Toby Young - women don't want most childcare either

[Xenia]

Toby Young in today's Sunday Telegraph magazine Stella argues men do not want even more boring mindless childcare. Well nor do women. So the answer is have good careers as women and then you can avoid that dullness. It is not a gender issue. Clearing up sick is as boring for women as men. Lower earners may well be shunted into that dull stuff and to keep the higher earner man they have to do it but Mr Young needs to know plenty of women don't want to do more childcare either. I always thought two hours a day was pretty good including weekends. Too much more and you'd rather be doing other things.

Oh that One Good Hour sounds like the 1990's concept of "quality time".

But most men work full time so only see their Dcs at the weekend and in the evening. They dont seem to be critised for not spending enough time with their offspring.

Why do women get judged for doing exactly the same thing?

quality time is bullshit.
The important thing when raising kids is proximity.
Kids don't give a flying fuck about so called quality time.
They just want you, selfish little buggers.

fasterstronger - that was my point a minute ago - I think actually the more fathers take an equal share and really bond with small children the harder they will find it to spend less time. It's not society it's kids themselves wanting the time and proximity.

I get fed up with Xenia conflating looking after one's children and domestic drudgery. It is perfectly possible to have a cleaner (and other staff, if you really want) but think that parental time spent with their own children has a real value.

In general, although I agree with Xenia that it is important to have enough money to ensure the security of one's family, working 16 hours a day to make £500k to £1mio is not always fulfilling in many other ways (cultural, familial, intellectual...).

The pernicious thing about TY is he is saying "I don't like X about parenting so Ill push it off on someone else and tell them they should do it as realy they like it more and are better suited to it"

YY to this. This is James Delingpole's argument too. I hate it. I agree with all your post Miggsie.

Err, the term pay wall is in pretty widespread use, I've heard employees of the news groups use it.

Doctrine,

It is in general use, I agree, though I have no idea why. I suspect, though, that there are many terms in general use which you might object to and perceive as wrong.

Regardless of the term, I don't understand the vehement objection of many people to newspapers actually charging for their content, especially someone like Xenia who is aggressively pro free market.

I missed Xenia posting that she was against charging for news content - which post was that?

Bonsoir, plenty of posters use MN to discuss politics, news items, camping, fashion etc etc without posting about their personal lives. I'm sure that's to do with how they use the Internet, not how happy they are.

You missed it because I have never said that. It seems to have become common parlance to call the Times (and now the Telegraph)'s system a "paywall". It is a pay wall and as a greedy little free market capitalist I have no problem with payment for writing. I wrote 30 books. I am paid every week for writing. I am not sure I would have written them if there were no fee.

Nor do I think the word paywall is derogatory. You pay to read the content therefore it's paywall. It does not mean you disagree with it and I do pay for the Times as that's the paper I have delivered. I don't think I'll bother with the Telegraph on line.

This is typical - people form this view of Xenia - that I "despise" particularly people or am against pay walls and it is utterly in accurate but it is said again and again and those reading those arguably libellous posts then form their view that I am against pay walls or whatever.

Libellous?! Falsely (although I think it is implicit from your much earlier post about linking) claiming that you are against pay walls? Please sue me if you fancy your chances, however.

I still find the term paywall completely bizarre. Where is the "wall"? No one has ever claimed a printed copy of a newspaper is behind a "paywall" although most newsagents don't adore people reading the sale stock without paying for it. Are lawyers behind a paywall because they charge to give you their opinions?

By the way, beware illeism (referring to oneself in the third person). It can be a symptom of narcissism and/or megalomania.

OMG doesn't everyone call them paywalls?

Paywall is probably derived from firewall.

Xenia expressed mild frustration that she couldn't post comments on the TY article (you know, the one this thread is nominally about) because of the new paid firewall.

That's not being against pay walls. I'm not against the museum of thimbles charging £5 entry fee when it was previously free, I just choose not to pay it whilst perhaps having a small moan that I can't shelter from the rain in there any more.

Paywall is common parlance. Just as 'paid for titles' and 'free titles' are common parlance with newspapers.

Utterly confused now. Paywalls are called paywalls. It's just what they are called. There's no judgment attached.

Is it possible to libel someone on the Internet when I have no clue as to their true identity?

How does one sue me for defamation of character when I can't possibly know whose character I have defamed? Xenia could be Justin Beiber, Bruce Forsythe, Julia Roberts or Catherine Tate for all I know (plenty of online posts are pure lies so no compelling reason for me to 100% believe she isn't any of them).

this argument always gets so incredibly personal. people accusing xenia of having a crappy home life want to take a hard look at themselves- how could you possibly know, and how could it be relevant?

fwiw i expect nearly everyone has children with the man they think will be a good father, or who at least they hope will grow in to it. i can't imagine there is a large group of women thinking 'well, he is a bad'un and will probably screw me over the first chance he gets but i will have children with him anyway'

thing is, your certainties, your hopes your judgement of character are no insurance against the future

childhood is short, and the rest of life is so long- true indeed. that cuts both ways however.

I agree with acceptablein80s.
It is very simple - all women are different. I too would find being a solicitor as dull as ditchwater and I don't find childcare dull- there is nothing wrong with either view so I don't see why it can't be accepted that we can all have choice.

And if we are not much bothered about money and material possessions we equally entitled to live that way.

So some women prefer not to work, or to work in low paid but rewarding jobs, but what about the vast numbers of women in the UK who do boring, dead end jobs to pay the bills, with little thanks at home.

I am on a train but the UN figures say something like across the world women do 60% of the worlds work and own 10% of the world wealth.

and they are not choosing to do lower remunerated work for a greater life satisfaction. As a sex we ARE the second sex. to focus on you own life and claim it fine and it is simply a personal matter for couples is to miss the fucking point entirely.

We are the second sex and that matters.

I think it was you who said that people dont complain when men see their kids for 2 hours including weekends.
I,for one, would.
Even dads who work 80 hour weeks can still manage better than that.

Yes, we are the second sex.
But unless you kill all of them, or you are a very rare woman who can get a man to do just about anything, it can only change gradually.

I think I read recently that men are now doing 50% of the housework?
That is a huge leap from even 40 years ago.
Mind you, I think that is partly because there are now more office type jobs.
I shouldnt think, that in tribes of hunter gathers, and areas that still rely on man's strength and stamina to catch food, that there has been much of a cultural shift!

Rome was not built in a day.

"I know plenty of middle-aged divorcees who talk about nothing but work and are disparaging about domesticity and the raising of DC. They have tense relationships with their exHs who are generally pretty rubbish fathers. Their self-esteem is rock bottom but they absolutely refuse any suggestion that they should relax their uncompromising position on the comforts and pleasures of life. They never, ever find another man."
Perhaps you should turn your powers of penetration, such as they are, on people who come on websites and make all kinds of venomous, unwarranted assertions about the personal lives of people they have never met. I think that's behaviour which is ripe for analysis, myself.

In countries where Buddhism is practised widely, domestic chores are often used as a means of connecting with the spirit and the present moment.

Our relationship to domestic chores is somewhat different in the West but sometimes I do wonder if there isn't a bit of arrogance in the dismissal of childrearing as "drudgery". I'm not asking anyone to find wiping up baby sick endearing or to enjoy telling their toddler to stop trying to murder their infant sibling but I think there is an incredible failure of imagination happening where all child rearing activities are seen as mundane, dull, stultifying whatever.

I also don't really understand how anyone is qualified to comment on the validity of another women choosing a different path to the one they chose themselves. With all due respect Xenia, you were back at work when your children were a few weeks old: how do you know that spending more time with them would have been as dull as you believe and/or that "most women" who work feel the same? Perhaps, yes.. but perhaps not, too. You don't and can't know. It really doesn't matter, either. The choice to work in a different way just wasn't for you in the same way that your lifestyle isn't for other women. Vivre la difference.

Vive