Labour will base advice service on MUMSNET!

[Blu]

here

Although I am pretty outraged at the thinking around the 'shift parenting'. yes, another thing to feel criticised over - DP and I have run ourselves ragged to ensure that DS gets as much time as possible with us in our as a two-parents-woh family, shift parenting so that we can take it in turns to pick him up from school etc. There is more than one way of looking at this, and they could maybe start with the finances....house prices and stamp duty etc. It's all very well demanding that employers allow parents to work reduced hours, but if you can't manage on a reduced salary, that's not going to help.

I've got an idea to help all of us 'shift parents'. It's simple, too.

STOP TAXING US TO HIGH HEAVEN FOR F*CKING EVERYTHING!

Power companies are pulling record profits. But power bills are up some 38% in one year.

Paying huge VAT just to keep the water hot. What is that?

Labour economic policies have allowed house prices to go through the roof, and rents have of course had a knock on effect.

This whole myth that most women put of childbearing b/c they want 'career advancement' is the biggest load of BS I've heard since Ronald Regan was President.

Most do it b/c a) the dearth of mature men out there b) does eeking a living count as 'career'.

I'd be willing to bet what money we have left over at the end of the month - probably a whole fiver - that most people who shift parent do so just to keep food on the table.

But what do we get from Labour?

More spin.

I won't even get started on the TRAITOR Gordon Brown.

FFS! Do they think that parents do shift parenting because they want to?!

Abolish stamp duty for...well, just for me would be a start...

Will write more later if Harriet is going to be reading this

If she wants families like ours to bond (or at least 4 of us, with the difficult one cared for safetly elsewhere) then she needs to stop the shutting of SN playschemes and acitivities (including adult daycentres etc) in favour of bloody inclusion. There are many many children and adults who cannot be included in mainstream activities and are getting more excluded every year as more and more services shut down.

Grrrr.

yes, hunker, they're doing it for the greater good of the economy and for 'career advancement'.

did any of these spin doctors EVER live in the real world?

our council is Labour run - for now. Labour's in real trouble up here, keep at eye out, Brown, the SNP is right behind ya! - and the amount of money they've wasted up here isn't true.

council tax keeps going up up up. higher than some London boroughs.

abolish the stiff VAT on basics like electricity.

They're in the proces of shutting down the one and only overnight respite centre for children with conditions such as severe autism in my city of over 1/4 million people. One was shut last year by Scope- that offered services to very severely disabled children.

keep shutting these things down and people in our situation have no choice but to shift parent.

Do you need more evidence that Darling Harriet IS Xenia...?.....and...vice versa!!

I thought Xenia was Margaret Thatcher .

Hi, I don't think mumsnet is the place for spin, so I'm not going to do it. But I should point out that when Harriet talked about shift parenting it was as something parents had no choice about because of need to work. It was certainly not intended as a criticism, rather an example of the problems parents faced.

Similarly the reference to delayed parenting was about how little choice many women have over the 'choices' we make.
If people are really interested I can try to get the whole speech posted up somewhere once it is made so you can read it for yourselves.

Millie - you're buddies with "Harriet"? Or a New Labour spinner?

I'm not employed by the Labour party or the government. I'm a friend of Harriet's who is working with her on this speech because I happen to agree with what she is saying.

I don't want to use this discussion to try to promote Harriet because I don't think that is what mumsnet is about. But she is genuinely keen to hear from as many different people as possible and knows how many women gain support from mumsnet so it seems like a good place to start listening.

and...it's very important when there is a Deputy Leadership contest round the corner to seek the 'female vote' when another woman is about to stand...........

you know, you New Labour types are sooo transparent...

millie - I would be interested!

I DID despair when I saw that yet again my parenting as a working mother was up for question, and although we do need two salaries to afford a mortgage, I also DO care about my career, and my late parenthood was as much about the lack of suitable men as it was do do with finance or career.

Any new moves need to support the practicalites of being a parent (whether that be flexibility in hours or support for SN etc etc) , recognise that women do now have careers that don't stop on marriage / parenthood, and recognise the enormous impact of sky-high costs of housing for families. (the severe shortage of HA / LA housing against astronomical private rents and mortgages). tbh, I would have thought that 'shift parenting' was a fairly minor issue against some of the others, like huge cost of childcare, worry about lobg hours in nursery, ability to keep a roof over your head. After all - how many children get frequent quality time with BOTH parents simultaneously during the week? In my clasic 50's / 60's childhood, with Dad out at work and Mum a 'housewife', we NEVER had time with both parents during the week! Who did?

Ooooh, now can someone help me out here.

Does Harriet Harman use state schools for her children ?

Why is it that so many basic concepts that make sense from the Government - like families having time to spend together (perfectly sensible and desirable - end up being put across in such a way that everyone feels criticised, stereotyped even discriminated against??? I am fed up of common sense being mishandled to such a degree that the original sensible idea from obviously able and intelligent Government officials become mishandled and so badly implemented that it makes more mess than they started.

Justine and co. please don?t let the Government dabble in your website too much. I wouldn?t give them any control over any area - Mumsnet works because it is so open with no agenda to please or pacify. Perhaps they could pay you decent money for you to be their consultants and then leave them to their own little site to play with.

Hi fatfeet. yes. See

www.harrietharman.labour.co.uk/ViewPage.cfm?Page=19788

I will post a link to the speech when it has been made on Thursday.

I naturalised especially so I'd be eligible to vote against Gordon Brown. I can't wait! My fingers are itching to do it.

I ask because some parents are shift parenting not just to feed, clothe and house their families, some are having to do it to pay a mortgage on an overpriced property because it is in the right area for admission to a decent school.

Other families have both parents working in order to be able to afford private school fees to avoid their children having their learning potential stunted by being in a class with semi-feral children and/or taught by teachers who spend half their time on "crowd control" rather than teaching.

I like Harriet Harman. I work for an employer (govt dept) that is changing so much that shift parenting will become enforced for parents who don't want it. I'm glad she's highlighted the problem so we can use it during the "consultation" process.

Shift parenting is by no means a new phenomenon - when I was child lots of women did as my mum did and worked in the evenings leaving my dad to put us to bed. TBh i think it's more detrimental
to the marriage than the children.

And I think the fmailies I know who do this have more involved fathers than the norm which is surely a good thing?

We agree with the two parent ideal to such a point that we are almost bankrupting ourselves in the process. DH works from home freelancing - working such long and late hours so he can be with our children that he is on medication for stress and exhaustion. I am a SAHM and am lucky to be with our children a lot too. But - it is at such a price. We are in a tiny home with little chance of moving somewhere bigger on a 1 wage household. We would dearly love to have a third child but cannot afford a bigger home. With mortgage rates rising weekly, utility bills going up and up etc etc it is worrying us into an early grave. If the Govt. really truly wants to make it easier for families to spend time together then I want to see some real financial hard evidence of that before I can believe it because this country doesn?t seem particularly SAHM and SAHD friendly to me.

Agree that it harms the parents' relationship more than teh children

(sorry for hijack:
Expat why do you hate Gordon Brown so much? I have gone off him recently but only due to his dubious response to recent free speech/religious hatred - used to quite like him - apart from control freakery etc.)

I think this is very interesting - I gave up work nearly 3 years ago as we couldn't get the shift-parenting to work for us. I am about to start again, and the juggling and constant rushing around that is going to be involved has reminded me why I gave up in the first place.

Fatfeet - ime most families that have 2 working parents, do it just to afford to live. It is a particularly middle class reason to work to pay for school fees or an expensive mortgage. The whole education system is another (albeit connected) issue imo.

High house prices are killing the family in this country.

Not just b/c of mortgages but b/c of rents as well.