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

i need to be financially independent and not beholden or obliged to my partner.i genuinely couldnt bear to not have my own money

I love my job, I wish I could do it part time though, have just been diagnosed with a 'stressful' retina - and am sure is because am trying to juggle f/t job (which includes managing a whole team of people) with commuting into city of London, trying to study and being a good partner. Something is going to have to give, my boss will not give me a job share with lady due back from maternity leave - she also has a young DD and it would have worked out well for both of us.

SOmeone above made the poit I often make that children want happy parents. Studies all show that. They also like stability and routines and certainty. Even my youngest still do (just as even older childen like the same Christmas tradition every year). So the fact I've always worked full time has never been an issue as I am happy with it and seem to be happily free from guilt.

If I'm away (I have been to Iran, Dubai, Nigeria and 3 other plcaes on business hits year but only for a few days at a time) it's harder (particularly if you are a single mother of 5 without financial support etc and work full time) and it's harder not because of finding childcare when I'm away but because the children like their routines as do I. Although I do think it does me good to be shaken up with something different and they too - I will get home and they'll recount that XYZ happened - dog after rabbits or accident in the street with a kind of glee describing how they coped and I think wonderful - they have acquired such a good experience an dlife skill isn't this good for them whereas as the unhappy fed up with everying mothers and fathers would think something different. And we all smile and everyone is happy and I am happy too. But if you are constantly moaning - I gave up my career to wipe your bottoms and look at all the thanks I get fro you teenagers who swear at me (believe it or not even chidlren of stay at home mothers will swear at their parents sometimes... or you moan every night - I work so hard fo ryou and never get any thanks.. then little Johnny will not be at all happy.

So sort out your own personal happiness and family needs and the joy of the children will then follow. (Not ever of course leaving aside the moral and political imperative, your duties as a woman to other women ni the past and future to exceedmen at work and get to be the boss and don't let previous gains slp... thus if you cannot decide then the default position must be that you work full time and put your career above your husband's - that is the right way, the true path.. )

SOmeone above made the poit I often make that children want happy parents. Studies all show that. They also like stability and routines and certainty. Even my youngest still do (just as even older childen like the same Christmas tradition every year). So the fact I've always worked full time has never been an issue as I am happy with it and seem to be happily free from guilt.

If I'm away (I have been to Iran, Dubai, Nigeria and 3 other plcaes on business hits year but only for a few days at a time) it's harder (particularly if you are a single mother of 5 without financial support etc and work full time) and it's harder not because of finding childcare when I'm away but because the children like their routines as do I. Although I do think it does me good to be shaken up with something different and they too - I will get home and they'll recount that XYZ happened - dog after rabbits or accident in the street with a kind of glee describing how they coped and I think wonderful - they have acquired such a good experience an dlife skill isn't this good for them whereas as the unhappy fed up with everying mothers and fathers would think something different. And we all smile and everyone is happy and I am happy too. But if you are constantly moaning - I gave up my career to wipe your bottoms and look at all the thanks I get fro you teenagers who swear at me (believe it or not even chidlren of stay at home mothers will swear at their parents sometimes... or you moan every night - I work so hard fo ryou and never get any thanks.. then little Johnny will not be at all happy.

So sort out your own personal happiness and family needs and the joy of the children will then follow. (Not ever of course leaving aside the moral and political imperative, your duties as a woman to other women ni the past and future to exceedmen at work and get to be the boss and don't let previous gains slp... thus if you cannot decide then the default position must be that you work full time and put your career above your husband's - that is the right way, the true path.. )

Sigh. Xenia, you post so beautifully and then let yourself down with frankly bizarre crap like that - my moral and political duties are not to you.

may i ask an obvious rhetorical?

what if studies did indeed show that by working a parent damaged the child.

do you think suddenly people would stop working?

its the inference of choice in these matters that is most insulting - yet paradoxically forgotten.

I've done both, worked when dd was little, stopped working when ds was little because he needed me (it was evident).

Being a SAHM has been the fucking end of me, I tell you, and to this day I don't know if I made the right decision all round. Never will.

All I know is that I worked full time since dd was 5 months old. Her life so far has been filled with experiences that I never, ever had. Aged 6 there is nothing at all wrong with her mental abilities.

She speaks 2 languages fluently, she has travelled widely, she can negotiate with the best of us. She mixes easily and doesn't get freaked out by new places/people. How much of this is nature vs environment I have no clue. Most important, she knows that she has Mummy and Daddy who love her to bits. Damaged goods she most certainly aint!

When I saw the article, I thought that us working mums know this already. I think most of us are 'in tune' enough with our children to know if they are happy or not in their childcare settings. My DS would certainly tell me now!!

I've always thought that studies that show otherwise must be flawed as they do not correspond to what I see on a day to day basis - and I've dropped into our nursery at random times, unannounced, to see my children, and never seen them upset/distressed/poorly cared for, or any other child for that matter. They're mostly having a great time in fact ...

agree i already intuitively/instinctively know nursery has done no harm.

jjkm - nearly every single study to date has shown that a working mother is bad for babies. I can't think of a single one before this one that has shown that it isn't. One of the authors of this study actually carried out another one a few years' back that showed that there was a detrimental effect on children. But the difference between this study and any previous ones is that this one looks at every single impact of the mother working - not just being apart from her child which is what previous studies have focused on but on the increase in income, ability to access better quality childcare, quality of time spent with children etc

Actually I don't know why I'm bothering to explain this for the nth time. Tittybangbang posted a link to a summary of the study's findings this morning. Read that. It certainly does not try to support working mothers - it's designed to be neutral.

what studies do you have in mind,what are you citing

Pretty much every one sm - have a google

tbh,i use my observations/intuition/personal preferences to make parenting decisions

and i always knew i'd work and be mum,was a given for me

Me too (single parent so less choice in the matter but I would have done it anyway). It is very easy to find studies that rubbish mums that put their babies into childcare in the first year though, whatever you personally might think

i had no idea people were down on working mums.til i had baby and met the precious moments mamas crew and hv.when i said yes going back after 6mths cue much eye rolling and tutting.most one of them habitually droning on they would never miss precious moments.no siree

or the hv asking me "what did you used to do.i felt like id expired or something.she audibly gasped when i said i was returning to work 6mth mat leave

my mum worked.my pals/colleagues its the norm to work.so i was well surprised people disapprove

titty, you've completely missed my point. I said it was a luxury which the rich can entertain. Being that rich is a luxury, no?

custardo
I think it depends on the financial situation. My mother worked full time, was a deserted wife and we scraped by. She did everything herself and was stretched financially and emotionally between her children. I think some of us came out unscarred but I think on balance this was a bad experience for our family and that was because

1. Mum HATED working
2. We never had enough money which makes life doubly hard
3. She was on her own so there was very little of her to go around
4. She worked some if not all of the weekend.

I on the other hand work 4 days, have a supportive DH and earn a decent enough wage. Its a whole world of difference.
So in answer to your question, No I dont think that women would instantly give up work if the study proved that children were damaged, because financially the simply couldnt.

jjkm
Wait till you have kids before you make any decision, you may feel differently

jjkm,i live in a large city doing a demanding job that is not conducive for an accompanying child to participate in.nor would anyone else find it conducive for child to be there.no chance of weans and me in work together

so you fancy "mom's work to involve the kids, like in the farming days" whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? the hell is the "farming days". is this achievable for you?do you live in a community that eschews capitalism,industrialisation aha but not laptop as you are using one.

A lot is influenced by your own mother's choice and how you felt about it. Both my husband and I did not enjoy have SAHMs who fussed around us as teenagers, lived vicariously through their children and were overbearing. We would both rather have had mothers who had at least some outside interest beyond their children and other ways to fulfil themselves. I would have loved a career mother who could have helped me academically and given me some life advice beyond how to bake a cake. It sounds mean but as a 14 year old, I used to relish every rare minute my mother wasn't in the house just to have some space to myself! On the other hand, the mother of my friend was a GP and she (friend) was very envious of me having my mother at home all the time so I think people always think the grass is greener.

The SAHM philosophy that the more time you spend with your kids the better they turn out is very simplistic. Obviously some SAHMs choose that option as it's what they like to do and they're not militant but I do get a lot of hassle from ILs about the issue as both my SILs are SAHMs and I really dread the 'frank conversations' I'm going to face in the next few years as I choose to go to work.... . I have already had numerous run-ins with FIL who has tried to make me see the Daily Mail light and realise that all these crimes and juvenile delinquencies these days are because of working mothers. (no use my pointing out to him that poverty is the real issue here and for many of the families of the 'feral youth' / hoodie stereotype, few people would ever had have a job in their lives, male or female.) My MIL just lives vicariously through her kids, constantly reminding them that she stayed at home and therefore they owe all their success to her. My husband has always resented that she'll try to take credit for his achievements despite never having really supported him academically or emotionally in what his life goals were and not really bothering to know him as a person. She was physically not out of the house when he was under-18 so that's all that matters! As if just being in the same house as someone while they study for exams is some kind of achievement... Funnily enough when one of her sons went a bit off the rails for a while, she couldn't cope at all, nearly had a breakdown and went on anti-depressants. How could this happen to her son!! She was a SAHM, not one of those evil working mothers!!! It's all nonsense. People just want to feel that they are in control and can influence life's outcomes and in reality, you could be the best parent in the world and things can still go wrong for whatever reason.

jj;s post reads like a paid propaganda comment by the American Traditional Mothers Society endorsed by the One True God circa 1950...e xcept in 1950 the housewives were revolting having been shoved back home after the war to make space for men and they took to gin and popping pills.

"Stay home and damage the child" might be a good poster in my own propaganda campaign. SOmeone can do the designs.

Then we can have another poster - we can make them a bit like those Lenin ones.. this one can say "Housewives damage their daughters and other women" and then show another woman with a dagger through her heart.

Poster 3 says "We died in vain" - suffraggettes obviously. "Darling, for whom should I vote?

These are good and like them and then we can an ad campaign on TV - very happy working mother, works full time on the board of BP Or something... [ hang on much check the share price.... wow that's good] lots of happy looking children and then really fed up housewife and unhappy children 0"Fiona made the wrong choice. Make sure you don't"....

Mmm warming to my cause. Get out of those kitchens, hand the mops and of course the 3 under 5s to the men, and go and have fun in the City . Your daughters will thank you for it.

Please no MORE STUDIES! it'll be professor Henry Brubaker at the Institute of Studies on this subject next... hey- lets do a study on the number of psychopaths or serious offenders whose mothers worked when they were young children - causal effect proven? i very much doubt it. i really still dont get this societal obsession with this particular subject, when there are so many thousands, millions of children who suffer real and constant hardships because of poverty and political instability in their countries. lets finally smell the coffee and move on from this ever increasingly self obsessed, self inflicted issue.