Intensive mothers

[Xenia]

It seems pretty clear children benefit a lot if their mother has a good career and here is another piece of evidence of the damage housewives do to children:-

"Stay at home mothers are more likely to be unhappy than those who go out to work, according to new research.
Women who believe in "intensive parenting" are at risk of a range of mental illnesses including depression.

They think women are better parents than men, that mothering should be child centred and that children should be considered sacred and fulfilling.

This may put them in danger of suffering the 'parenthood paradox' where their ideology increases feelings of stress and guilt.

Psychologist Kathryn Rizzo, whose findings are published online in Springer's Journal of Child and Family Studies, said: "If intensive mothering is related to so many negative mental health outcomes, why do women do it?

"They may think that it makes them better mothers, so they are willing to sacrifice their own mental health to enhance their children's cognitive, social and emotional outcomes."
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She said parenting is a big task and requires a variety of skills and expertise. Many women rate the challenge as one of the most fulfilling experiences in life.

But some previous research has suggested it may be detrimental to mental health, with women reporting taking care of their children as more stressful than being at work.

So her team at the University of Mary Washington, Virginia, looked at whether intensive parenting in particular was linked to increased levels of stress, depression and lower life satisfaction among 181 mothers of children under five.

Using an online questionnaire, they found out to what extent the participants endorsed intensive parenting beliefs by measuring their responses to a series of statements.

These included "mothers are the most necessary and capable parent", "parents' happiness is derived primarily from their children" and "parents should always provide their children with stimulating activities that aid in their development".

Others were "parenting is more difficult than working" and "a parent should always sacrifice their needs for the needs of the child".

Overall, the women were satisfied with their lives but had moderate levels of stress and depression.

Almost one in four had symptoms of depression and these negative mental health outcomes were accounted for by their endorsement of intensive parenting attitudes.

When the level of family support was taken into account, those mothers who believed women are the essential parent were less satisfied with their lives. Those who believed that parenting is challenging were more stressed and depressed.

The researchers said overall, the women were satisfied with their lives but had moderate levels of stress and depression.

They added: "In reality, intensive parenting may have the opposite effect on children from what parents intend."

Earlier this year a study of more than 60,000 US mothers found 41 percent of those not in work experienced worry compared to 34 per cent of those employed.

And 28 per cent suffered depression, eleven per cent more than the others. Psychlogists fear the phenomenon is linked with feelings of isolation and a lack of fulfillment. "

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9381449/Stay-at-home-mothers-more-unhappy-than-those-who-work.html

In a law firm/engineering firm/accounting/financial services the ability to bring in clients is certainly half the game. The other half is doing the business the clients need done, and each aspect of the operation is valuable.

Most women in those two professions that I am familiar with tend to find their niche doing the work end of things, partly because they don't do the intense golfing and other forms of socialising necessary to draw the big ticket clients, and partly because they have recognised that this is the avenue where they can make their mark the best. There is also a dearth of women in the Big Client category -- they are perhaps less well able to deal with the group that constitutes the majority of big clients. There is a kind of circular logic here, with the exclusion of women from decision making status meaning that women in the sort of area where bringing in business is important can't be rainmakers.

The only exception to that sort of rule that I have known (in the legal and engineering arenas) were women who got heavily involved in political parties and drew business clients to their firms by that route. The rest of the women I have known in these areas tended not to be promoted to partner and tended not to partake of the spoils of partnership.

A company that values client fee-generation above the work produced for the clients will not really be able to afford women an equal playing field unless it fosters a culture where men as parents are equally expected to take the sort of time off offered to women and acknowledges the idea that all employees have responsibilities apart from those associated with work. The fee generation above all else model is a stone age model carried into a technologically sophisticated world. Schmoozing is the equivalent of the hunters driving the mammoths to the trap. Yes, you can't eat them unless you catch them, but equally, you can't eat them unless you know how to cook them and preserve them..

As things stand we see the world of the caveman coming face to face with modern society and modern women's expectations, not to mention the frequent necessity for families to have two incomes. There are challenges here that have never before been encountered. Either women are going to have to do things Xenia's way, embracing things as they are, with the resultant pushing out of women and their talent and experience and education from any contribution to an organisation's bottom line -- because families are always going to choose to have babies, maybe not as many as they used to but still enough to make the questions of wasted talent one that businesses and professions will need to deal with, as women now equal men in university graduation rates and surpass them in many countries.

The question the workplace needs to decide is how do we deal with the two facts that families (and not just women) have children, and that promotion and reward structures currently in place keep women feeling like second class employees in their professions (and less likely to make the huge effort required to stay on the partner track) and treated like second class employees when they don't or can't make the 110% effort required. The route to the top needs to be reassessed. So far, with the workplace immovable, women are the ones who have taken the detour or done what Xenia has done. If men were expected and allowed to make the parenting choice, I think the path to the top would have more entry points and a circuitous route for all would become more the norm.

That is why I think Xenia's insistence that the way forward for women is for women to farm out the childcare and embrace the status quo is misguided. What that does is force women to choose between the traditional man's path or the traditional women's path, while allowing men no opportunity to get off the gerbil wheel themselves. I think the way forward is for men to expected to take the same career breaks upon parenthood that women are expected, allowed and subtly encouraged to do.

Sorry for the essay.

'Lack of on ramps is not sexist. If men take years out and lose all skills and contacts they also find it hard to get back. That's just common sense.'

It really is sexist, and the assumption that a parenting break means you lose 99% of your brain cells and your interest in your profession is a huge leap of logic, on top of being very disparaging about the intellectual capacity of women and a massive assumption about their loss of skills and contacts.

Technology in medicine is advancing at the speed of light. Operating can be done by robots controlled at a remote location. What this means in many surgical specialties is that the skills of the surgeon who has never taken a parenting break are just as obsolete as those of one who has taken two years off. It is as easy for someone who has taken a career break to pick up those new skills as it is for those who have been there constantly. In any case, doctors are required to keep up their professional credentials regularly and participate in continuing ed whether they are currently working in the field or not if they are interested in remaining in the profession.

Math, I agree with your essay. Thanks for that. It is insightful.

I just disagree with the last bit. We need both: more women to go towards the traditional male path and more men to to take the traditional women path. If women continue to opt out in disproportionate numbers as they currently do, what need is there for greater numbers of men to take the main parental role if their wives are already doing it for them?

If women are to be equally as encouraged as men not to drop out, then men need to be pushed to do what women currently do. I think feminism needs to focus on changing men and on evening out the playing field to the extent that we are all playing the same game. This means men must play the traditional women's game and the game itself must change as a result.

If we were all expected to be equally parents (this is part of Xenia's idea that I agree with - and why should this not be so since mothers and fathers are all parents) then the career risks associated with parenthood and parental leave should fall equally on both men and women. This will only happen when the workplace either forces men outright to take parental leave, or when employers change their culture to expect men to take as much time off as women upon becoming parents -- either way, they will have to stop penalising it while disproportionately rewarding active duty and mammoth hunting and devaluing the nuts and bolts work involved, provide re-entry points, provide meaningful continuing education, and above all see men and women equally as parents and men and women equally as potential contributors.

Without forcing men into a role of parents there is too much temptation on the part of those at the top, who profit most, to be complacent about the status quo. People who are making millions are very likely to think they are doing so because their system works marvellously. They are not likely to look as hard at a win as at a loss to find out where they could do even better. Complacency arising from the status quo where things are jogging along nicely leads to massive waste of talent and underuse of human resources.

Math, I agree that we need to work on men too for all the reasons you mentioned.

My ideal would be to move towards a dual working family with working hours (and family time) shared out equally between both, rather than one parent spending a disproportionate time at home and the other at work.

Math, just to come back to off ramps and on ramps and loss of skills and contacts through extended time off work, I agree that it is more difficult for women to network, through no equivalent old girls network, lack of mentors, family commitments and time out.

Whilst I wish that the technical side of work can be seen as important as rainmaking, sadly in reality, that is not going to be the case because there will always be cheaper skills in the form mid-level junior staff who can be relied to churn out the work. For professional services, there is no point having technicians if there is no one bringing the work in. It is relatively easy to hire the technical skills, but it is the people who bring the work and clients that is the life blood of a firm that is phenomenally difficult to attract (because they can go anywhere and command the big earnings).

I don't think it is possible or realistic to force men or women to take maternity/paternity leave for anything other than a very short period of time unless the company/government was prepared to pay them at the equivalent salary for doing so, which would be unaffordable. So unless men are prepared to take voluntary extended paternity leave, they will still keep their skills/contacts notwithstanding children.

In the mega global firms that attract the talent and pay the handsome rewards, there will always be ambitious people who will be prepared to do all the schmoozing to get ahead. Technical skills are a given. Where women do not/are not good at rainmaking, it is difficult to see a case that they should be rewarded just for their technical skills to the same degree as the men who are rainmakers.

As for technology moving so quickly that even men's skills are outdated at any one point (you gave the example of a surgeon doing remote surgery), that may be so to a certain degree. But there is a huge difference between picking skills up from almost scratch after 5 years old as opposed to someone who is constantly doing professional development on the job. I don't think you can deny that. Again, it is hugely expensive to retrain a returning woman unless she took a pay cut and drop in seniority. That does not mean she not have that chance to begin with, which is what I would want to see more of from employers.

I totally agree with math about the strange disregard of the idea of actually using the amazing technology we have now to revolutionise the workplace, and make it possible to work without physically having to be there. Obviously, this wouldn't work in many fields, but there are many where it would, and does to a tiny extent, but the attitude of employers toward remote working is one of suspicion and reluctance.
I think that employers find it very hard to trust their employees and tend to treat them like children who will mis-behave when their teacher's back is turned.
Someone like me, who has lots of hours at various times in the day to work, but would not be able to put in a 10 hour day in one stretch in an office, would still be able to work those ten hours in the morning and early afternoon, and in the evening.
The whole culture of the way we work need to change. It did, for a time, in the early days of the internet, and I experienced this working in the US where most of my friends and acquaintances worked in internet businesses. My boyfriend at the time rolled into work at around 11 am and worked until 8 or 9 pm, or much later if he was on a deadline.
It suited him, and he got a lot done. The whole attitude of these new companies was really different to the 1950's model most companies still work to.
It was about the work, not just being a desk jockey.
Yes, men need to be expected to take parenting time from work, and work culture in itself needs a giant overhaul.

@nowthen iN my profession remote working is becoming much more common. When I began remote working, in 1997, I was very VERY unusual and I was only able to do it because I had a great boss and I was bloody good at my job. And it was clear that if they didn't let me, I would leave, because I was definitely getting married and moving to the arse end of nowhere. These days, I know many people in my profession, men as well as women, who do remote working some or most of the time. Some of them are doing it as a result of me doing it, some not. But it's not incredibly rare any more. Which is a Good Thing.

I stay at home with my daughter and am a childminder, so have a career and bring up my daughter, but she is not indulged, wrapped in cotton wool, pandered to. I believe that children benefit from happy loving parents and if staying at home makes you miserable, go to work, and vice versa if circumstances allow. Some of the depression may be down to the lack of acknowledgement that the bringing up of children is a worthwile, legitimate and important job

Blueshoes, I think now that we are in the age of FB and Linkdin, etc, it is going to be far easier for women to make and keep networks. Social networking is another example of the potential of technology that is ignored in favour of the dragging home the mammoth through golfing model.

I very much doubt if any sort of serious cost benefit analysis has ever been done on the wisdom of seeing a large amount of the talent hired in various professions go to waste, given the sort of irrational response to technology that has been prevalent for the last 30 years. I suspect there is a grumpy 'seems the wimmin don't want to work after all' attitude on the part of a boardroom full of old gimmers in most professions. Very short sighted in other words, and behind it I suspect lies not rationality but an old fashioned tendency to feel that men are somehow biologically or intellectually suited to the workplace and women are not.

Globalisation will hopefully render the '8am to 7pm' facetime-style office redundant, as we will increasingly be working with and for people who are physically on the other side of the world. We are living and working in an age of rapid transition. Business leaders who do not embrace technology in all its implications, or globalisation and its potential, will go the way of the dodo. It shocked me to see Xenia's association of workplace status earned from years of putting in time with working remotely. But then I also have experience of working in the US, and a sister and BIL in IT in Ireland who work all kinds of funny hours, plus cousins who work very profitably in international marketing, from home in the depths of the Irish countryside, and a cousin's wife who will be keeping her hand in in her accountancy career from home while taking a year off after adopting.

@math I don't quite understand your last point. Xenia has said many times that she works from home a lot. She has also said that when it wasn't happening for her in her previous firm (which I think some people assume was MC but who knows, really) she started her own firm. I don't see what there is to be shocked about? Also, your prediction that 'we will be increasingly working with and for people who are physically on the other side of the world'? That's quite old news. It's been my reality since 2001. I'm not unusual.

She associated it explicitly in this thread with her status in her firm. She didn't say it was a response to a rational need, enabling her firm to meet a deadline, or whether it might inspire others to do the same or create a new model of doing business, for all her claims to be a pioneer. She claimed it was because of her status.

It has been my observation that remote work, sitting on the beach with your laptop clicking away or your phone glued to your ear has become the new way of announcing you have arrived in your profession along with the old fashioned bespoke suits and expensive car. Sadly but perhaps predictably, status seeking on the part of those climbing the greasy pole has been allowed to get in the way of more rational use of technology, including involving women in the workforce via remote work.

The globalisation trend is only likely to increase.

She associated what with her status?

I'm afraid that your observations do not match my actual experience.

She associated being able to work remotely while on holiday next week with her status in her firm. She apparently gets to do this because she is at the top of her profession within her firm.

While thinking about the idea of rainmakers deserving to be valued more highly than the dogsbodies, a few thoughts struck me..

What this system has traditionally done is reserve the capacity to make huge salaries/partnership profits to those already born with a silver spoon in their mouths. In effect, racial and ethnic minorities and the socio-economically deprived and other traditionally ostracised groups were traditionally excluded from the partner track, along with women. Unless diversity in the workplacewas seen as something valuable in and of itself, why would a silk stocking law firm for instance, bother employing a black or asian man, let alone a black or asian woman?

Interestingly, in the US, Jews and the Irish got around the wasp aversion to them as legal employees or partners by setting up their own law firms and prospering. Technology now offers women and racial minorities the chance to do pretty well on their own, set their own rules in their own workplaces, and carve out their own clientele using whatever means they find to hand that work for them.

Globalisation will increase the pressure to open doors for people who do not share the white anglo saxon male profile. Not every international client will like to have to use translators in order to conduct communication with an engineering or legal or consultancy firm based on London or New York or elsewhere in the west.

So will technology, as potential clients and potential employees will be able to tell lots about the nature of torganisations by perusing their websites, and looking at their roster of employees and partners. Well qualified women or non-white graduates are likely to see a layer of middle aged white males at the top and think twice about their prospects. Word about the culture of various different firms travels much faster and much further afield these days via FB and other channels, and it is harder to hide a glass ceiling than it used to be even without rules enforcing silence on the matter of salary. Organisations that want to attract the best graduates, the brightest intellects, and who realise the talent can go anywhere else in the world, will be forced to do what it takes to attract and retain the sort of faces and language skills that they need to make themselves relevant.

The other thing that makes firms conscious of their makeup and policies is legislation and the imposition of penalties for discrimination. The importance of legislation can't be understated. It creates a momentum of its own.

*even with rules enforcing...

I worked in a child care center where most of the children had both parents working high paying jobs, and then I was a nanny for a family where both parents worked. I cared for the boys every day and then often stayed overnight with them when their parents were gone on business trips. When I later cared for children in my own home I allowed working parents to drop off and pick up their children at any time, no judgement, no questions asked, no late fees. My job helped make theirs possible.

Now that I'm not doing paid employment (well, a few evenings a week at the movie theater :) ) I watch my friend's children a few days a week as she has her own business and no childcare. And this autumn I will pick my niece up from preschool so that my BIL and SIL don't have to leave work to do it.

So is that enough? Am I allowed to stay home with my children until they're in kindergarten now? Are my damages off set? Am I required to "aim high" because my IQ is above the number Xenia mentioned as average (even though I had no idea I could listen to Radio 4 in America, Metabilis :o) or can I fill my days taking care of children and visiting lonely older people in the care home as I really want to?

I am not idle. I am not bored or unhappy. And I am damn well not damaging my child.

I can't believe this thread is 38 pages long and that, apparently, Xenia's very, very high powered job and 5 children allow her this much time to yabber on, on Mumsnet. I'm a SAHM with 4 children and a) I don't feel the need to validate my existence on MN and b) Don't have the time to validate my existence on MN.

That has got nothing at all to do with the SAHM V WM debate. Which is all bllcks anyway!

maths I think Xenia's point was that not all jobs allow you the flexibility that many posters on this thread are saying they desire, to organise their working hours to suit them. Her 'status' as business owner permits this. So does being relatively senior in 'knowledge' jobs that do not need to be done at a specific time at a specific location (shopfloor) but, subject to deadlines, can be performed anywhere with a laptop connection. This is an advantage of 'aiming high' in such jobs - you may have to put in lots of hours, but you can take the afternoon off to watch a nativity play and make up the time at the kitchen table later without having to account to anyone.

There is nothing to prevent anyone in the legal profession from working remotely except having to be in court at a certain time and place. You don't have to be the managing partner or the fount of all knowledge to 'achieve' this.

My point is that you don't have to aim high or put in lots and lots of hours until you finally get to the stage where you are allowed the reward of working while on holiday; it is very short sighted to co-opt technology into the existing model and not try to see where its potential could lead you even if the changes it offers would completely upscuttle your old way of conducting your business. You might also have to let go of your idea that employees need someone breathing down their necks in order to extract work from them, and all sorts of other suspicions and controlling tendencies.

Yes, there are hands on jobs that for the moment require the presence of a person, but they are in decline as mechanisation inexorably takes over. Even supermarkets are gradually squeezing out cashiers.

@math I'm sorry, as I suspected you have missed the point. Xenia is her own firm. She works for herself. She has no 'status within her firm', she is the firm.

It seems to me as if you are either posting from about 10 years ago, or from a non east coast city in the US. Am I right?

I'm not sure I understand your point maths. My experience is that it is very difficult for very junior workers in the legal profession to work remotely (unless you count the hours done at home after a full day of office presenteeism). I think this is partly because of the suspicious and controlling tendencies you refer to, and partly because of the need for continuing supervision and learning through watching more experienced people in action. The hours/years put in and knowledge built up can ultimately lead to greater freedom to arrange your working pattern (disclaimer: I understand this might not be the case if you are an MC firm partner)

I agree that we shouldn't all be thrilled by the prospect of being able to work on holiday. However, that same technology and flexibility has enabled me to work at home when children are sick, attend school events etc. Even if I have to put the kids to bed then open the laptop to finish off some work, I prefer that trade-off to an alternative working pattern of being fixed to a desk for 10 hour stretches as NowthenWreck said earlier.

I think Maths is merely saying that not all jobs offer such flexibility, but that many could. Or something. But what do I know? After all I have always lived entirely in non east coast cities in the US. :o

Metabilis you are coming across as a tad rude on this thread tbh! Surely it's obvious what Math is getting at? Xenia may well have flexibility now that she is at the top, but why shouldn't that flexibility be extended to workers at all levels where possible? Otherwise you have to sacrifice hours and years of presenteeism, missing the majority of your children's landmarks, for the ability to work flexibly later.

And that would be why you don't know about listening to R4 on the Internet when everyone on the easy coast does. Not all jobs do offer such flexibility but in my experience many and more do, and have done for some time. And in that time (since flexible working became pretty common) I've worked in NY (technically. In fact, I was in Devon, as I always am, although there were regular (6weekly) trips to NY). That's my point - math is talking aout things that might happen in the future when actually, they have already happened for many many workers in the past. She is talking about developments that are no longer new - yes, some professions don't lend themselves to new models of working and some are laggardly in following the trend but as I said, many and more have been there for some years. But I know this isn't the case all over the US - I was in Dallas in may and some of my colleagues from more internal bits of the states were amazed at the working models followed by me and my European colleagues and the people from NY and San Francisco (which I know is on the west coast not the east). It was genuinely like talking to people from 15 years ago.