Justine Roberts: When did mum become a dirty word?

[KateMumsnet]

In 2009, I was asked to send a Mumsnet blogger to join the media corps at the G20 summit. I immediately put the nomination to our online audience, who collectively chose one of Mumsnet's finest minds to represent us – a prolific poster who went by the name of Policywonk.

She was a smart cookie – highly educated with a particular interest in climate change. And, by all accounts, she had a high old time at the summit, rushing from one interview with a world leader to the next.

Afterwards, I quizzed her on what it was like. ‘Amazing,’ she confirmed. But there was something a little odd, she noticed. Whenever she introduced herself as a Mumsnet representative to a fellow member of the media corps, they would start speaking very slowly and deliberately. As if she were a child. But she wasn't a child, she was a mum – and that was the problem.

Over the past half-century in this country, women have made astonishing strides along the road to equality. Schoolgirls are more likely than their male contemporaries to apply to university – and to graduate with a first or upper-second-class degree. The gender pay gap has dropped from 45% in 1970, when the Equal Pay Act was introduced, to around 15% today. And feminism, which seemed to lie more or less dormant through the 1990s and 2000s, has reinvented itself for the digital generation via grass-roots projects such as Everyday Sexism and No More Page Three.

It is, in short, pretty much the best time in history to be a woman – until the moment you get pregnant, at which point all bets are off.

Leaving aside for a moment all the examples of real-world discrimination – and there are plenty of them – that women face when they have children, let's just consider what we've done with the word ‘mum’ itself. ‘Mummy’ is the first word in most children's vocabulary and, during their early years, arguably the most important one: its connotations, from our offspring’s point of view, are overwhelmingly positive. What happens, then, when we become mothers ourselves, and look at the word from the other end of the telescope? Why is it, when adults talk to adults, that we use it so negatively?

Read more of Justine's piece for the July issue of Red magazine here.

A man is interviewed about his job and he's asked about his family - he'll say he has three wonderful kids. Is he usually asked how he juggles family and work, or about his childcare arrangements? No - not unless he raises it himself (see Nick Clegg and David Cameron being at pains to emphasise their active role in the parenting of their children).

A woman in the same interview? Very different story.

For my part, I'm a successful person, I perform well in my job and have influence in my organisation, where the senior ranks are very very male, in which I've worked about a year. A number of times, when chatting with senior colleagues about weekends and what not while waiting for a meeting to start, or when rushing out the door to do the nursery run, a colleague has discovered I have a child and they are shocked. I get a lot of 'I don't know how you do it' and 'How do you juggle that and the job?' and generally surprise that I could be both more successful in my job than my predecessors and also have a toddler. They make massive assumptions about my husband and my home life. They would never express those sentiments to a male with small children (my two most senior and successful reports have under-3s so I've been able to observe the counterpoint).

The truth is, yes, it's a juggling act, but it's just as much a juggling act for my husband as it is for me. But the assumptions about mothers in the workplace are tough to overcome.

I am in job interview hell at the moment trying to get back full time.

At the beginning you get asked to run through yourCV. I am always compelled to announce that yes I have three children, no I am not having any more, and yes I have cast-iron childcare.

I know they are not allowed to ask me about it but I really, really know what they are thinking: mummy.

TheBog why do you have to mention your children in order to run through your CV? (is it to explain gaps?)

morethan all the celebs you list are singers who appeal to a mainly female audience. So interviewers ask about their kids because they think it will go down well with the mainly female readers of those interviews. Interviews with other famous men - especially those in more "serious" jobs - pretty much never ask about their childcare or involvement with the DC. The interview might mention that they have kids but that's it. Whereas women in equivalent jobs will get asked "how they manage".

Yes there is a five year 'career gap' while I reproduced. Therefore it has to explained. And apologised for.

Justine I cannot tell you how much I agree with you. I'm degree educated late thirties ex city worker in finance but all that I was am and could be is rendered useless once I reveal or the word "mum" enters the conversation.

Then I'm non feminine, past it, ill educated, vapid, boring, fashion less, twee, herbal/earth mother (or should be) and non feminist. I'm never quite sure what hurts more out of those.

And don't be fooled. This is also quite prevalent here too. I've lost count the amount of times I see threads stating to a sahm experiencing some problem or other with a cacophony response of a variation of "get a job".

As if a job is what defines any person only. I'm mum, I'm maybe an employee/employer but most VIP I'm Minnie.

Oh come on morethanpotatoprints. Remember the headlines when Margaret Archer was appointed to her post in the Vatican. The Sunday Times led with "grandmother,71, tackles slave traffickers'. What exactly has her double mum status (or her age for that matter) got to do with the price of fish? In media speak, men are people, women are mums or not mums or grandmas. Disgraceful.

When Dorothy Hodgkins won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964 The Daily Telegraph's headline was "British woman wins Nobel Prize – £18,750 prize to mother of three". The Daily Mail said "Oxford housewife wins Nobel". The Observer commented "affable-looking housewife Mrs Hodgkin" had won the prize "for a thoroughly unhousewifely skill: the structure of crystals of great chemical interest". She was a full time scientist, not even a housewife .

I feel very blessed to be a mum. I get the feeling my stay at home mum status threatens others, others being a small majority of those who wish to work. They talk down to me as just a mum.

We all have the choice, and mine is to be my family's full time child care, cook, cleaner, etc. I'm happy.

Sorry and to continue!

Being mother to precious children is surely more important than any other job you may also do, therefore first in the list? Why should it be said negatively?

Wrc, I don't see being a mother as a negative. I see society treating it as all a woman with children is as negative. I see mothers get paid less than their equivalents, and that's a negative. I see mothers grouped as a homogeneous mass and then marketed to as if our sphere were exclusively domestic, and I don't think that's true for any of us, whether we stay home with children or go out to work.

I agree that a subset of working mothers are horribly belittling of stay at home mothers, and it infuriates me, but at the same time I know a lot of women staying home not by choice, just as there are mothers not thrilled about going to work. And part of the bit where's it is almost always the mother who stays gone speaks to a broader issue around socialisation and cultural expectation.

Me? I swing between being jealous of SAHMs and being hugely admiring.

I noticed that a lot of the men I worked with simply didn't have desks, offices and work spaces plastered with photos of their kids, drawings and other parental ephemera. I decided quite early on to emulate this myself. As far as I was (and still am) concerned, when you are at work you are first and foremost not operating in the domestic sphere and anything that reminds bosses of your female parenthood is yet another nail in your coffin.

I actually like not having constant reminders of home & hearth around me. I don't want one foot in both camps whether literal and metaphorical. I want to focus upon my work and not be distracted. Certainly when I look at colleagues male and female, the ones that appear the most organised and focused are the ones who do not have a work space personalised in the manner of a Bower Bird. It must be distracting surely or at the very least risks inducing guilt?

When I am at home I (and always tried to when they were small) did my best to guard against work based intrusion- my CPD, research, work library and effects were contained in one room and I didn't leave piles of clinical journals laying around my bedroom and living spaces. I found this helped to prevent my becoming distracted by unfinished tasks and giving only a percentage of my attention to the kids. It didn't always work and yes there were times when I had to work and hope the kids would just stay playing for a bit longer but on the whole it did help me cope.

Although I abhor the sexism and assumptions made and directed towards working Mothers, I did find that some of the working behaviours I saw many men (Naturally?) inclined towards actually helped me function better and more wholeheartedly at work.

Whether those male 'behaviours' are nature or nurture I do not know.I do know that many of my colleagues in more than one workplace didn't actually know whether I had children or not and that was the way I liked it (obviously not the places I worked in whilst gestating!)

Surely being a mum is one of the most important jobs in the world? Due to the way society still operates (more women work part-time/SAH to look after their children than men), mums have a greater influence on the rearing of the next generation. Teaching them values, manners, life skills...

I see mothers grouped as a homogeneous mass and then marketed to as if our sphere were exclusively domestic, and I don't think that's true for any of us, whether we stay home with children or go out to work.

jassy I agree. "Mum" is a problem when someone stops being viewed as a Person and becomes merely viewed as a Mum. In other words someone who is defined solely by the fact she has children, and treated accordingly - as if nothing else about her is relevant. Advertisers in particular are guilty of this.

RE homogeneity-

Thing is these darned SAHM Mothers (because of course they are totally amorphous) will keep on escaping their domestic spheres..... Running amok in cafes, infesting our institutes of Higher Education, cluttering up gyms and High Sts, blogging and insisting upon a fair and un-stereotyped depiction in the press. Stick our little noses out of the front door and BAM! get it shot off by the volley of misogynistic cheap shots aimed in our direction.

Hence that 'Yummy Mummy' label designed to remind us that we are above all, only ratable via our fuckability- ie. you've had one baby, will anybody consider you desirable enough to impregnate us with another?

Apols for the grammar in that- 'will anybody consider us desirable enough to impregnate us with another"

I dont define myself as mum never have never will.it doesn't define me
There no reason a woman needs to label or define herself wholly mutha
Mum isnt a dirty word,its just not the only word

I don't feel belittled by society for being a mother. I don't identify with the sentiments in Justine's article at all.

I wholly dont agree or associate with justine article/sentiments
Mother is a role,its not a yoke,nor dies it confer elevated status
Figure out what it means to you instead if indulgent mc navel gazing

Hi, some interesting comments. I was promoted whilst pregnant and again on my return to work have been supported when asked to travel abroad with work to allow me to take my husband and son with me.

I do believe that the responsibility of being a mum is daunting and can result is a loss of confidence which may mean that generalised comments can take on a new meaning and it's how we respond to those comments that then creates a perception in the eyes of others.

As mums, working in the home or in a job, we should spend less time judging each other for our choices and support one another to build confidence

Scottish, if it's all down to individuals, why is there a pervasive pay gap for FT-working mothers? My perception is that there's also a societal expectation that a mother will be lesser in the workplace that we then have to work doubly hard to overcome.

I am sure it was becoming pregnant that changed YOU - and hence people's attitude to you. You may perhaps felt a bit inferior to your contemporaries because they all had babies and you didn't. Now, however, you have overcome that feeling and feel triumphant! Well done.

My daughter br
oke though the GLASS CEILING and then fell back through the hole she had created as soon as she had a child.

Whilst I know a lot of people look down at SAHMs, I don't think the reason members of the media looked down on the MN representative was because she was a mum. It is far more likely that as journalists they were looking down at her status as a blogger.

I got the impression that mums saw themselves as better than other women for having had a baby and men saw me as a fa<a class="break-all" href="//url=www.allmobilespec.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">iilure - cold, possibly validating that I was unattractive etc
personally in the years I have managed to become a mother I have not felt discr<a class="break-all" href="//url=thetvtime.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">iminated in any way.

But isn't 'Oh, so you don't work' a perfectly reasonable response to telling someone you are a stay at home Mum? In the accepted sense of being in paid employment, a stay at home mum doesn't work. Being a mum is very important, and staying at home with your children is a valid choice, but it's not a job.