to wonder who Oliver James is? working mothers look away!

[Chulita]

Here Sorry if there's a thread on it already, I just read this and was a bit

If all mothers lead to fucked up children what hope is there for children of great single fathers...? I love the shit-throwing debates in public space as much as anyone but its pretty typical that a man places all responsibility on the female. Frankly, if women are so important to childrearing why is he trying to be an expert at it. Go back to manual work Oliver James. Its the only thing your testosterone filled little body can do. Don't try to use your thick head to anything but butting into things with. Best not converse with women either, just knock 'em on the head and drag them back to your cave neanderthal style....

xenia do get tap tapping on pc.why dont you call it Mummy works- everyone is happy - the ascent of working woman and demise of precious moments mama

sure to sell well! id buy your book

Xenia, I'd buy your book too!

What a great role model for children of both sexes, to have a working mother who is happy, respected and not the household skivvy.

I would also love to read Xenia's Book. It would be a scream.

A subtitle: '100% guilt free about being a working mother'

staying at home to look after your babies does not mean you don't have a good work ethic. that is just crap that justifies your own decision to work. staying at home to look after a young baby/child IS work. you can do a PHD in early childhood studies fgs.

it is ridiculous to suggest that women staying at home are ironing cath kidston hankies (talk about 50s stereotype).

"Lily has never seen a mother work. Mummy wears a pinny and serves daddy. When daddy's cross mummy tries to smile because if daddy left mummy woudl have no money so mummy has to be very nice to daddy. When lily grows up she will have a big big wedding..." by Xenia

have i missed some kind of hilarious irony in your expose of the life of a sahm and her family. you sound quite bitter actually. it smacks of women being totally subsevient and deeply unhappy, which is not necessarily the case. forgive me if i have misinterpreted you.

someone made a good point, that seems to have been missed by some, that it is worse for women to be in a situation that they don't want to be in, whether working or staying at home. i think that was thumbwitch. it echoes what James himself says about different types of mother, and there is no point being something you are not. if you would not like to stay at home and look after your children, then they probably won't benefit. get someone who does want to.

i have worked in many a nursery and i would not leave my child in 70% of them. the other 20% were pretty good and 10% were truly delightful places. (figures approximate).

i thought the timesonline article was entirely reasonable.

I think these are arguments are pointless. Life isn't perfect.

I am a SAHM. I stand up at 6am and do not sit down for more than 10 mins until 8.30pm. Then I start studying. I have three children under five. I have not had a full night's sleep for a year. I am more tired than I thought possible.

I do not iron tea towels.

No, I have never worn a pinny either, nor do I smile when 'Daddy is cross'. Daddy is very laid back and doesn't get cross. Mummy does!

And as for Lily having never seen mummy work, well the parallel universe Lily has never seen her WOHM work either. She just gets dropped off at nursery every morning and picked up every evening. What mummy does in between is a little lost on Lily who, at only 3, doesn't even know what an office is, let alone what an investment banker/company CEO/Finance Director does because well, she is only 3.

The problem with Xenia's book is, having never been a SAHM it would wildly inaccurate, quite amusing for the first 10 pages and then just repetition, for the next 150 pages.

I suppose she could just leave it as a pamphelet.

I might write it but only if there were enough money in it I suppose. I'll think about it although it's probably already been done. it can't just be why it's okay to be a working mother. It has to be how housewives damage children and having a non working mother at home is very bad for the child otherwise it's just too defensive. We can have a chapter on the 100 advantages of returning to work when the baby is 2 weeks and lots of quotes from my children about how wonderful it all is.

Could be fun.

Iv'e done the smallo rhing except when mine were 3 under 5 I added to that working in the City with the no through night's sleep etc etc and rool on 25 years and wow didn't we all benefit from my working whilst having the 3 small ones. It's much better to work. Mr James works and delegates childcare to another therefore it must be right.... laughing...

It was written yonks ago The Feminine Mystique

Xenia, it is not an aberration for a woman to want to rear her own children herself - we have been doing it for a very long time with more than a modicum of success. As you've never done it yourself you are hardly in a position to judge.

The aberration is in your contention that rearing the next generation is not work. It is, in fact, the most important work there is and should be recognised and valued as such.

Those who choose to do it should have the support and respect of their society, not mockery and derision.

It is enough, as women and mothers, to suffer the belittlement and marginalisation of this work from our patriarchal and male-defined society without having to suffer it from someone who purports to be a feminist.

Indeed, your views are deeply misogynistic and merely serve the patriarchy by perpetuating the spurious and idiotic divide and rule SAHM versus WOHM argument.

Methinks the lady protests too much.

er, well said GardenPath.

"Now of course working mothers tend to be much better at all thise because we are the clever ones who can hack it in the work place and we understand pscychology and are better with chidlren. There is a huge case ot be made that the best mothers are the working mothers but that doesn't sell papers."

I still don't get it. Are you being serious when you say this, or are you deliberately exposing the pointlessness of such a polarised view?!

Gardenpath: " Xenia, it is not an aberration for a woman to want to rear her own children herself - we have been doing it for a very long time with more than a modicum of success. As you've never done it yourself you are hardly in a position to judge."

Are you saying that just because a woman uses childcare she has not 'reared' her children herself? It is a somewhat strange concept to tell a WOHM that she has not raised her own children 'herself' just because she was there 24/7.

A SAHM is not with her dcs 24/7 either. More than a WOHM but not 24/7. Perhaps you stopped raising your dcs yourself once they went to nursery/school.

In the interest of not adding fuel to the SAHM/WOHM divide, perhaps you could be careful about your language too.

We will never square that circle but rich roman women and men delegates childcare to slaves, rich Indians in Africa delegate it, most rich women in the UK do who have servants, just about any culture has siblings or relatives or paid people caring for children because it's mind numbingly boring to do babycare 24./7. Most of us adore and love and bring up our children. I've had loads of children over 25 years and it's wonderful but not for more than a few hours a day if you have half a brain.

I will of course have done more childcare than anyone on the thread simply because of sheer weight of numbers of childcare and the 25 year period though so I doubt anyone is quite as expert as I am..... and of course woking mother in the round tend to be better at childcare because we are usually the ones with the higher IQ and better understanding of psychology. You stay home if you cannot earn a living, didn't have much of a jobn and childcare is the best you can do.

To suggest feminists want women to do dull awful servile work or should want women to is ludicrous. Women have always got out of the kitchen and nursery as soon as they have the power and money to do it because so many other things are much more fun. Just ask a man.

"You stay home if you cannot earn a living, didn't have much of a jobn and childcare is the best you can do."

Xenia your post is priceless, especially the above. And this - "so many other things are much more fun. Just ask a man."

I find the 'just as a man' bit the most interesting. It is like some kind of bizarre measuring tool - a man's opinion. I know men who find all sorts of things fun that to me are mind-numbingly boring. Watching my child develop and facilitating that process is fascinating to me. But this is not the point. Personal preferences are neither here nor there in a way; it is a choice that modern women have the luxury of making that is the point. And alhough you say women stay at home if they cannot work, or don't have much of a job, many of the women who stay at home are precisely the opposite. They can work, do have good jobs, but decide that the want to be the one who cares for their children.

A woman offering herself and her time to her children, rather than material goods for example, cannot justifiably be seen as something less than the woman who decides to put her career first. Equally, if a woman decides to delegate the nurturing of her children to someone else, she cannot justifiably be considered lesser. There are many ways to bring up many different children, and your polarised point of view is seperatist, divisive, and does nothing to further the feminist cause.

I still can't tell if you are a real person who thinks likes this or some kind of satirical caricature of an 80s career woman who farmed off her children and stepped on other women on her way to the top.

separatist

seems to me xenia rises above personal mudslinging whilst others shovel the verbal shite.nasty

i imagine the only people who can tell xenia whether she was good enough mum and comment on her rearing are her children

my parents worked ft.mum ft.i work ft.fantastic parents.great mum.no complaints from me

i was imbued up with good work ethic,which has naturally influenced my adult decisions

people should do what they want.what suits their needs/preferences without need to infer working mum=inferior mum

'I will of course have done more childcare than anyone on the thread simply because of sheer weight of numbers of childcare and the 25 year period though so I doubt anyone is quite as expert as I am.....'

Just for the record, no you haven't and twenty five years is just the time I went without a full nights sleep.

your hectoring of xenia makes you look unhinged.any point you struggle to make is lost in your bulgy eyed rant

SM - Xenia dishes out as good as she gets. I don't think you need to worry about people 'hectoring' her. Have you read her posts? She does a pretty good job at hectoring herself.

Pity her poor nanny who is supposed to be so loved and part of the family yet is only a slave to whom childcare is delegated because it is soooo boring and servile. I just hope the poor nanny doesn't take it upon herself to join MN and find out what her employer really thought of her.

And no Xenia you probably don't know as much about child psychology as a SAHM who has spent her time doing a psychology Masters. Gosh, a SAHM who has done something other than clean toilets and bottoms! Who'd have thought it? When will you get bored of trotting out the same old tired cliches.

But on the whole educated women choose to work and those who couldn't earn much more than on the tills at Tesco stay home. That's generally the case ergo working mothers are better at mothering, better at psychology etc. I was only holding my own for the working parents (ie most parents in the UK) against the way the press have misrepresentaed Mr James if indeed he has been misrepresented.

I wasn't suggesting men know better than women but most men choose to work and they dont' want tob e home doing all this dull washing and nappy stuff and most women don't. But we never question men's choices to work. If childcare is such a fun job when don't more of us want to do it and why have women always tried to subcontract it out to other children, their own mother, their servants and slaves as soon as they get half a chance?

Xenia - I think you severely overestimate educated women's desire to subcontract the care of their families and homes. I am surrounded by immensely educated women who only subcontract the minimum in order to be zen rather than frazzled.

Surely the very cleverest women subcontract the boring and tedious earning of money so they can enjoy their children and family lives to the full? That is certainly what I observe around me!

It seems Oliver James is very good at making alot of money out of half baked views. So it raises children's cortisol levels going to daycare? How would it raise their cortisol levels if their mother lost her job the mortgage was not paid and they all went to live in a benefit paid bed and breakfast? My kids went to daycare still talk about how much they loved it are well behaved lovely children who are doing well at school. Oliver James is a very over priveleged person and his research does not seem to look at the real alternatives. He seems to just play the press to make money so if you do not agree then do not buy his books.

fulfilling job is neither tedious nor boring,and means one has family,work and salary.

scottishmummy - all work and no play makes scottishmummy Jack a dull girl boy ;

I find a sense of humour crucial to mumsnetting parenting