In The Times today: Blind feminism has hurt our children

[twelveyeargap]

Blind feminism has hurt our children

Does Xenia look after her own children???

I didn't think so!

Muninfife, I totally agree with your posts, esp exchanging one set of shackles for the other and work within the home is still working. It always was seen as work until the seperation of work and home and urbanisation. The 'work' became defined as waged labour outside the home, generally men at first but then women also. I did agree with very few of Xenia's points; such as many people could stay home if it were not for materialism (I do realise that house prices etc make it impossible for some too). I SAH at the moment and am studying too. I love SAH and feel it benefits us, but I am very non materialistic and also DH works odd shifts. I don't care what people think of me.

If you live with extended family then the childcare issues are sorted out but that brings its own set of problems of getting on with them etc.

Some people find prolonged periods of childcare enjoyable and hopefully most nannies do and many stay at home mothers and fathers. I don't. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy the time I do spend with the children as long as it is in small enough doses.

It's quite hard to live one way and teach your children another way of living might be equally valid although they often rebel - the child of communists may end up right wing etc. So you can never be sure how extensive your influence is.

I am glad my daughters are growing up where women often do work rather than in a community where that would be unusual and frowned upon because I've found work very satisfying and I think money can give women power and influence and an ability to right injustices and ensure more fairness which it can be hard to achieve in societies where women have no rights and have a place in the home only and that is seen as their role.

xenia - i have lived in countries where women are mainly at home and are expected to stay at home. such women do the fighting injustice from the HOME. they don't need to go and get the kind of power and influence that you are talking about in the world of the Big Swinging Dicks like the one i used to work in (i used to work in the CIty of London as a corporate lawyer) to fight injustice or to change their own communities. they make changes happen subtly and gently and without money.

i forgot to add that my female colleagues in the City did very little in terms of fighting injustices but quite a great deal in terms of shopping for designer goodies and paying off mortgages and luxury holidays. the reality is that women who join the big boys' corporate world forget all about their feminist inclinations.

sorry, don't mean to stereotype women in the City, but this was my general experience of women in the City in the many years that i slaved away there !

I'm not so sure that your subtle micro changer with her 6 goats in Africa really has as much capacity to change things as if she became the next Bill Gates, though. Of course we have huge influence over our children but that's just the 1 or 2 we have and if we're saying it's best for mothers to be home with chidlren then we're hardly encouraging our daughters to achieve potential. We're saying women stay home and change nappies and men go out and earn money and take roles which this society (however wrongly) regards as important.

I am just not convinced most housewives and woemn working part time achieve a fair 50% role in terms of time spent on "work" and for work I mean housework, child care and outside work. I think they get a raw deal and do more than men on the whole and yet do nothing to change that. So they don't even achieve a feminism which just means fairness and equality. I hope that's changing and I think it is. Fewer women now are happy to let men do nothing at weekends becaues they've worked all week but a good few still indulgently let him have weekends away, golf every Saturday etc without an equal amount of time off for her. So our children in those cases see women as exploited and men as exploiters.

xenia, if you define power in terms of money and size (of influence, of number of employees etc) then I'm sure micro changer with 6 goats doesn't.

but that definition of power has got us our planet into a sorry mess indeed hasn't it?

micro changer woman, may have far more wisdom, far more capacity to care for and support and to be cared for and supported by her loved ones, her environment and our planet.

power is a funny word. I know which definition I prefer.

But if women had that power given they don't make most wars and are a tiny proportion of prisoners and don't have all that testosterone then the planet wouldn't be in that mess. It's only by women trying to comprise 100% of Governments and boards of directors worldwide that perhaps the planet will be best saved.

I don't agree with Xenia often but I do agree with that!

I don't know; I'm a SAHM. And I can definitely see Xenia's point. I think that moms' happiness is important. Never liked working, so don't feel like I am missing out - but women should be able to make the decision they feel is right for them. They should make the decision which keeps them sane - and thereby keeps them a good mom, not bitter, not feeling like a martyr b/c they love their job but must stay at home ... I think that only ends up bad for the kids in the long run. My mom was a SAHM as well, and it made her happy. For some of her friends, being in the corporate world was what fueled them. One of her friends became a senator; another founded a charity; their grown children are poised and seem happy to me. Women don't fit in a box; we're wired to want different things, and we should be able to follow our joys without being judged (especially by other women!)for doing so. There is no one right way.

Amen!

xenia - your understanding/knowledge of women and their role in countries where the majority WORK at home or from the home is incredibly primitive just as your phrase suggests: "subtle micro changer with her 6 goats in Africa"

in fact i was talking about women in relatively developing nations like latin america or the subcontinent, not subsaharan africa. I never saw a nanny goat in sight and yet the women were incredibly influential and effected change in their own communities.

bill Gates is not in my mind a man fighting for justice. he is a man fighting for influence and money. it is not what i see women to be best at doing although many of them are as good as bill gates in making money.

and just for the record i am the last woman on earth to wish to live in a commune or grow organic lentils. i have always been a career woman and the first lawyer in the entire history of my family.

however, the time i spend at home with my son is more important to me that my mortagage or the amount of "influence" in terms of money. if i want things changed in my son's life or prospects, i fight to the death and do it very effectively because i have a very sharp tongue. millions of other mothers do the same.

i don't think i have any less influence on my son's life and prospects than the female partner in my old law firm who returned to work FULL TIME exactly THREE days after giving birth - the main influence on that child's life will eventually be the nanny not the mother who works 12 hours a day

I was taking calls the day after the twins were born and I don't see how that affected them. You can breastfeed whilsst your mother talks. It's a bit of a non issue. Many mothers work full time and long days but still spend a lot of time at weekends with children and holidays and over a long life with ap arent relationships can work well even if the parent works hard and this is fathers and mothers. I hate the way these discussions are abvout women. Women and men work long and short hours. If people think it's bad mothers work 12 hours a day then they should be as critical of fathers but no, not just men but women also always do down women's choices but so much less men's.

On influence I still believe you can effect more change if you're influential in society. Bill Gates is doing tremendous things against disease on this planet and I know quite a few people with money who set up charities or perhaps I just mix with altruistic Catholics.

Marls is right that people differ (not just men and women).It's like race. There are more individual differences within a race between people than comparing the races themselves and the same goes for genders. It is also a pity if men don't get the choices some women have to stay at home with children. Some men are more suited to that than their wife and it is sadly harder for them to make that choice in the UK although easier in some countries abroad.

South America? That's a pretty macho place, though isn't it? Not exactly a hot bed of women's rights. More plastic surgery there than anywhere. Disgusting really. We should all be working to change that "lookist" culture there.

I think that whilst it is true that many parents (male and female) HAVE to work very long hours to maintain a lifestyle / or just to make ends meet, I think that the article is really discussing whether or not it is BETTER for a child that is UNDER 1 YEAR to have a PARENT around. I would seriously question why anyone - MALE or FEMALE - would bother having a child if they did not WANT to spend their time with their baby instead of at their job - not forever, but at least for the first year and I certainly don't think the onus should be on women only. Therefore, the government could legislate to make hours more flexible and paternity and maternity leave for both sexes to give them time with their babies in the first year of life. And employers should have to stop suggesting that one year of less stringent hours out of a lifetime of work really impacted on a person's ability to perform a job (which is bollocks).

Meant equal, paid maternity and paternity leave.

Furthermore, I don't know about anyone else on here but being a parent has honed some of my skills that were relatively absent in my earlier working days - patience, flexibility, managing competing interests, taking control of situations.....

Thats just not true Xenia. People are very critical of long hours that fathers work. Have you picked up a newspaper lately?

I don't agree that year 1 is so special you need a person related by blood there. I think the care from a loved known other like a nanny ideally on a one to one relationship basis is just as good. It could be a grandmother too. in fact arguably getting a baby used to person X and then at age 1 wrenching that person away from X when he or she returns to work is much more damaging than the child getting used to a routine and set up early on which is then their stability and pattern.

But you never see - fathers damaging psychological health of children, do you because everyone assumes there's a subservient mother in the house very happy to have the children alone for 14 hour days.

I don't think children should be wrenched from anything - and personally and ideally I think that there should be flexible working hours available for parents so that they can share childcare of their own offspring until children are 3, but I think the bigger issue here is capitalism and employers - there is no way of convincing the system that this would be good for business.

I (and this is personal) do not feel that my mother (who already raised her family at home and went back to work when we were all at school and worked as a Nurse for another 25 years) should have the responsibility of raising MY offspring! She should enjoy her retirement and her grandchildren without any onus to raise them.

I think also Xenia that you defeat your own argument with the wrenching a child away from a loving significant adult. At what age would the disappearance of a nanny (nanny moves to another job, loses contact with family, leaves to start own family)
not be a wrench for a child? Parents are there forever and not because they are being paid for it.

I would like a system that applauds the parental role in the home (MALE or FEMALE) without seriously penalising them for taking time out of everyday to nurture their children. I dont really know how that would work, but our country came BOTTOM of the UN survey. BOTTOM!!! For the welfare and happiness of children!!!