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

Niecie Tue 01-Jun-10 15:05:23
"OJ doesn't create flawed science. He is reporting the science. But it is psychology, a social science not natural science, and it will always be flawed and open to interpretation because it is about people and there are no right or wrong answers. Bashing OJ is pointless. He is expressing an opinion based on psychological research. There is some truth in what he says but there is also a degree of opinion. If it doesn't fit with your own then fine but that isn't a reason to slag him off."

Surely the whole point of research is that methods and conclusions should be constantly scrutinised: how else can knowledge advance? I consider it my duty to slag off any research that does not come up to the highest standards!

giveitome 'Nurseries are crappy places on the whole. I know there are some good ones, and some great people working in them, but by and large they're staffed by very young women who aren't that bright, who are being paid very little and have probably not had great parenting themselves'

Right...that well known scientific link between crap parenting and your child becoming a nursery nurse . Do not make assumptions please based on your limited experience of what everyone elses nursery is like.

Cory, please clearly define the standards you harp on about, I'm sure scientific community involved in social sciences is waiting with baited breath.

"Do not make assumptions please based on your limited experience of what everyone elses nursery is like"

I make 'assumptions' based on 10 years of working with hundreds of nursery nurses. I didn't do the observations of the students while they were on work placements, but my colleague did. She visited dozens and dozens of nurseries and regularly used to come back in a state of depression about the baby rooms in these places.

"that well known scientific link between crap parenting and your child becoming a nursery nurse"

No, but many nursery nurses come from backgrounds where there are high rates of family breakdown and teenage parenthood.

No, but many nursery nurses come from backgrounds where there are high rates of family breakdown and teenage parenthood.

Really?

Rollmops, I am not sure that mentioning something once constitutes harping on. But I don't mind harping- I spend enough time harping on to students about what constitutes reasonable evidence for their conclusions.

If the newspaper reports are correct, Oliver James is using material derived from orphanages and war evacuee research to draw conclusions about the totally different situation of a British toddler who spends a number of hours on weekdays in a nursery and then goes home to a loving family. I wouldn't let reasoning like that pass in a First Year essay and I don't think my colleagues would either- so why is it presumptuous to point out its flaws when applied by another academic?

"I just don't believe that educated women love every moment of childcare. Even when the baby has been yelling for no reason for 10 hours straight? when your toddler throws a tantrum in the supermarket? when you don't get 5 seconds to yourself ever? when every job you do around the house just needs doing again 24hours later? For me it was soul-destroying."

Being a parent can be hard, it really can. Everyone has 'melt-down' moments, for sure.

I read this comment and thought about how much more difficult I've found parenting since my three dc's have started school, even though they are off my hands for nearly 7 hours a day. I find the 3 hours of squabbling after school every day exhausting, plus am struggling to cope with a volatile and hormonal 11 year old. There have been moments I've been tempted to hand them over to the after-school club and go back to work full-time, just so I can spend as little time as possible with them during the week when I'm on my own. But then I think - no, this comes with the territory. You give birth to them and then you find a way of coping with them - the good and the bad. It's part of the journey. You don't just hand them over to someone else and say - 'I only want the nice bits'. Parenting isn't a job, it's a relationship! And part of what makes it enriching is the way it humbles you as a person and makes you more resourceful.

I know that if DH was able to spend more time with our children he would jump at the chance, even though they're often infuriating. If we won the lottery I'm pretty sure that neither of us would ever work again and would spend more time as a family, and do everything we could to make it enjoyable.

That said, it's a good job that boarding school is not an affordable option for us........

"If the newspaper reports are correct, Oliver James is using material derived from orphanages and war evacuee research to draw conclusions about the totally different situation of a British toddler who spends a number of hours on weekdays in a nursery and then goes home to a loving family."

You really need to read his work Cory - he is fully aware that he's not comparing like with like and acknowledges the importance of the quality of the relationship between children and their parents, and also the social context in which that relationship is taking place.

"No, but many nursery nurses come from backgrounds where there are high rates of family breakdown and teenage parenthood.

Really?"

Yes. Because most nursery nurses come from working class backgrounds.

Ooh, ooh, comments about Oliver James on Woman's Hour now!

I'm one of 4 children and we were all raised by our stay at home mother the same way with the same moral code and behavioural expectations etc. We are all different, we all had different conflicts with our parents and different issues and none of us are perfect.

I'm a strong believer in nature over nurture. I know you can smooth out the rough edges but you can't completely shape a childs personality. People like this are the ones with issues!

bonsoir I take issue with the idea that children with SAHMs are better behaved and happier and generally running around like page spreads from the Boden catalogue , perhaps that's just your social circle . Certainly the mums you see round here doing the midweek shop don't have lovely well-behaved kids, quite the opposite.

My DD is beautifully behaved, happy, charming, an absolute delight to be with and so far seems to be having only the bare minimum of toddler tantrums, thanks very much [waiting for it all to go wrong but for now rather smug emoticon]

I mainly object to the OJ's idea that only the mother can provide the kind of care a child needs in the early years. I think we do men a great disservice by perpetuating this.

And no, of course, ft work is frustrating as well and I don't love every minute. I do get to go and have a quiet cup of tea every once in a while though, pop out for lunch on my own, have adult conversations which are not about potty training. And generally my colleagues don't hurl themselves to the floor and kick their legs when they lose an argument.

Ah, but are they über-educated SAHMs who adore being with their children? That was the point I was making .

Bonsoir Wed 02-Jun-10 07:30:52

"You're wrong - I have masses of friends of the über-educated sort who love being with their small DCs all the time. But you know what? Their DCs don't scream for ten hours straight and have tantrums in the supermarket. Maybe those parents who love being with their children have an easier relationship with them?"

I am an uber-educated Mum who was happy to be a SAHM and loved being with my children: I do not recollect that this ever stopped dd in her tracks when she felt like tantrumming.

Children have different temperaments, partly due to genetics, partly due to issues beyond maternal control, such as health. Dd inherits her dramatic temperament from my Mum. Nothing to do with my placid and laidback parenting. It doesn't make her any less lovely: some people are less placid than others and the world needs all sorts. But it certainly made her hard work as a toddler.

giveittomebaby, it was so refreshing to read your thread about how difficult and infuriating it can be raising children. I too have thoughts about boarding school for all of them, haha! I'm lucky enough not to have to work but I can honestly say this must must must be harder than working full time. I have 3DCs aged 1,3, and 12 and after most days recently as soon as DH gets in through the door I have to go and sit on my own staring into space upstairs. I haven't started rocking yet but I think is just around the corner.
I am by nature a very positive person so even when I'm having the shittiest day try and see the bigger picture and remind myself that its only a very small part of theirs and my life. That said, its bloody hard work and how I haven't had PND I don't know. Amongst friends who had babies at similar times I'm in the minority so feel very lucky about this. Sometimes wonder how long after your baby is born can you still get PND?
Most of what Oliver James said on Woman's Hour I thought was very negative and hard on working mums but I did agree with his assertion that this generation of Mums haven't been raised as Mums but more as Bridget Joneses. Our expectations and others' expectations of us are so much higher so its no wonder really that a few of us dream of boarding schools......

I just can't undestand the innate sexism of housewives who say in effect if you want to be a proper parent you stay home and they in the sasme breath say their husbands subcontract out childcare and go off to work every day. If it's fine for men why not for women?

cory, was right in the summary of Mr James' points but I thought there were suggested he had been misquoted and in fact thinks working mothers are wonderful as long as the person they subcontract some care to is good like the father, granny, a good nanny or whatever.

So let's have a headline - Oliver James - working mothers are best for children. That would be a good one.

Working parents spend many many hours being parents, after school, before school , weekends and holidays and we can be terribly good at it.

I agree with the comment above though that some children are pretty much born, not made and those of us with twins know that only too well. Children are fascinating

"Working parents spend many many hours being parents, after school, before school , weekends and holidays"

My DC's spend more time with their teacher than they do with DH.

He doesn't see them in the morning because he leaves before they get up (can't be helped). My 4 year old is in bed half an hour after his dad gets home most nights. At least one, often two days a week he won't see his dad at all, because DH is back late.

TBH if I saw my DH as little as my DC's do I'd be very sad. Particularly as so much of the weekend is taken up with catching up with all the household tasks he can't do during the week.

Good job I'm around most of the time otherwise my children would be having a very miserable childhood.

Would add - I know plenty of other couples who have this sort of routine. It's shite really, for children and for adults. If my DH could leave at 8am and be home at 6pm it would make a really big difference to our life.

Oliver James is a complete quack and always has been. I have been reading his monumentally stupid columns for years now and always regret it. Don't know why I do it - it never fails to piss me off.

novicemama, OJ doesn't perpetuate the myth that only mothers can do this job. He is pointing out that it is a job, whoever ends up doing it.

BUt I really believe that society is going in the direction of believing that raising children is just something secondary to real life and other more important work.
How children are raised is the backbone of society. It doesn't matter if you agree on the best way to go about it: for some it could be working, others raising them yourselves. BUt at some point you have to admit that it is important, and that it is work, and that the people who do this work must be acknowledged as being the ones who are raising the next generation. If the people raising the next generation are nursery nurses, they should be well-educated and highly-vetted with a high adult-child ratio so they can do their job properly. Because it is a job.

Like Arsmamatoria, don't know why I keep reading his columns. Either he has got more venomous or I'm mistaken and someone used to write interesting columns in the space now wasted filled by this man. I haven't read all 470 messages so maybe it's already been said but - he surely doesn't have children of his own? If he did I'm sure he'd have a little woman taking care of things, but he would still learn a lot about free will and watching a toddler 24/7. At some point a person, Mum or Dad, will have to go the toilet. At that point it helps if this is not the only 5 mins in the day they are alone. Significant havoc can be wreaked in that time. It is not a bad thing to let them play unattended once in a while. You don't realise till you have one, and put Gina Ford down for a minute, they really do come with personalities! And while I'm on, squash aside, DS undoubtedly has a much more interesting day with CM than he would if he was at home with me everyday!

its very funny anyone want a brand new copy????

Tere's nothing worse than the marriage of the kind giveme has though. Husband might as well not be there as he's never there. Why do women tolerate those set ups? I suppose for the money. Most working parents I know try to maximise their time with their children to the level that they feel is right for them and their families.

What mattesr much more than who works is how we interact with chidlren. You can be there all day shouting at them, being irritable, resenting them and be awful to them and you might as well be working or doing your nails. Working and non working parents can interact badly or well with children. All of us will have observe a child and parent on a train who is getting it very wrong and it's nothing to do with who works and who doesn't work.

(poopym, OJ has children and a housewife. He went to Eton and there seems to be debate about whether he has done soel child care or not - the Times artcle said his MS (poor him) was so bad he could never look after children alone but he said on Woman's hour that he had)

it certainly would be worth most of us recording ourselves when natural with our children to see how it is objectively. May be not post it on youtube although children suffering at the hands of a nasty parent perhaps should and a few have done (good for them)..but certainly look at it. We are lucky to have chidlren and borrow them in a sense for a limited time. We don't own them and it's privilege to have them and whether we work or don't I wish people could enjoy them. They're fun.

Sakura, excellent points.

I bowed out of this thread several pages ago and will admit I haven't read the inbetween bits, just wanted to pop back in and nod my head vociferously at this:

"BUt I really believe that society is going in the direction of believing that raising children is just something secondary to real life and other more important work.
How children are raised is the backbone of society."

Parents have to play a team game, I feel.. We can't have it all, not the way it's set up in this country anyway. You can choose to put your child in daycare for 50 hours a week but you (and they) will miss out on some Precious Moments (reviled as those might be on MN). You can choose to stay home and perhaps bugger your career. You and/or your partner can choose to work any and all combinations of the two.. but there will always be opportunity cost and an 'other side' where the grass may or may not be greener..

What's best for our kids in all of this, though? How can you separate out your own - and your partner's - individual dreams and aspirations, your combined hopes and wishes as a couple and what you both believe to be best for your child(ren)?

Right now, I don't think we truly know what's best for our kids in the choices we make. The variables are so extreme, we do the best we can in our individual circumstances. I'm hoping for 5 mornings a week at present but maybe that's my piped dream of precious moments in the afternoon which will turn out, in reality, to be additional commuting and a baby napping in the car seat for half the day. Time will tell. I have to take a 'trial and error' approach.

Choosing who will care for your children is one of the biggest choices a couple can make - it's right that it is discussed and debated, and researched. It will still (probably) be messy and difficult to decide, but we do need society to take it seriously as an issue.

immature twat who wont take responsibility for himself it was his parents no it was you you arrongant fucker.