If you are fed up of the WOHM vs SAHM debate (I know I am) DO NOT open the News Review bit of the Sunday Times....

[foxinsocks]

just don't do it

I think it is wonderful that the Times doing its bit for the employment. I thing employing a retard to write articles instead of an educated one who articulates is wonderful. care in the community must be very proud!

so knackered from my self indulgent sahm life I cant even write properly. oh my poor perfect mum halo will never recover.

magicfarawaytree - I think your use of the work 'retard' is shocking! You should be ashamed of yourself

why?

well try reading this for starters!

I see where you are coming from - didnt see that discussion. If you look in a dictionary there is are definitions for 'retard' being someone stupid, obtuse as oppsosed to a metal/special needs context. Apologies for any offence this comment may have caused.

Ilovedolly, I have 2 or 3 CVs and I tailor them according to what the job requires. I play down my qualifications if I'm going for an admin job, and it seems to work.
caligula

doile yes a good strategy but there's only so much I can leave off and then I RUIN it by going to the interview and using long words. sigh anyway I have now given up on the depressing job hunt where I get turned down too much and, eschewing (see?) guilt trying to enjoy FT babylife much to dismay of DH who wants me out there earning him golf clubs money

Do you know what. I honestly don't think anyone could make as good a job of bringing up my children as I do. I won't say I'd bring up anyone else's children as well, but I know my kids inside out, am totally devoted to them (though I work p/t) and I think I'm really good at it. Yes I shout sometimes and get tired and bored and fed up, yet I still think I do a bloody good job. I do not think they would be better off with a qualified nanny or a nursery. I think they are better off with me. So there!
Yes, I can think of lots of very good reasons why you might work when your children are small. Financial necessity, a passionate love of your job, a need for a break, yes. But to say you work because you think your children are better off without you seems really sad and lacking in self-esteem to me.

I am full of imperfections. I would never suggest I could bring up my children better than anyone but I am bringing them up. Just because I work full time doesn't mean I don't bring them up.

We need to see a lot more advantages to children of mothers working articles, probably about 80% more to right the balance of the biased get mothers back into the home press coverage we have seen so much of in the last few years. Thank goodness we have a free press.

Over parenting has a lot of issues attached to it too .

..some of her lines were absolutely brilliant.

"There is a growing trend for middle-class women to sacrifice their independence at the altar of their children?s pleasure."

Thank goodness we have a free press and once in a while the it may not do children good for mothers not to work argument is actually allowed to be put.

I'd love to see the evidence for all this sudden craze to criticise so-called 'over parenting', because I don't see any. I think it's a big myth.

that is tongue in cheek isnt it xenia? isnt altrusim terrible. In the context of this article being a working mum is really about - the I'm just a me more me me me me me, credit card, materialism, tv dinners, speed dating, children out of a test-tube by my self, child farmed out to other while I just get my 6 figure salary, and fit in therapy before I do the school run! type mum. actually I've just remembered I've out sourced the school run. dahliiiiing and i must get dc to call me ma'am not mum far more pc. And before anyone say anything - these are not my views just what I belive the reverse side of the coin would be written about wohm if written in the same manner.

We have been talking about this constant need to criticise others choices
here

1. What I mean is working doesn't mean selfish and not giving. Fathers are giving who work jolly hard and a decent standard of living helps children.

1. Some mothers do over parent. 3 of my children (I've always worked) are just about grown up now and they have skills children of non working mothers don't have in some areas, a confidence about life and managing others don't because they've done things alone simply because we weren't there to do some of those things. In other words the fact we both worked benefited them in the way Daisy W points out in the article.

1. Don't give up work because it's better for the children. It often isn't or it's worse for them. It's not a selfless act. It's a self indulgent act because you want it. It will have no necessary good effect on the children who sometimes get a less happy mother apart from anything else.

1. All those other points on the other thread - women died so we can work and yet women still want to be unpaid domestic servants to men, men who often sleep around (see other threads) see the money as theirs and leave you in poverty because you can't support yourself, when they divorce you. In other words you are risking your own future financial position but also that of your children because of the economic dependence (sadly a lot of men disappear and don't pay on divorce).

women died so that we could have equal rights actually. altruism doesnt have a £ sign.

One of my best friends is dynamic career woman with full time job & 2 kids at boarding school.

I stayed at home for 12 years before taking part time job.

We respect each other for the sacrifices that we have each made in our own way.

One day she asked me what my opinion was re: why working & non working mums hate each other so much.

My only answer is that we're each jealous of what the other has.

Xenia to deal with your points one by one

1. Obviously working doesn't necessarily mean selfish

1. What skills do your children have which the children of WOHM's don't have, and do you think that those skills are ones they would have had anyway, whether you wohmed or sahmed? And do you think all these other children who don't have those skills, don't have them purely and simply because their mothers were SAHMs? And do you think children of SAHMs are permanently condemned not to have these skills and will therefore walk through life without requisite necessary skills?

3."It's not a selfless act. It's a self indulgent act because you want it." Ahem. That's about as reasonable as saying that WOHM's are selfish. It's also pretty damned offensive actually, because many mothers give up work not because they actively want to, but because it's the only way they can function as mothers because most employers are still too damned benighted to take a root and branch look at their employment practices and offer a reasonable work-life balance. Calling women self-indulgent because they've given up in some cases much loved careers, is just wrong imo.

1. "Women died so we can work". What? We have always worked. Most women on earth for most of history, have done most of the work. Most of the struggles which women in the working class movement undertook, weren't demanding the right to work more, they were demanding the right to work less and for more money in better conditions. Who are these women who died so that other women could work? When? Names and dates please.

"they have skills children of non working mothers don't have"

How on earth do you know that? Do you know all children of all SAHM mothers?

And I agree with caligula, to accuse SAHM's of self-indulgence for staying at home is very wrong, IMO.

As others have said, why can't we all get to a point where we respect and support each other in the choices we make, whichever they may be?

Am still grinning broadly at Caligula's post having read it twice. Very well said IMO.

Thank you ma'am

yes well put wbcaligula

I don't think there's that much disagreement here really.

Skills..... DW's point was some SAHM put too much into it, the perfect child who doesn't know how to use a bus or work out the london underground timetable when they're 15 etc.... You can't generalise but some chidren are too fussed over so they don't learn to organise to get their school stuff out on their own (because their parents are both leaving early for business trips), don't know how to use public transport, haven't learnt how to self protect in public slightly dangerous places, can't cook for themselves because mummy always does it. It's not a major issue between SAHM and working of course.

I think the nub of DW's and my point is perhaps "It's not a selfless act. It's a self indulgent act because you want it." In other words don't do the self sacrifice for the children. They won't thank you and they will be no better off. Do it because the domestic home and apple pie is what you've always loved and you like being at home with children and for you it feels the right thing to do and so much nicer than the horrible old office.

I'm not surprised you say it's "pretty damned offensive" because it gets to the heart of the issue - is it really worth what you give up personally and financially by staying home particularly if you don't enjoy being home that much. I would say no and get back to work. Those who made the choice, may be don't like it very much, perhaps have pressure from children and husband to stay home have to justify their decision.

"most employers are still too damned benighted"...No, no. Childcare is an issue for parents male and female to arrange. No reason in a free market economy why an employer should take decisions bad for their business to enable a father to leave at 2.30pm to meet the chidlren from school or a mother to go on the dot at 6pm so she can relieve the nanny. Make sure there is no sexism in your relationship with your man and he is as worried about the childcare as you. Don't marry men who aren't like that or things will never change.

"Women died so we can work". I have said on other threads women have always worked. I didn't repeat it on here but I certainly agree with you. In the UK some women starved themselves to death etc when they were trying to get the vote, rather than to work. So I was wrong there. It's certainly a pretty rum do if women work so hard for so long so they can run hedge funds and be surgeons and then those women marry richer men and give it all up to stay at home. But I suppose some women must just enjoy that. I can't understand them but I wouldn't interfere with their choices as long as their husbands have an equal choice and they are brought up and bring up their daughters to be aware women can work if they choose.

PMSL at article as well

OK you've expressed your points slightly differently now Xenia and I agree with some of them. However, i'd like to take you up on this childcare being only an issue for parents.

Flexible working isn't about childcare. It's about how we organise work. And since work is at the root of how we spend our time, produce our wealth and organise society, it is one of the big issues of all time and all soceities. It is about how we organise our lives as individuals, families, communities and wider society. To pretend that it is just about the relationship between couples is simply wrong and ignores history. Every generation in history before ours, has understood that the way we organise our working lives, whether that be by slavery, serfdom, closed shops, the eight hour day (and the struggle for that) is a political, social and economic issue, not just a domestic one. It's a reactionary stance to pretend that work and how we organise it is a trivial domestic matter, not a big political issue - one of the biggest there is, imo, because it affects nearly every other issue there is.