In The Times today: Blind feminism has hurt our children

[twelveyeargap]

Blind feminism has hurt our children

I think a baby will form attachments to the people around him so usually mother and father and if they have a nanny, the nanny or granny if she's around a lot. If they are with the mother all day or with the nanny all day then that is likely to be a very strong primary attachment. If that changes e.g. mother goes back to work full time or the nanny leaves then they may well be stressed by that change. If the parents are still there morning and evening and weekends though it is not like being sent away to board or to foster parents when all those ties are broken. So not as traumatic but still affects the child.

If they move every 3 months from one foster home to another that would be pretty dire psychologically for the child. If they are with a nanny most of the time and the nanny changes every 6 months I don't think that's much good either and I don't particularly like nurseries for under 3s with rapidly changing staff for the same reasons.

If they have a much closer relationship with their nanny than mother or father and then she suddenly leaves that can be quite traumatic just as divorce which sadly will affect a lot of posters here in due course statistically can be dreadful for children or death of a parent.

It's the same going to school - it's a big stressful change at 5 to be away from home all day.

Anyway I certainly don't think feminism hurts children. Parents usually obtain appropriate care.

So we, as a society (and they, as a government!) are doing something wrong.

And I don't think feminism hurts children, but I also don't define feminism as woman HAVING to work in a male-dominated and male-led public sphere trying to break through a "glass-ceiling" by competing with overworked exhausted men who never see their children (but would secretly quite like to thought they'd never admit it to their male colleagues), on their terms.

rantum you say "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" - i totally agree.

by criticising a woman who returns to work 12 hours a day when her baby is 3 days old, i am not discounting the father's role here. what the feck are either having children for when they can't even spend the first few months of that child's with them ?

there is plenty of research to suggest that children who do not spend much time with EITHER parent or grandparent in the first few years of life are not as confident as those that do.

xenia - you stereotype yet again. latin america does have many beautiful women and does objectify beauty (not to my taste really either) but that is not ALL that that vast region is about. Latino women that I have me are not just silly giggly beauty queens. they are incredibly intellectual and concerned about social justice. they are not swedish, but they are just as concerned about their children and their community as the rest of us.

(but would secretly quite like to although they'd never admit it to their male colleagues) Sorry, rantum was ranting

i am sure bill gates is a very nice man but he is not exactly mother theresa is he ? do you know HOW many court cases he has been involved in to maintain his strangle hold on the computer world ? i don't think charity is his motivation in life.

charity work is an after thought and guilt trip for people like him.

Divorces are usually not planned as a part of a child-care routine. Nannies are. Of course things happen during the course of a childhood that unbalance and upset a child but that is not what I am talking about.

But now this thread has turned into working mother bashing again. Why do the stay at home mothers feel they have to do it? Parents have children and they work or don't. They find suitable child care usually. The children usually thrive. Some stay at home poarents are hopeless with children and would be better working, others are great. Going back to work quickly is neither right or wrong. Individuals choose where they have a choice what is best for them.

Also we choose the influences we put on children. We could go on income support and spend all our time with them, both parents or take them off to a cult or commune or we could both parents work and impart values of materialism which I am sure in part I do and as I'm a capitalist I am happy to impart that value in the children. I am also not particularly consumerist and I'm a Catholic so I am sure they also get influenced by my other values too.

Microsoft have done little wrong in myeyes and many people have brought spurious claims against them which is not their fault. Even the European Commission seems to have some very unfair bias too.

Ah, I'm away for one day and it's good to see the debate RAGES on! Nice posts Droile (Hi) Yellowrose, Rantum, Muminlife.

If you read any of my posts you would know that I have not bashed working mothers at all. Not once. Not even in my implications. My point has been that the work of PARENTS in the home should be improved and valued and applauded. In no way does that mean that we should look down on women (or men) who are working and contributing to the economy in the public sphere. However, it is not women in the workforce who are looked down upon in our society. It is women - and even more so- men who spend time at home raising children. All I am saying is that the OJ article has a point (not about the feminist issue which I think is a flaw in the article)about people feeling forced to work full-time (EVEN when they would rather spend some time at home while their children are pre-school age) because the whole of our society suggests that that is the only way any self-respecting person would want to spend their time. And government initiatives back up this viewpoint.

And we did score LOWEST of all developed nations in the UN report on the health and well-being of our children. That is not the fault of working mothers (or stay at home mothers) but I do think it is related to way that we view the importance of family as a PRIMARY role model in children's lives and that that is directly reflected in the way in which the government initiatives favour economic development at the EXPENSE of family values. And I do not believe these two things need to be mutually exclusive.

Well said Rantum. And thanks, because it is saving me from having to type while I am entertaining ds!

(And now I'm off to live in the Netherlands)

I haven't read the whole thread, but thought the original article made some very good points in places.
I'm not going to get involved in the SAHM vs WOHM debate.
I was shocked by the use of the word 'retard' in one of the early posts though.

HC, the poster who used it has since made a very full apology for it.

If that was unclear, what I meant was that family is (and should be wherever possible) the PRIMARY influence in all children's lives and most parents (working or otherwise) believe this to be the case, but current and former governments put in place policies that make the maintenance of that unit (the family) secondary in importance to economic advancement, and then politicians complain about the breakdown of family values, antisocial behaviour, unsafe schools etc, etc.

"But now this thread has turned into working mother bashing again. Why do the stay at home mothers feel they have to do it?"

Xenia, all I have to say is Pot, Kettle and Black.

Really, do you honestly think that the reason we're all put on earth is to work, work, work?

One of the things which appears to have completely disappeared from public discourse, is a discussion of how we can change society. All political parties, media etc., talk about how we can enable people to better fit in with the system we've got. No-one talks about change anymore. We live in deeply reactionary times.

BTW Xenia, my dh is Catholic since that seems important to you and I am not anti-capitalist. But like any "ism", the theories behind capitalism are not perfect and I hate it when people imply that it is the only system that works, if imperfectly, so we should ignore its flaws.

Well said Caligula - that is really what I want to talk about - what is wrong with our society that allows our children to be so disadvantaged from a health and well-being perspective despite our relative wealth as a nation. What factors influence that - what factors might change that? Why is there such a disparity between rich and poor? What can we change. The whole sahm/wahm issue is really a red herring (and not really what I have been talking about).

And I reiterate - I not said anything negative about wahm's - in fact I never even singled them out as a group to talk about in my posts - reread all my posts if you want to.

meant "I did not"

or even "i have not"

Maybe we should start a new thread about the UN survey results, put the whole SAHM, WAHM thing to bed and discuss what factors have contributed to this depressing and damning report.

How did this turn into a WOHM/ SAHM debate anyway? [puzzled]

Wasn't it about the UN survey?

Well it was because of the article at the bottom, which implied that "wimmin" in government had a flawed view of feminism and supported policies that resulted in the view that the "stay-at-home mother has a lower one [status] than that of streetsweeper." and that that undermined the family.His article was a bit inflamatory from that point of view. Also, he criticised government child-care policies, such as Sure-Start, that were designed to
get women with children out of the home (and off benefits) so that they can work while their children are placed in nurseries which he seems to be claiming are often sub-standard. I can see why some WAHM mother might feel he was criticising them, although i don't think that was his intention. I would prefer to discuss the UN report myself - probably should have avoided wading into this inevitable debate altogether.