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

Skills-schmills, I've said this on another thread, but if you had seen me at the ages of 11 and 15 and compared me to my friend, I was streets ahead of her in knowing the underground and the West End of London like the back of my hand because I roamed them, alone, while my mum was at work in the school holidays. But if you'd compared us again at 20 and 25 there would have been no difference - she'd caught up, and she hadn't had to risk her life to do so.

I aim to work only when my children are at school, not because I'm self-indulgent, but because when DS1 is 18, 20, 25, he won't want to spend time with me - he'll have his own life. I've ONLY GOT these years - this is my one shot to enjoy my children's company, and I'm not going to look back when he is grown up and wish I'd worked till 6 o'clock every day. I realise I'm very lucky to be able to make that choice and I don't condemn or patronise anyone who chooses differently - I respect them
Obviously DS2 is another matter.

Good point Droile. It's a bit like those mad mums who think the fact that their child can walk a month before the neighbour's child, means something.

That's the crux of it droile. I for one would love to give up work so that I can spend more time with my LOs. Not really sure what would benefit them more, working or not working. But I know I only get one chance to make the right decision.

As regards the OP, I thought she was being sarcastic and trying to be funny.

Come on Xenia, show yourself - are you Daisy Waugh??

Bibliophile QUOTE "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."

Well put.

In the past, all work was regarded as such, whether that be in the home, child rearing or agricultural work, before industrialisation. Then became urbanisation and the seperation of the private sphere of home and the public world of work. When industry took over and people became 'wage slaves', work came to be defined as what was done outside the home. But work is work inside it too. If we don't do it, we would have to pay someone else.

For all those devaluing SAHP, you are also devaluing nursery staff etc; if, as one poster said, all you really need to do is be in the background. What's the point in having trained staff then? No wonder childcare workers are paid so little if they aren't doing much.

I have been both SAHM and WOHM, I find my kids are happier with me SAH, but I also am studying for a degree. DH is enabled in his job by me being home also. We are all happier.

Well put jellybeans, esp re nursery staff. I think certain people would be rather annoyed if they came home and found their nanny had been running a business on the side because there wasn't enough for her to do.

i was thinking about this today. and the question i really really want to ask is - to both 'sides' as it were - how are you so sure that you are right?

i dont mean that what you are doing is what is best for you and your family, but that your way is better practically, emotionally and morally for every family. because i dont feel that way about almost anything. i certainly dont feel so sure that my way is best, that i would ever suggest other people are wrong for doing something different.

and, also, if you are sure, are you so sure about other things in your life? what are they?

LOL. How comes it's good enough to pay for when a nanny does it? And it's not as if they come cheap - in some areas, just to hang on to a good nanny, you have to give the fuckers three months holiday, a car with better features than the one you use, and unlimited use of your husband. And yet it's rubbish if a mother does it for free. I really have never understood that - it must be something to do with valuing stuff you have to pay for more.

I don't think it's right for everyone else. To each his own. I'm just answering those posters who don't seem to know what one does with a child 'all day', or why. I do think some people might get a shock when their children reach adulthood and realise it's all gone. That's not really being 'always right', it's just an educated guess that this may turn out to be the case.

I don't think I'm on one side or the other either, as I've spanned all sides. I work P/T, and on the odd weeks when I've had to work F/T, it hasn't worked very well for us. I don't think many of us have said that our way is best practically, emotionally and morally for every family - but when someone suggests that it's self-indulgent to want to stay at home, I think it's only human to want to answer the post giving one's own reasons why it isn't.

Caligula has hit the nail on the head. The implication is that being at home with children isn't 'doing much' and isn't worth much. I disagree with that and I'm just saying so. I'm not saying that everyone should stay at home - I'm just saying that when we do, occasionally or often, stay at home, those hours will be the best job of work you will ever do and their effects will last for a couple of generations, if you're lucky. (Including, for those who work F/T, the time spent doing it at weekends)

I like what caligula and droile have to say. the nanny comment especially made me laugh. Remember the scene in sex in the city where she is trying as she put it ' score a good nanny'. I know a couple of people who have gone to extremes to for want of a better word seduce people whom they perceive to be good nannies. all that for the most self indulgent bum wipers (not my words) - after all if its bad to do when you have children, it must be even worse if they are not yours. many people I know go out to work for their sanity, they do it for them not necessarily because they need the money - if I followed that argument in the style of many posters that would be self indulgent surely. (again not my personal view) - my view, in general, is that anyone who feels that they can sit in jugdement on whether someone chooses to work ( yes work ) inside the home or out is speaking more about their own insecurities than the choices of others. These people are patronising peddlars of misery and insecurity. Yes I finally see the light, what a poor wretched soul I am. slave to the wipe and the washing machine. A mere shadow of the free minded amazonian that I was.... thank you masser for saving me. It reminds me of a great link I saw elsewhere on mnet. have a look at this

And as if by magic (must be a MNetter) Rosie Millard, the darling of middle class debt, is on page 10 of News Review this week, wibbling on about how to love-up and pamper your Nanny.... Why oh why does she have to display her children though? And aren't they all OBVIOUSLY watching the telly with said supernanny??!

"Just because I work full time doesn't mean I don't bring them up. " Well exactly. Who does if I don't I'd like to know . I also deeply resent the full-time mother label for SAHPs - implying that I'm not.

I was off work yesterday with a horrible cold. DS#1 woke up with a honking cough and a voice like Darth Vader so he stayed home with me. It was lovely. And everything went smoother - I was relaxed so could cope with post-school chaos. By 6 all the kids had been fed and the 2 older ones were doing their homework..that wouldn't happen on the days I'm at work. There is a lot to be said for being at home - a fact which I am constantly aware of - and I can assure anyone who cares to listen that I would like to be at home with my kids. It's not just a simple business of choosing to do either - most people don't have any choice.

lol eldestgirl - I saw that but noticed her son had a Chelsea shirt on so all is forgiven in my eyes!

oh dear....I read it

ROFL at that link, MagicFarawayTree. I particularly liked the first outraged letter which wasn't sure if it was a joke!

If you can look in the mirror, look yourself in the eye and say...

'I genuinely believe that I am doing my best for my children'

then you are doing the RIGHT thing.

Doesn't matter whether it's SAHM or WOHM, state or private school etc etc.

Everyone has different ideas - you just need to be true to yourself.

i so agree with caligula's point about the organisation of work impacting on all aspects of society.
i'm now a SAHM. when DD was born four years ago i gave up a full time job which paid £100+K and took up a different full time one which paid £27K.
My husband started his own business round about the time of DD's birth. in order for that to succeed, he had to work all hours and was largely unable to help with childcare, in particular nusery drop offs and pick ups.
the reason for my change of jobs: we live about an hour down the motorway from where i worked in job 1, longer if the traffic is bad. i would leave the house at about 6.45am and get back at 8pm. nurseries aren't open for all those hours which meant that the only childcare which would have worked for us was a full time nanny (live out, we don't have room for a live in). to be honest i didn't even try to find a nanny who would work those hours either, although i'm sure they exist. i lost my nerve at the thought of leaving DD alone all day with a nanny. i couldn't continue with job 1 but we needed some income while my husband got his business going, hence job 2.
theoretically, i could have continued with both of those jobs on a part time basis. however, in the case of job 1, my relative seniority would in my view have made that impossible. i was often the sole contact for key business projects, often dealing with the States and the business's need for my knowledge and expertise wouldn't just have stopped on my days off/if i went home early. as it happens, i did work part time from home for this employer for 5 months after DD was born and it was pretty much a nightmare for those reasons. i recall walking round the garden trying to do a conference call on my day off with DD overdue for a feed and in my arms, praying that she would keep quiet long enough for me to finish the call.
job 2 was stricly 9 to 5 and local, so i could manage nursery drop offs and pick ups. i could have continued there part time but the logistics of transport make it nigh on impossible. (there is no parking at work and i would need to use a park and ride. so my morning would be - drop DSs at nusery local to our house, drive into town to take DD to school, drive back out of town to the park and ride, get the park and ride back into (a different part of) town to work. and in reverse at night. plus, rather crucially, i'd be working at a financial loss given the scale of nusery fees. for me it doesn't stack up, hence SAHM.
which in fact i'm extremely happy about!!!

but look at what has taken me out of the workplace: a husband who although willing is unable to take responsibility for dropping off/collections of children (because we think/hope that his income is going to be worth the hours he puts in); originally, too long a working day - a combination of a long commute plus having a job which genuinely made flexible working difficult/impossible - but probably enough money to fund childcare if i wanted to work full time; then, having got rid of the long day by downshifting, not enough money to cover the childcare.

i don't know what your experience is, but there is a pattern emerging amongst my female friends who have children and reasonably highly paid jobs. almost to a women they have husbands who work long hours and earn as much/more than them. my friends have all gone part time after having children. they are lucky that the jobs pay well enough to make part time financially viable but inevitably there are fault lines appearing at work. they need to finish on the dot to pick up from nursery/childminder/relieve nanny; those with children at nursery/childminder have to take time off when the children are sick; other people need to pick up the slack; they're all thinking they're going to have to give up entirely when their children go to school.

so here is a clutch of women, who can't be entirely unrepresentative, all university educated and beyond, all having had senior jobs, all about to give up, probably permanently. think of the cost of educating us all!! does this matter? should we have gone into something different in the first place, something that lent itself to flexible working? is there such a job?????

OMG have jsut seen the length of my post.

Teaching & Nursing.

Bloody shame they don't pay what they deserve.

PPM, that's the point really, that women shouldn't have to go into a job sector which offers them flexibility - all job sectors should offer flexibility not just to women, but to men, and not just to parents, but to anyone who wants it for any reason, whether that be elderly parents who need looking after, a book that needs to be written, houses that need to be renovated, etc. As long as flexible working is just seen as a childcare/ women's issue, it will always be marginalised work.

With your job, could you not have job-shared? (I mean I know on a practical basis you couldn't have, because employers, clients etc. usually have a fit if you suggest it, but theoretically would it have been possible?)

IMO most jobs most of the time, lend themselves to flexi-time, job-share, working at home, etc. There are very few jobs which genuinely can't be done on a flexible basis.

i agree that it isn't and shouldn't only be regarded as a women and childcare issue. its certainly a carers issue too. i've got a bit less sympathy for the would-be novelist but i guess that some me-time is vital if we aren't all going to insane.
i did think about job sharing for job 1, but i was the only one with the expertise and we'd have had to have recruited someone else with the same skill set and wanting to work similarly limited hours. probably not insurmountable but difficult.
certainly the hours we seem to work, the distances we live from where we work/have our children in childcare, the cost of childcare and the impact of school hours and holidays just don't add up at the moment.
i haven't got a clue how it can be balanced out (and i'm not recommending a return to man as breadwinner and housewife at home going quietly loopy with the kids and a bottle of vodka!)
i know that at our local nhs hospital the attempt to balance it out has caused staffing difficulties. by giving flexible working to women with children - day shifts, school hours, school holidays off - they have created a problem because they have a smaller pool of staff willing to work night shifts, weekends etc etc. if they try to redress the balance by making all staff work both "social" and "antisocial" hours, they make it impossible for women with children to work and give them no choice but to leave. meanwhile, the others who either have no children or whose children have grown up are getting pissed off at coving the antisocial hours. i'm generalising but not massively. it has been a real problem for the hospital which was spending a huge amount on agency staff to cover the "antisocial" hours.

Caligula you are so right about flexible working.

In the other £250k thread I was genuinely shocked by a couple of comments on flexible working as it was seen as "opting out" and this is from the female managers who have children, so what on earth must the male managers or females without children think of the concept.

To my mind its the exact opposite, it is people trying to keep their skills & experience up to date and earn some valuable income but doing it in a way that acknowledges their out of work commitments as well and that does not necessarily need to be children.

If most employers genuinely valued their staff instead of just paying lip service to the statutory requirements then they would be going out of their way to make flexible arrangements work as it would create the most fantastically dedicated work force.

I was turned down for job share, or to be precise they offered to advertise it on a trial basis if I was prepared to go back into work on a f/t basis meanwhile, so effectively no one would apply. My job isn't rocket science and I am sure job share would have worked well and would have offered benefits to the company in the long term.

My experience is not uncommon from that of my friends although the public sector seems to be slightly better, it is so dependant on your individual managers thoughts on flexible working that they may as well not go to the bother of having the legislation.

Couldn't agree more Fortyplus!