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

I know he's a cock-end but as someone about to go back after maternity leave for the first time I needed his outdated ramblings like a hole in the head.

Thank you, Avril, for the blog on the cortisol study - helps me put the rest of it into perspective too

Ha ha...read that quickly in the telegraph as Jamie Oliver and thought firstly, "I didn't know he was a psychologist as well", then I became incandescent with rage at the hypocrisy because of course Jools works doesn't she?!

oops.

James isn't against working mothers at all (as he does clarify in that Times interview) - he's against nursery-style day care. I don't agree with everything he writes but there seems to be a lot of misinformation on this thread.

I read his first book - "They Fuck You Up" with huge interest, though it probably made more comfortable reading as a child then as a parent, if you see what I mean!

I want to second wadawoman's comment here:
"I can't see how a setting with several adults who look after a buch of children fantqastically well should be less good than one with only one adult who has to share his/her attention with several children. "

There is persistent talk in these debates about how a childminder is better than a day nursery, based on some notion that a childminder provides 1:1 care. In practice, many if not most childminders provide a lower ratio of care than a day nursery. You are also frequently placing your child in the childminder's home with their own children. Hmmmm.. who will they save in a fire?

1:1 care not provided by a mum or family member seems to be provided by nannies. The vast majority of families cannot afford a nanny. It's a stupid thing to keep going on about.

There is also so much talk about this research as if it were definitive. The cortisol studies as we've seen here are potentially dubious.

I really wonder how much 'hugging' went on when mothers had 7,8,10 kids and huge amounts of domestic work to do without the aid of our modern conveniences? Hmmmm...

Frazzle - just because my DC's go to nursery doesnt mean I am not raising them

Mrsbean I agree - I will shortly be at home with 3 DC's - 4, 2 and newborn. The older two will keep going to nursery part time as I think they will have more one to one attention from someone far less frazzled and tired!

Everyone has their own preferences about childcare, it's a very subjective thing.

Mrsbean obviously thinks my c/m would leave my DD to burn in a fair, while I think a noisy nursery would be a horrible environment to leave a small baby in for hours a day.

Doesn't make either of us right or wrong, just opinionated.

burn in a fire

what bugs me is that he only targets MOTHERS

Was it Oliver James who had a bit of a thing about baby's suffering during birth and how too much emphasis was put on the the mother's experience and not enough on the child's? I think it was.

His ridiculous claims, which are sweeping statements not backed up by a decent unbiased appraisal of the evidence, are also informed by his class. He needs to realise not every family is like his own. Seems like a very basic requirement for someone in his career but obviously too far for James' brain to stretch.

Working class women have always (most of 'em) worked, whether that was in the home or outside it. Many used informal childcare - their own mothers or swapping shifts with other women. Historically, SAHMs have been a middle and upper class thing introduced by the Victorians who wanted to show off that they'd reached middle class status (and the upper classes sent their kids to boarding schools at a tender age so don't really count).

The big change in society over the last 40 year is that large numbers of middle class women have gone out to work. (Although there were particular working class societies where women stayed at home - mostly the ones with husbands in relatively well paid desirable jobs like engine drivers.)

just to say (as a FT working mum) I do happen to think that parental care is, mostly, better than nursery or CM. how can it not be? We all have to work, and do whats necessary. And this is the society we live in

But I dont think we do ourselves any favours by pretemnding that a FT nursery is the best environment for a 6 month old, as its NOT

I think that in the next couple of generations things might well change to have a more flexi culture, who knows.so whilst noone should beat themselves up, lets not pretend that the current childcare situation for pre-schoolers is great, becuase its not IMO

oj shamlessly peddles alarmist know your place be a subservient wee wifie rubbish.he makes money and gets a talk platform to express his odious views

like biddulph before him he has an agenda,and book to sell

withorwithoutyou I don't really think they'd leave your child to burn in a fire!
However, I think the assumption that childminder = much better/more loving than nursery care is not always accurate.

Childcare is so variable. I posted elsewhere this week that I visited an outstanding nursery in a children's centre - it's been running for six years and only runs at half-capacity so there are three childcare workers and 5 children in the baby room with none under a year (mine will be a year when he goes), staff all there since inception, nursery manager and deputy have worked together for 20 years, they take a half day once a week for curriculum planning, they talked me through all the reasons they do x, y and z activity from a developmental perspective (and were right - that's my job too!), I could see them hugging and interacting warmly with the kids, language rich, sensory room, their own garden to grow things in etc etc, little dens they can play hide and seek in

Contrast this with the last nursery I visited - chaotic, noisy screaming kids, loads of babies lined up in high chairs being spoonfed in a line, a load of kids plonked in front of a tv etc etc, nursery workers not appearing to interact with the kids. And that had a good Ofsted with some outstanding aspects! Also have visited childminders and found them to be just as variable (but haven't so far found an outstanding one).

I have to work so I'm going to try and get the best quality at the lowest price and that's the children's centre. Now I just have to decide on my working pattern and then we're away!

Avril thanks also for link to that blog.

I read the Times article about OJ's book yesterday - and precisely as the Neuroscience blog suggested was overcome by rage an enhanced cortisol reaction.

When I'd finished ranting at DH and an unfortunate male friend who happened to be visiting (who both looked really frightened - I was actually shouting 'I am not having some wispy haired media dickhead telling me I can't go out to work') I had the mean little fantasy thought that on the occasion of the next press interview round at OJ's place, OJ's passing DCs would tell the journo that they wanted to be a policeman or in the army when they grew up.

I heard OJ on the radio once blaming "cold mothers" for ADHD. He was insisting that it's not a real, biologically-based or genetic condition. Sounded like exactly the same arguments his intellectual predecessors used to blame "refrigerator mothers" for autism a generation ago.

I was astonished then and even more now that the media give him a platform. The man's an arse, and needs to deal with his own mother-issues before he dives into ours.

Oh dear

I had AND & PND, VERY stressed in my pregnancy because of the AND and DD will be starting her nursery* when she is one.

She is buggered isn't she

*only term time daycare we could find, thank goodness for Montessori nurseries.

'Is Oliver James the Gillian McKeith of psychology?'
(see Avril's last post)

Teehee

Thanks Avril that's great! Have sent it to all my facebook friends who've been venting their OJ outrage.

He seems to have some strange views. The sexes get on fine, not worse. Perhaps he's one of those 50 something men (there are vast legions around) who think everything used to be better and they are very wrong of course but they have a sort of middle aged depression come upon them. It's perhaps a male menopause or hormonal thing.

May be we can let him off by blaming it on his hormones... am liking the tone of this. Laughing as I type.

I think we need more of the counter balance - the loads of happily full time working couples with big families who get on.

Studies show children do best when parents are content. It mattered not who worked or who didn't. Fed up father or mother at home whinging all day or full time working parents always in a state - neither is good.

Obviously under 5s also need continuous and loving care from adults to whom they are close and bond and most of us who worked when we had babies also spent a lot of time with them and gave them security and routins and a few loving adults including us in their lives.

I doubt we realyl want to listen to nearly 60 something male Old Etonians peddling at times apparently (from the references on this thread) incorrect science who never even did childcare because they weren't physically able to. I didn't nkow he had MS and that's terrible but feeling sorry for him is not the same as agreeing with him.

Love that comparison to G McKeith. Who, by the way, berates ordinary people for not getting up an hour early to make a fresh smoothie (or buying expensive fruit out of season) while employing a chef to cook for her own family.

Calm down dearies and untwist your knickers.
One would think one is reading 'Dockworkers Daily' by the amount of swearing and utterly sad, low brow comments made over the five pages.
You don't agree with the author, fair enough, can't please everyone (nor want to, really, I'm sure) and all that and everyone is entitled to their opinion (unless that opinion consists entirely of profanities and grunts, then it's waste of space).
I happen to agree with one of the main premises of the article, namely that care of parent is best for baby, to simplify the argument.
How could it not be? If you don't agree with this, you're effectively saying that your child would be better off being cared by someone else, not you, raising a question - why did you have the said child in the first place?
Anyhow, it's a lovely day and children are playing in the garden where I shall join them shortly.
All the abuse and profanities thrown at this post won't make an iota of difference to my opinion, so do save the bandwidth, there won't be a reply.
Pip pip..

Although elements of what he says are true and most of know how we are treated to age 5 has a big influence throughout life. It's the way the press or he suggests women must do it that is annoying. Children don 't need the mother there. Fathers are great, sometimes better and nannies can be wonderful too and grannies.

I suggested the Larkin poem to one of my children - they have a competition each year when they learn a poem and say it but I was laughed out of court because of the language.. bad me....

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself."

There is an argument that if any of us are too f cked up then spreading the load is good. I am delighted my five children have had different people in their lives, the nanny who stayed 10 years, relatives, and with the youngest their close relationships with their much older siblings. One parents 24/7 is not good for children. There is no dilution of influence and the fucking up is all the worse.....

Rollmops - does that mean you think all the upper classes are crap parents? After all, they've always outsource childcare.

People are swearing in response to OJ's swearing - we are paying him in his own coins.

I'd like to make a few points if I may:

1. the stuff about early attachment/the need for a primary caregiver (consistent figure) isn't made up, there is tons of research on it, more all the time and very exciting work being done that shows evidence that neuro development and early attachment are intimately linked.

1. the stuff about children not needing loads of interaction with their peers til 2 1/2 or 3 is also widely evidenced.

1. I only read the grauniad article and you all seem to have totally ignored the last paragraph, particularly last sentence:

"Abundant evidence shows that what is most harmful to a mother's mental health is when she is wanting one arrangement and living another. A life of quiet desperation soon develops, as she constantly has to hide behind a patina of rationalisations when talking to friends and colleagues.

The real solution is going to be men starting to feel ? every bit as much as women ? that it is up to them how the baby is cared for."

I don't really understand why this crucial element of his argument is being sidelined other than so that the general stoning can continue.

Because the world is still a shitty misogynist place where the onus of childcare decisions still falls on mothers, doesn't mean that we can ignore what is best for children. it's not an either or: either women get back into the kitchen OR children get what's best for them.

We need to change the shitty misogynist world and make father co-responsible, make government accountable and develop a working world that allows people to share the parenting load in a flexible way that allows both childcare by parents AND parents with careers.