"It may be better news for women... to look after their own children and fit jobs into the child's day"

[SleepWhenImDead]

So says Jill Kirby, director of the Conservative think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies in this BBC article.

Seriously, what planet is this lady on? She makes out like it's a NEW idea for women to either not to work or to work hours to limit the amount of childcare that's needed. Well done Jill, we'd never thought of that before you suggested it!

I'm going to be hard hit from these cuts to public sector, I'm currently on maternity leave but due to be made redundant anyway. The public sector is the place I'd need to get a job, and get child-friendly hours. DOes this Jill think we get to CHOOSE these things, like a job is something you do for fun to avoid looking after your own children?! Think I might as well give up even hoping for a job and soon we'll lose our child benefit as well. I'm attacked on all directions!

Yes. Children first. Each family to decide what's best for their own kids. Article #1 of our new Constitution. Next?

Boffin can I add to your flip chart:

7: Consciousness-raise amongst other women (and men) you encounter about issues of equal pay and employment access. This doesn't have to be lecturing, just making it into a conversation so it's something that's explicitly talked about.

Perhaps it's something about recognising parents as experts of managing their own families, and respecting that more?

No headlines there though.

Liking the increased numbers of conversations about equal pay. I am wondering whether I can get that put on an agenda at work somehow.

Amen Grannieonabike -- Is this really what British women voted for?

I'm not sure women should have any more right to choose than men have, as far as work goes. I do think when society educates girls, legislates against sex discrimination in hiring and the workplace (albeit inadequately), yet fails to notice that somehow childcare for the offspring of working parents must be managed and does not provide it, then women do tend to self-select for the areas of employment that have now become the prime targets of the very shortsighted approach now being followed. Childcare is the key to allowing women to maximise their potential in the workplace.

Bonsoir, my impression of school boards is the same as yours. Bake sales are a contribution too, BoffinMum?

Ime, allowing that sort of flexibility at work (ie career breaks, going part-time, job shares etc) benefits everyone - men, singles and company included. It keeps people motivated and promotes a co-operative atmosphere - because single people can also ask for time off care for an elderly parent/needy dog, etc. The workforce isn't permanently exhausted by having to juggle home and work. But I work for a university and I know some small companies struggle with flexible working. However, I'm convinced that more can be done to make it feasible in even the smallest of operations.

But is this wandering away from the thread ...?

Ensure no woman ever accepts a sexist role at home and ensure she's aware of what that is and is able to step in as soon as she hears a sexist comment in her own relationshpi and doesn't tolerate it for an instant.

Make it as easy for men within a couple to suggest their wife works full time and they stay at home as women find it in relationships.

for me, the solution/problem has been said earlier.

Until flexible working is the norm and a right for both men and women, we'll never get equality. My family functions well because dh has a well paid job but gives his body and soul. He can do that because i am at home looking after him and everybody else. It doesn't work for us financially for him to get a less pressured job so he can share the childcare and for me to also work.

I could try to get a job which fits in with school hours but i know these are few and far between, and generally poorly paid. By the time i have factored in holiday childcare it's not worth it. Plus i am not really interested in doing a job like that.

I could go back to my old career and earn well, but to do that i would need a nanny. So, my children would have two parents they would barely see, we would be the stressed out family juggling our lives. I would be the knackered "grey" mum running from pillar to post spending a fortune on holidays and "help" just to get through it. I don't want that either.

"Perhaps it's something about recognising parents as experts of managing their own families, and respecting that more?"

I absolutely agree with that.

Well said grannieonabike I'll join you on the streets (on my bike). This really is about choice.

I think bake sales create a bit of a sense of community BUT they are effectively what I would call female 'busywork' and keep people looking inwards, rather than properly engaging with national/international/global issues as they perhaps should.

But boffin I think that you are perpetuating the stereotype again. This is about our right to choose. So if a woman chooses to engage in a community building bakesale as a diversion to her other roles, then that is cool. If another woman chooses to work full time and aim for the glass ceiling that is also cool. A third woman may campaign relentlessly for equality whilst a fourth may prefer to live it by instilling the values of equality in her daughters and sons. All cool. The issue is accepting our right to choose and not allowing anyone to make us feel ashamed, uncertain or unworthy for doing so.

And that is what I would like for my contribution to the list. :)

Of course that is all cool, but my worry is that it becomes less a matter of choice and more one of necessity (as indeed it is for many now. We kid ourselves if we subscribe completely to the rational actor theory).

Haven't read the whole thread so apologies if I am making a point which has already been made but have just looked at the article and was amused by this woman's statement that,

"women going out to do jobs to pay for childcare generates a type of work which then requires subsidy from the state".

It's hardly as though childminders are the only people getting subsidy for their jobs from the state, given that the entire financial system is propped up with state cash and/or implicit government guarantee is it? Arguabaly any employee of a company with an overdraft from RBS (for example) falls within this category. Probably most of us.

Ridiculously sloppy thinking. I bet Maggie Thatcher had childcare.

She had, and I quote "The very best nanny I could afford". Being married to a wealthy businessman probably helped here.

She also feared a "Creche Generation".

Excellent point, Childofthe80s. You could insert Farmers for Women and see what you would end up with. There are a lot of sacred cows in the economy, (and not just on farms).

It is very sloppy thinking, and almost smacks of de-growth, with women bearing the brunt of the retreat.

Bake sales, among other fundraising activities, at my DD's school contribute to the running of a school in a very poor community in Kenya. I don't bake cakes for the sale, but I don't mind paying way over market rates for a cake at the school gate, and I fully support the close contact my DD's über-privileged school community has with a school community right at the other end of the spectrum. That's pretty outward looking.

I think we're in agreement here, Bonsoir. The problem is when it all becomes parochial, and women's worlds are forced to shrink to fit the expectations of others.

Never shrink your world you'll regret it later. The innaity of women who want to talk about cakes rather than what Guy Hands is up to in NY or 1001 other subjects.... It's dreadful how dull housewives get, really really dreadful. Many of them hae no idea either. Nappies and housework and child benefit, school cakes and dresses. Yuck. Anyway each to their own.

It's like being obsessed with football - empty at the core ....

What we should really be campaigning for is for childcare to be treated in the same way as capital assets like the railways and the roads which we accept need to be subsidised in order for the life of the nation (and also the economy) to carry on. It frees people up to work, study, travel and many other useful activities.

Affordable childcare enables many parents and grandparents to carry out a role in society because not all jobs (paid or unpaid) can be done while minding a young child.

One of the reasons I found the original comment so offensive was because it plays on the paranoias we all have. Most of the decisions I make about my life are balances and compromises, and being employed is one of them-it isn't without guilt or extra tiredness, and I can never be sure whether it damages my children or not (neither could I be if I were a SAHP). The comment cruelly plays on that, without acknowledging that the choice is valid, and that the system it is made in is shit. It's hateful, and it's the ways so many attacks on Mums work.

Think about men who do childcare. The reason they are praise dis not just because it's unusual, but because it is seen as a choice for them, a statement of their character and preference. Until the same is true of women, until it is clear that every heterosexual couple have thought openly and honestly, from both of them having experience of day-to-day childcare on their own, and chosen to divide their labour as they do, then SAHMs and employed parents will always get it in the neck. The way to value SAHM's labour, to me, is ultimately to create a world in which it is clear it is chosen, not a justification or an assumption.

The way I see it, most people move in and out of various roles during their working lives. If at one moment you want to talk about nappies at the school gate, why not? The next minute, you'll be discussing share prices in a bored board meeting. No need to sneer at anything, just enjoy exploring different parts of yourself. And if you get bored, change it.

Boffinmum: Exactly. Don't let it become necessity. Fight for choice.

Child of the 80s: Agree. And well-paid, affordable childcare is the key to freeing our immense potential.

Got my banner ready.

Gosh yes, every woman who ever says a man is great because he minds his own child when they wouldn't do the same to a woman is sticking a knife into other women and is sexist.

On domestic core. We all know who wanted women to be limited to "kinder kuche and kirche". Plenty of men and a good few women find it terribly convenient if they can corral women into hearth and home only. It's like a kind of chain or burka and then they limit their horizons and power. Most couples in the UK however and on the planet both work but do need to guard against women being the ones who do part time hours and never earn much and just work for pin money. If women individually could ensure that if there's a choiec they work full time and their husband's don't we could gradually reduce sexism and improve the lives of many women.