. And that's what I'm trying to prepare her for.

If you read my posts I've said repeatedly that I'm not applying my life and family to anyone else's.

Absolutely agree with you riven that childcare, nursing, teaching etc should be highre status. It's because they've been historically done by women that these jobs haven't got more status and more pay. Wrongly so.

But no reason at all that men shouldn't do them. They absolutely should and more should be done to raise status and recruit men (separate but related).

Likewise to get more women in parliament and police and headteachers etc.

Happy, nothing. There's no argument here.

True
But if you work in a well paid job you dont' have to do the washing. I have someone very day in the week who does the washing and cleaning. I suppose housewives who marry rich men don't have to do the washing either. I was with someone today whose daughter doesn't work and has a nanny, and a house keeper and driver and various homes. I wonder if it's a better model to be a housewife who does all her own scrubbing and ironing her husbands shirts than one who marries a rich man and sits around except when servicing him sexually and looking pretty for him?

Well i think that is the only quesiton we all need to ask ourselves.... so if you can answert that, you are a fab role model!

'But women are drawn to some professions.'

What, by their 'nature'. You mean like to cleaning

The same way that men are 'drawn' to become MPs and bankers and scientists??

Have no problem with what PEOPLE choose to do. But their gender should have nothing to do with it. And I don't see why all jobs can't equally represent both genders. Nursing would be better with more men. Parliament would be better with more women.

Well, yes I still have washing and cooking and childcare. But you know what so does dp. We share paid work and housework and childcare. Not one of these things is gendered. No, it couldn't work for everyone but it does work for us. And it could work for more people. There are families wehre if the SAHM worked then their dps could work less which would mean they could contribute to housework and childcare.

squilly - she is very likley to have a life similar to yours, she is learning from you waht is normal and what is not, and what is possible and what is not = people whose parents go to university are a million times more likely to go themselves, doctors breed doctors, lawyers breed lawyers etc - obvioulsy massive generalisations abound in this post, but you get what i mean... thats why i am so concerned to show my daughters that there is much much much more to life for women than child rearing and domesticity, that that is lovely, and if they want to do it, that is fine, but i want them to have choices. And also, sorry, but I juist couldn't imagine the lack of intellectual stimulation of just school runs and PTAs and all that stuff - I want better for my children, and I also want my son to see that women are just as likely to be professionals as men, its important he doesn't grow up and think, as so many other men seem to think, that babies etc are womens work, and they can 'help out' occassionaly, but essentially their role is bring home the bacon, someone else can cook it.

I think the only thing is that if your girls grow up aspiring or expecting to become SAHM then they need to know that they cannot do this independently. To be a SAHM then they either need a WOH partner or they rely on the state. For me, personally, I'd be concerned about my daughters vulnerability as SAHM financially and in terms of their ability to re enter the workforce if and when they wanted to.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing with housework and dps/dhs. My DH is a WOHD. I'm a SAHM. We SHARE the housework and the childcare. I don't have to go to work to make this happen. Surely this is what noughties men were made for?

Every household works differently. We don't all have to work. You say the way you do things works for you, fivecandles and that's great. Don't make assumptions about how things might or might not work for other people.

I agree, dp actually really likes running a house, it bores me. He works part time and does the housework and most of the practical work with dd. I am the one that puts in the long hours.

I agree with more men being needed in teaching,

I find this debate very interesting. I am currently pregnant with number 2 and really do not wish to return to work. I am finding satisfaction in life in areas I never thought I would. When DS was born I couldn't wait to get back to work, and went back full-time when he was 9 months and part-time when he was 5 months.

Over the last year I have gradually realised that for me, life is not necessarily more rewarding through the pursuit of my career. I'm pretty sure than when both my children are at school I will find other, rewarding and satisfying challenges. They just won't necessarily be through paid work. I might volunteer, I might stand for election, I might return to my career. In fact, I might to all three. Who knows?

i agree fivecandles - the lack of independence can be crippling, and often means women stay in unhapy relationships as they can't DO anything to support themsleves without massivly decreasing their standard of living. also i really think its barking mad that we all strive for our girls to study, academically shine, go to university, etc....only to have a baby and replace all that knowledge and all those skills with a acket of nappies and a cook book. urgh. it makes me mad actually.

PCSMUM...if she has a life similar to mine I'll be amazed. Mine is so far away from my mums it defies reason.

This 'mums must work or they're being poor role models' is nonsense. My life is far from unchallenged intellectually. What a ridiculous assumption to make. You know NOTHING about my life. How dare you make this assumption.

Not all mums have intellectually stimulating job roles. Not all mums have great lives just because they work. I don't say that working mums kids suffer because their kids don't work. Don't tell me that my child will suffer intellectually because I don't work. That's just rude.

squilly, I don't think I was making assumptions. In fact, quite the opposite. I'm saying that jobs, activities and responsibilities should be gender neutral. So fine to be a SAHM or SAHD or do housework or go to work but it shouldn't be anything to do with your gender or rather your sex.

Really, having a couple of years out to have babies isn't necessarily the end of career aspirations. A working life is what, 40 odd years? Who says that a career choice has to be made at 20 and pursued relentlessly until retirement? There is plenty of time and scope to pursue different careers, different choices, and still find satisfaction and contribute usefully to society.