In The Times today: Blind feminism has hurt our children

[twelveyeargap]

Blind feminism has hurt our children

But men and women aren't sexually neutral.

Thats why their are two sexes and not one. Parental investment is asymetrical from conception onwards

Quite right MT, why this seeking towards sexual neutrality?

What's wrong with the sexes being different?

They aren't in many ways people assume they are. The Victorians thought women's brains were so different they couldn't practise medicine or law. Men are just as good at changing a nappy, playing with a toddler etc as women. Some women and men want to perpetuate a myth for their own ends that men can't cook or change babies' nappies but they are deluding themselves and insulting all the stay at home fathers around the UK.

Yes, men and women differ. I agree but not in their ability to look after chidlren. Sadly most women give up breastfeeding very quickly in the UK so even that doesn't really help in saying women must be there for 12 months because all British mothers breastfeed for 12 months. A tiny tiny number do only. The new 6 months maternity and 6 months paternity leave will help a lot. So if a couple decide you need a blood link to a child to care for it well which is ludicrous nonsense, then mother can do the first 6 months and then father the second.

Well that?s just going from one absurd extreme to the other surely? I never asserted that men are no good at changing a nappy or cooking, or that I?m a closet Victorian who thinks women?s brains aren?t wired as well as mens. I?m insulting nobody. I said that there aren?t many divergences between the sexes, certainly not in intelligence but a massive divergence occurs with parental investment, from the moment a nutrient rich, limited resource of an egg meets a ubiquitous and, in comparison, tiny sperm and implants itself for 9 months in the female uterus. The sperm is technically all the investment a man needs to make. Human males actually provide a huge amount of post copulatory investment in comparison to other species ? but that?s a different subject.

After making that initial decision to be primary carer then there is no reason in the world why a man couldn?t excel at it, just as there is reason women can?t and don?t excel in the sciences when they make that decision. But the fact remains most men don?t make that decision and if they were given the choice most of them still wouldn?t.

Am reading your link Cloudhopper and one sentence struck me so forcibly:

"Having a child is now the single best predictor that a woman will end up in financial collapse."

Blimey.

Reading on...

My point C - that in fact women fail their children given the amount of marriage break up and men running off without paying anything, they fail their children by giving up work and never taking lucrative work in the first place whatever their indulgent views that they want work that is good not well paid - fine if you have a man as your cash cow but when he disappears as many do I bet there aren't that many chidlren over the moon mother earns a pittance.

And MT women are to blame for giving men that choice. The should say yes changing nappies can be deadly dull and yo'll get no thanks but it's not me sunny jim who's going to make all these sacrifices so you can swan around an office all day thinking you're God so here's the yellow pages - either look up nannies for your child or play groups for your new role as full time father - enjoy...

Re. Xenia's last post but one - that is a crucial point about feminism, and one lost on the Tory journalist of the OP's original article - that feminism is fundamentally about seeking equality for women. That happens to include equal access to education and skilled jobs.

I think people often forget how crap women's lives have been in the past, when domestic violence, marital rape etc were not viewed as crimes and when women were confined to the lowest paid jobs. It's only since 1921 that we have been allowed to vote fgs.

Women of our generation have a lot to thanks feminists for - we now have the luxury of making choices which our mother's couldn't make.

My dh has always prioritised his family over his career (though he does enjoy his job) had come home early, taken time off to look after the children etc. Was a single parent all week for several years to his first dd, and from Jan has worked from home and we share everything. But let's be totally frank, not all women want this. One of the reasons why Dh's ex left him was because he didn't earn enough money, and she left him for a much, much richer man who works all hours, often works weekends and travels a lot, but it means she doesn't have to work, lives in a massive house, has a lot more children etc etc, oh, and has very luxurious holidays.

Oh, and Oliver James is not a Tory Politician. He's a pyschologist.

Attachment is a word used to describe the quality of a childs relationship with primary caregiver. Early attachment has been proven over and over to be the indicator to adult attachment: i.e. if you are securely attached as a child, you have a much better chance of having a secure relationship with partner and children as well as other relationships, as an adult. The reverse is also the case, so if you are insecurely attached as a child, you have a much greater chance of insecure relationships as an adult, as well as much higher risk of mental illness, eating disorder, drug dependency...you name it.

Secure attachment is born of consistent, responsive caregiving by one or two primary caregivers from birth until the age of around 36 months.

Around 60% of children are securely attached.

There seems to be a lot of bolleaux around the use of this word...just wanted to clarify.

Aloha - I didn't say he was a Tory Politician.

He may be a psycholigist but he's writing for a Tory newspaper.

charlieq, I'd like to read your thesis too....

Primary attachment is important but you can attach to a mother, father and nanny. You don't need one person only and you don't need one person you are with 24 hours a day. I agree that having no one to attach to - say Romanian orphanage never held in a cot all day as worst extreme is bad for you and day nursery 12 hours a day with ever changing carers not idea either. But our nanny stayed 10 years. That's longer than many fathers stick around.

There is also the social justice issue too - women voluntarily always putting themselves second, never getting a fairness of life, a chance to rul the country or whatever they choose is just so unfair and yet poster after poster on here seems to desire a secondaryness, that they seem to want that kind of husband first in work and I at home making career sacrifice. Is there any point in sending girls to school beyond about age 16 if things will always be like this? It's a waste of resources. Might as well adopt a Taliban type ethos of mothers at home not working but cleaning up after men and minding their children and psychologist blackmail which is always so patently sexist is presumably our equivalent of very conservative mullahs.

xenia, yes that is fine. if you are happy to acknowledge that your child's primary caregiver was paid for by you and is no longer in their life.

and you may be absolutely fine with that.

I agree, that if that nanny was a consistently responsive figure then your children have every chance of being securely attached...

I'm with sophable on this.

Personally I couldn't have lived with the fact that my children would be attached to somebody other than me and dh.

With regards to the "wasted education" - I don't like the thought that a good education is only worth something if it results in a good job. A good education is a value in itself, not least if you choose to bring up the next generation full time. And also, who knows at the age of 16 what their choices are going to be? And who knows at the age of 34 what their choices are going to be in ten years' time? I might well throw myself full-on into some project outside the home then, for which my education might well come in very handy. I probably won't earn mega-bucks, but money is not all.

I do agree with Sophable that good attachment in childhood can be really crucial to people's life chances. But I think that attachment can be much more complex than it first appears and that we do not yet fully understand how it works- big mix of nature, nurture, personalities and environmental factors, I suspect. It is certainly not always the case that people who had one/two care givers till the age of three have more secure attachment patterns than those who have experienced group based care at a young age. And attachment is not the only important factor either, imo, though it is crucially important.

I think that the unhappiest and most insecure children I have met personally have all been cared for exclusively by their mothers in their early years, as it happens. But that fact in isolation is a red herring. A cocktail of parental poverty, physical and mental health problems, domestic violence, poor housing, low expectations, lack of play opportunities, poor access to education etc etc etc made their lives hard from the moment of conception. Nursery can be a vital intervention in these sorts of circumstances, to give children an alternative experience and more stimulating environment, to offer support to parents having tough times, to allow parents space away from their children to recharge maxed out batteries as well as, for some, offering a chance to study or take paid work which could lift the family out of poverty. Sometimes having space away from children allows parents to keep things together enough to develop better attachment relationships with their children, paradoxically. That was the idea of sure start nurseries, I believe, and they have been a qualified success, imo, failing only insofar as they have not always reached the most needy who tend to fall off the radar of services. I do think OJ's criticism of Sure Start is a massively cheap shot actually. I can think of a couple of sure start buildings/schemes I know which really are community jewels set within very isolated, rough, poverty stricken areas.

It's part of his general thesis that if something goes 'wrong' with a person then the blame lies firmly at the door of the parents. He discounts all other factors in the face of overwhelming evidence. Like you say Scrummy, nature, nurture and genes.

Sophable, your comment about Xenia's nanny 'no longer being in their life' is so bitchy I am genuinely shocked. WTF are working outside the home parents supposed to do? Blimey, a nanny that stays for ten years would be bloody luxury.

FWIW I was brought up by a working mother and went through several different childminders. And don't feel as if it's caused me huge trauma.

As to the general thrust of the thread, agree it is capitalism not feminism which is to blame, guv.

Good point, edam. I must have skimmed past that comment without reading it properly.

I think Xenia's love for her children is very, very clear in many of her posts and I am sure her children are well aware that she thinks they are great.

I was brought up by working parents too, felt very loved and liked by them and had a good, interesting, fulfilling time as a child on the whole. I have a good, interesting fulfilling time as an adult on the whole too.

I was brought up by a working mother and did.

Wouldn't you know it?

did what? feel traumatised?(, if so)

Hmm, well, let's weigh up the trauma of your mum being out at work against the trauma of starving to death or being homeless. Think working wins every time.

(A fact that was made very clear to me much later on when my mother was made redundant and got very ill, so was unable to work for some time. Ended up with the house being repossessed.)

Sounds grim, edam. Did your mum get better?

The only "trauma" in my life frankly was when my mother was not working outside the home. Lonely, financially dependent (v. happy marriage though ) and pissed off, she was a nightmare to be around at times.
My parents had no real financial choice but to both work and like you scummy, I don't feel my childhood suffered. My understanding was that John Bowlby's theories of attachment no longer have blanket acceptance
I knew I was loved, just as Xenia's children do too, I bet. Edam that must have been a wretched time for you both.