So working mothers do NOT harm their children - stuff you (again) Oliver James

[LadyBiscuit]

A very comprehensive study (most comprehensive ever apparently) has been done which shows that mothers who work don't disadvantage their children. It does show that working under 30 hours a week is better for babies but that working per se can actually give children some advantages.

Hurrah

Articles: Torygraph
Grauniad
Washington Post

"Being a SAHM is an incredibly luxurious luxury"

If looking after children isn't work then why the fuck do I have to pay someone £10 an hour to look after mine?

Both my grandmas were SAHMs and were very, very, very poor. They had big families and worked their fingers to the bone. Just because someone isn't paying a woman for her toil in raising children doesn't mean it's not work.

Xenia - your point about humility is a good one. I cannot humble myself to think that anyone else would do as good a job as me with my

debs75 - I hope you do find employment. Seems to me that the workplace would be immeasurably improved by people like you who know the value of a hard days work either in or out of the home, grab opportunities where they can and put in huge amounts of effort to make the best of whatever situation life thrusts on them. I wish you and your family the very best of luck.

BTW - don't forget that you are already making a huge contribution to society by raising your family, whether thats as a SAHM or a WOHM

Would like to add, I'm very impressed by the complete lack of scepticism with which this report seems to have been greeted on this thread by the majority of posters.

Have any of you read it? Or are you all just happy to accept how it's been reported in the papers?

tittybangbang - you have to pay to access the actual report annoyingly but there is a fairly good summary of it on the LSE website - I posted a link to it last night around 7pm

here

Not the study itself but a booklet summarising its findings. Most of which seem to me to be blindingly obvious:

"one of the most important and consistent predictors of child cognitive and social development was the quality of the mother-child interactions. the more sensitive, responsive, attentive, and cognitively stimulating the mother was during observed interactions, the better the children?s outcomes."

Well, what do you know?

Thanks tittybangbang. Nothing groundbreaking really is it but OJ would have us believe different

There are a couple of disturbing things here for me. Firstly, most 'studies' reported on in newspapers are reported on unscientifically. And secondly, most studies can be disproved by an equal study with a counter argument.
Lastly, it disturbs me that studies like this still need to be done to put mothers at ease. I say that in support of working mums, and non working mums.
I think most people can see that working mums don't damage child development. Going to a good nursery is a lot better than sitting your kid on his tukus in front of CBBies all day. And sometimes when I'm tired at home my daughter watches way too much CBBies, so don't take offence.
In countries other than Britain, it's so much more common for mothers to work, this debate just doesn't change things because people either want to or need to work (Sweden, Canada, America ...). I think the study was American, but I still think it doesn't change the fact that it's far more common to have two working parents in North America so probably a negative report wouldn't have changed anything.
I feel like, stay home if that's what you want, but if you want a career go for it and don't let this strain of reactionary reporting make you feel bad. Sorry, but I feel like the fact this study had to be done at all is reactionary ...
There are numerous successful woman who worked in a time when time when it wasn't as accepted to be a working mother, and they faced much more stigma, but their kids turned out great. In my opinion one of those is Chelsea Clinton ...

So all the study says, essentially, is that good parents are those who do good parenting. WOHM/SAHM isn't a particularly significant factor.

If I were a SAHM who didn't enjoy the experience and/or regretted the career hit, I'd be unhappy with that - nobody who wants to feel she's made a major sacrifice in vain. But for SAHMs who are happy with their experience and for WOHMs, I think this just confirms what we've felt all along.

lucy101
My personal experience of my mother as a SAHM was not a good one sadly. There is no doubt that she lived her life through me, still does, and tries to send me on endless guilt trips about how much she gave up for me, how much she has supported me, how much I owe her. I am dealing with this everyday and it is a nightmare and has caused me serious problems."

I had the exact same problem, but in the reverse. My mother was a FT WOHM.

I am a SAHM

"Going to a good nursery is a lot better than sitting your kid on his tukus in front of CBBies all day"

I don't think anyone has categorically said that nurseries are bad for all children, all the time, or worse than inadequate parenting.

But there's plenty of other good quality evidence that babies and very young children who are in full-time institutional childcare may have poorer outcomes in a range of areas, including emotional and cognitive development than children looked after at home by an engaged and loving parent.

I'm not ready to completely disregard this idea on the basis of this one study - tempting as it is to my peace of mind (I had dd in institutional group childcare when she was under one, and I'd live someone to provide some 'evidence' that it didn't do her any harm, contrary to what my knowledge of her and my common sense are telling me)

Having read the booklet linked to above, all it seems to be saying is that good quality childcare is marginally better for a child's all round development than not so good quality childcare .

what arses said

Do you now what? It's really not all that important.

titty - isn't that evidence just evidence of the fact that there is a lot of poor childcare around?

I do wish there would be as many reports and studies and articles about dads who leave home at 6am and return at 9pm after the kids are in bed.
That is the reality for the 2 SAHM I know...they are almost single parents. They do have nice houses as their husbands earn megamoney but my DH (with his not very well paid job) is home at 4pm and sees DD every night which I think is better for her than a very expensive bedroom.

Yes, I work, I thought I wanted to be a SAHM but I needed work as an outlet for my energy.

I admire women who can play 1000 games of snap followed by hide and seek and a sing song with multiple children. Dear God, it drives me insane. I do think DD was better off at nursery than with me yelling "leave me alone for 10 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Happy parents will engender happy children. Neglected children are unhappy. And children with SAH parents can be neglected just as much as those with working parents.

You can't prove a negative titty. It isn't possible to prove that your DD wasn't harmed by being put into childcare. You can only provide evidence that another child, exactly the same as your DD, with exactly the same background, and the same parents, who was put into 'institutionalised' childcare, had a better outcome, or not. And I'd put any money on not being able to find anotehr child who corresponds precisely to yours in all ways.

And even if it could be proved beyond doubt that she was harmed in some way, what exactly would it benefit you?

Miggsie - bit of benign neglect every now and again is OK, though

Titty, here's some (admittedly quite bad) science for you. On DD's "top" table in reception there are eight children. Two of these have mothers who work full-time and have done since they were babies (DD included), four have mothers who work part-time (two used nursery, two used childminders) and two have SAHMs. They have all (ridiculously, but that's another thread) been identified as gifted and talented and they are all bright and happy little people. I would defy OJ or Biddulph or the like to come and tell us that we have damaged the cognitive abilities and emotional attachement of our children by our choices.

Besides, as Orm says this article is not about SAHMs - it is a small but welcome piece of recognition of what most of us know already: that we are doing our best whatever our choices/motivation are for working.

This idea that SAHMs spend the day doing snap, and singsong, and crafts, is crap. What is being described is childminding.

Yet this thread is, once again, not denigrating the choices of women to stay at home. No-one is saying that it is universally BETTER for children to having mothers who work outside the home, the study simple refutes that it is BAD for the children of women who do so.

"a small but welcome piece of recognition of what most of us know already: that we are doing our best whatever our choices/motivation are for working."

Don't know why people feel so put upon. Oliver James, who gets a massive slagging off on mumsnet also says exactly the same thing. As does Penelope Leach and every other sensible person who has raised the issue of childcare and children's early development.

"I would defy OJ or Biddulph or the like to come and tell us that we have damaged the cognitive abilities and emotional attachement of our children by our choices."

Most people I know from similar families to my own have managed to achieve academically and give every appearance of being happy. Most children who come from loving, supportive backgrounds do. Doesn't mean that the choices our parents made for us (in my families case to send me, my brother and sis to boarding school at the age of 11) were either the right ones or the best ones for us. Although they were all taken with our best interests at heart by parents who loved us very much.

Clem, I am shocked that:

1- You have a top table in reception.
2- You know the childcare background of everyone on that table.

My DS just finished reception and I know nothing about a top table. Does this table cover all of the subject or this a top table in one particular table.

I do know that my DS has excelled far beyond expectations in his reading (due to no effort of mine or DH's. It just happened). But, his writing skills are well below expectations. In fact he has an IEP for his handwriting.

But, just to back up the point that working mums do not have a negative impact on the children's cognative performance, DD (going into year three) just came home with level 3 SATs. And she went into to full time childcare before I got out of maternity clothes.

All of these studies are rubbish because - as has already been pointed out -- there are far more important fators in parenting than whether or not mum works.

According to Robert Winston one of the most important factors in predicting a child's success at school is that child's mother's education level. He didn't mention whether or not she works outside the home.

Strix, the "top table" is fluid - some are there all of the time, some just for literacy, some just for numeracy. I don't condemn or applaud this set up; it is just as it is.
As for knowing the childcare background of the children in DD's class, what can I say? There is a good social network - the reception mums go out once a month and we are friends.

Titty, I think that all you can ask for is that your children are happy and able to achieve. I am not sure what else would constitute "doing your best". DD's school is cosmopolitan and socio-economically varied, so I am not simple talking about comfortable middle class children.

From my own family experience I would never be financially dependent on a man and I would urge any 16 year olds thinking of marrying rich to read Lesley Bennetts Feminine Mistake. I think we are all conditioned by our experiences though.

I come from a family where my mother had to work in a menial back breaking job because she was reared to be a dependent, and it turns out that my father was a total loser. We are talking kids going down the pub to beg for money etc - total idiot. With that memory in mind I would never give up my independence. I work 4 days, and sometimes long to be a SAHM (with money, like Jools Oliver ) but am lucky in that my own mother looks after my DD.
My DH is great and I dont envisage any problems but in this life anything can happen, a man doesnt have to leave you, he could get sick or die - then what?
Thats my reason for working, I guess we all have our reasons and I can see why someone with a great dad who was a good earner and generous would encourage you to make the SAHM choice.