"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!

You see, I don't agree that football is empty at the core. My 13 year old is football-mad (and cricket mad) and is in a school team for football and a national team for cricket, both of which take him, and lots of other like-minded children, to other European countries for matches right through the year. It's an amazing experience for all of them.

13 year old nephew

Am speechless, just seen this.

Bonsoir: People can talk about what they like, can't they, without being sneered at. (Repeating myself - sorry). My son loves football too.

Xenia: Agree. I don't think my daughter would ever have considered becoming a parent if she had thought that she would be forced into the role of a sahm. She has nothing against other sahms - all she cares about (passionately) is that it should be a choice that she makes with her husband.

(I do wonder sometimes if it is a real choice, however).

But having all these decisions to make can also be a huge responsibiity. The needs of the children must come first, and the families are the best people to decide what their needs are - not the state.

Why isn't the government (and private companies) brave enough to leave it up to us how we run our working lives? Wouldn't it be interesting to make it a completely level playing field and see what choices people make? What are they so scared of? Is it because there are too many women in the work force taking jobs from men? (I think that might have been said first in the 1940s).

Social engineering of the sort that Jill Kirby seems to be advocating, can have hugely negative effects.

I've just read this whole thread and I don't know whether to commit suicide or just have some more alcohol. My one consolation is that as a foreign unnaturalised national, I didn't get the opportunity to vote for these twats - and I'd probably have voted Lib Dem and felt utterly betrayed.
Where are the badges? In the 80s you could buy badges that said 'Don't blame me - I didn't vote for Thatcher'. Where can I get one that says 'Don't blame me - I dodn't vote for either of them'?

I prefer low tax rates with no distortions caused by social engineering through the tax syustem so that people make their own choices - you want a pension buy one but don't get a tax break for it; you want children - have them but don't get a tax advantage and if tax is low enough (because there are none of those distorting rates) then you have more money to play with to spend on your choices too.

Why is childcare a woman's responsibilty? Are tehre really sexist people ni the UK who think that is so. Loads of women earn more than men. Men also have to fund childcare. Never let it be something lobbed off only a female salary.

We need to get all this state support removed. Labour bought votes by moving many p eople into the public sector and on state support. Now is our chance to change that and make people happy and independent of state control again. It will all work out very well for the best.

I know what you mean, Riven, but I guess as couples we should add up what we both earn and see if childcare is affordable.

Not just ask if the woman's salary nmakes it worth it.

But I do know that many women do it that way, and the answer is often no.

Maybe Xenai's right and we should all aim to earn more...

How exactly is it going to be good for women to earn stuff-all? Which is what school-hours jobs pay.

I can imagine that it might be good for husbands. I can construct arguments that it might be good for children.

But good for women? Nah. It's about pushing women back into the home and them being unpaid 'carers' dutifully doing the Stepford thing for their husbands.

Obviously I agree with Q. Let's make the men compromise, do the dishes, collect from school and deal with chidlren when sick and we can work home and swan home to happy cleaned children and enjoy our high pay. Take it from me it's much the better course to take.

We can certainly all aim to earn more. Who doesn't? I just wonder where people think all these high paying jobs are going to come from.

I had a coffee with DH in Costa this afternoon. He offered to share a cake. I've never been known to say no to cake, so I agreed. I looked at the muffins. I discounted the chocolate muffins because I know that DH hates all things that are made out of chocolate. So I suggested the blueberry muffin. DH (and he truly is dear) negatived this and suggested the granola bar. So I said yes

But here's the thing. I hated the granola bar. It tasted yuck as I suspected it would. And I had one bite and DH scoffed the rest.

I am a career woman. Frankly I earn far more than my DH. Yet I still deferred to him and allowed him to have his choice of cake without any reference to my wants.

And this is what many many other women do with their lives in far more important issues than a choice of cake. Giving up on their own wants needs and career aspirations. In many more significant ways. I know that. Surely this government should be trying to redress that balance. Not trying to push us back even further.

Good lord, I can't imagine ever deferring to my dp on my choice of cake. How extraordinary.

However the career thing is not always a matter of deference but more often a practical choice: as we all know, equally well-qualified women earn less than men on average, so when a couple have children and want to reduce their combined hours it often makes more sense as a household to safeguard the higher income and reduce the hours of the lower income. The result in a vicious cycle of course, but there is no obvious solution.

well my dh would happily swap roles with me, but frankly i don't want to take on the stress he takes on at work. he's getting picked up in half an hour to spend the night in a hotel at stansted before getting on a flight at 6am (so at the airport at 4.45)
no thanks.

what i won't do though is take on all the stress of a (Part time) job AND do everything at home/childcare wise too... which is what would happen if i worked and dh carried on in his existing job. It's not as simple as just swapping places. It has got to be about BOTH parents sharing the responsibility for the home, work/income and childcare. That isn't possible for many in today's workplace.

my sister works ft and frankly her children are left to fend for themselves. i don't want that.

ZD - this is possibly a debate for the wonkers - but no, I don't think marriage has much to do with it. I think it is a product of the way women are conditioned to think of everyone else in the family first. And frankly given that sort of background, what we absolutely DON'T need is more repressive stuff from the Centre for Policy Studies.

Dear God, we all theoretically believe in equality but does it happen in practice? Does it zip. We are paid on average 20% less for undertaking the same work. How can they produce this sort of 'study'.

Yes that's true. But perhaps those of us who never got round to getting married but rather fell in to family life have undergone a rather less complete conditioning process. I expect we'll all wind up the same way in the end though.

Actually I missed the fact that you were sharing the cake (couldn't get my head round the unfeasibly frugal concept of sharing a granola bar). Certainly in this case it is reasonable to defer to the other party 50% of the time.

Anyway, the serious issue behind all this is just too awful to contemplate really, which is that Cameron's Big Society essentially means women leaving the work place and rolling up their sleeves to do the country's mopping up for nothing.

Q, I don't agree. not all womemn are like that. In many marriages both might think the same - give up their cake for the other but I doubt they are all Stepford wife, never disagree with a man etc like that Kirsty A lady was saying the other day as the recipe for her keeping her husband (she's a second wife so presumably has to try to appear better than the first).

By all means both in a couple be nice to the other (very very important) and put yourself out for the other but which women feel that shoudl be done but not reciprocated? They are idiots if they accept that kind of unfair deal.

So these women giving up career ch oices they are stupid aren't they? They are ensuring the family has little money and their daughters regard women's work as pin mnoey and that men come above women. We need to stamp these women right out surely, make it our life's work to do so. They have no place in modern Britain.

Xenia, I am truly amazed that you seem to feel so warmly towards the Coalition. What on earth do you think they want from women? Who do you think they were expecting to run the Big Society for no wages? You'd be better off lobbying them and their Tory thinktank people than preaching to us.