Sunday Times article about working women by India Knight.........

[ssd]

Did you read it and if you did what did you think?

FWIW I agree with her, will probably be stoned now.

I decided to be a SAHM when I was expecting dd1

thats why we downshifted to dorset and dh took the job he currently has (and didn't want at the time, but he took it so that i could stay at home, bless him)

unfortunately I didn't like being a SAHM full time, so went back to work a year or so ago, sorry dh

Blimey. A small enough price to pay to illuminate once and for all what a shallow, hypocritical bag of hot air she is... and yet somehow not worth it.

sorry bugsy crossposts
well i think tbh I wouldn't expect anything else on mumsnet... because most of us ARE women
so we talk about our lives
but tbh I do see lots of posts from women who are the breadwinners

dont get me started on 'me' time stinky

oh god I hate the term me-time
it just sounds awful
I hear it like someone is saying memememememe
sorry - rant
I have no idea what it might mean

But presumably HC you and your DH discuss childcare options etc for your children - these would not be decisions that one or other of you would take unilaterally?
This was what I was trying to get at - very badly quite clearly! That parents decided that their children will go to nursery or stay at home with mummy. It is not just mummy who decides this - or am I wrong?

we discuss it

but it is ultimately up to me, dh makes that quite clear

well again I can only speak for my own situation
yes we discussed child care options
yes we discussed work options
but whether I stay at home or work is my decision within the limits of our financial situation
I think in reality the decisions about childcare ARE taken by women ont he whole, so that is reflected here
not saying that is how it should be but this thread and mn generally relefts how it is and not how it should be IYSWIM

Enid I keep agreeing with you simultaneously so it looks like I am sucking up to you
it is NOT intentional

no carry on its great

I will say that I seem to rant on for about a paragraph and you sum it up in a few well chosen words
I am living up to my professional stereotype, how bout you

yes

was copywriter

I was paid by the word
can you tell

stinky we are just agreeing with each other all over the show at the mo

paid by the word

spent entire professional career having to weed out extra words

I hate the term "me" time but I do think that alot of women are particularly prone to allowing themselves to become the family slave. It is rare for a man to willingly give up his hobbies and yet so many women completely give up all their activities so that they can look after the family.
By giving up everything that we are interested in outside the family, we are sending out a message that what we used to do is less important that the things that men do. I am generalising a little here, as I do realise that some women with children retain their own activities - but I don't think I would be completely wrong if I said they were alot less common than men with children.

dh and I are totally equal

neither of us have any free time to do anything

no me too stinky

Not read everyone's posts but I am insulted but SSD's suggestion that because I work 5 days a week and send dd to nursery for 5 days a week - that as a result, I obviously cannot have a connection with her?!? What a load of crap that is..and how dare anyone who has no knowledge of my circumstances or my relationship with dd (or that of dd with my dh) feel they have a right to pass judgement on it!? .

As for SSD's suggestion that should she to work for 5 days a week, she would not know what to do with her children at the weekends?! Can somome explain to me how finding imaginative, creative and enjoyable things to do at the weekends is in any way different to doing it throughout the week. Can't see that that the swimming, cake making, feeding of ducks, painting and sticking that we did last weekend are particularly difficult to think of... myself.

I don't respond to posts like these, but these one had me really mad..probably something to do with my hormones...suppose I'm going to get publically flogged once no 2 arrives in 20 weeks time and I decide to put them in nursery too for 5 days a week from when they're 8 months old.....

I agree with enid and stiinky (again)
I am no one's slave
(though I certainly used to be a wage slave)
however I put family life first
so there we are

As it happens, my dh is the one who is at home at the moment. He got the opportunity to take a package a few years ago and we agreed that it was the rgiht one (he was about to resign anyway as he was fed up of the politics!).

We decided to leave ds in full time child care, so as not to disrupt ds who was happy & settled where he was. When he started nursery, it helped that dh was effectively working from home, as it meant he could drop him off and pick him up (childminder doens't do them) and take him to the childminder for the rest of the day.

Dh has been studying on a distance learning course and has now decided that he wants to get back in to the job market and so is also looking for a new job. When that happens, it will mean that we can decide if I can drop a day at work.

These are all mutual decisions. To me, that is part of what being married and committed to each other invloves.