In The Times today: Blind feminism has hurt our children

[twelveyeargap]

Blind feminism has hurt our children

I agree too with the indoctrination of young girls being wrong - but they are NOT indoctrinated by their mums doing the dishes. My mother spent her entire life as a SAHM because I was lucky to have a well-off businessman father so she didn't need to work.

That didn't stop me having a high flying capitalist career despite my socialist leanings and hating house work. I detest house work and will never be forced into liking it. DH and I can't share the house work equally because he does long office hours in another town. He spends half his life commuting. House work and child care are not ONE and the same thing. You can be good at one and crap at the other.

sophable - nice post

we must only be talking middle class here.

as per.

becuase for most of us - there isn't a choice.

so the only indoctrination i see by subversive means in the home - is that people work. backed up by the govt who want mums out to work.

so its only the posh birds who get to stay at home is it? becuase you can afford to. whereas us plebs who might be entitled to benefits andstay at home - are WRONG!

WE MUST WORK. go forth with thou spade and dig for capitalism ( or stackt he shelves at tesco)

custy was that at me?

i'm not completely sure where you are on this?

are you peed off that govt policy is all about getting women out to work and providing daycare rather than enabling women to stay at home IF THEY WANT TO???

am confused!! and thick today!

Actually Custardo, that was MY point - people SHOULD have the choice regardless of their level of wealth. Government policies ought to enable people who WANT to be at home with their infants to do so, even if they are not "middle-class"! So, if the government is willing to fund a nursery place for a man or a woman so that they can work, they should be willing to, instead, fund them for part or all of their early years so that if they want to do the caring instead they can. But this would mean the government trusting that parents will make the right choices for their families, rather than directing that choice for them.

Anyone interested in a thread that discusses the United Nations survey? And leave this ridiculous SAHM/WOHM debate(that is largely irrelevant and off-point) behind? Why is the UK such a bad place to be a child out of all developed nations?

Rantum - "However, it is not women in the workforce who are looked down upon in our society." Not entirely true. It's a guilt trip for some of them. Society expects them to be at home.

Caligula - LOL. I do a heck of a lot of work at home!! So yes if I'm raising children I do work, work, work.

because there aren't enough good nurseries
sorry just kidding.

No there are many posh mothers who are penniless and have husbands who are penniless. It is not about being posh or a pleb. I am posh but penniless

Of course. Women have always and will always work and that's actually better for them anyway even if they're jealous of rich posh spoilt middle class stay at home mothers. A tiny number can afford to stay at home but not many so the issue is neither here nor there and hardly worth debating.

As for the 4th trimester, I am not sure. If a new born baby is given on day 1 to the mother, say I remarried next year and at 45 couldnt' have another child so we used a host mother and her eggs or even my eggs and I took that child hours after birth are we saying I couldn't bond as well because it hadn't been inside me that time? I certainly enjoyed breastfeeidng all mine and thought the hours at night and before and after work and at weekends actually added up to quite a lot of close bonding in the first 3 months even if I were at work during the days.

On the survey I don't accept its findings.

no sophable i think it was xenia who mentioned 'choice' i dont have a clear opinion on where i stand on this i just know that the word 'choice' is banded about without thought.

my other observation is that if you are a SAHM on benefots - your just classed as benefit scum - council estate 3 kids - get of yer arse and work - why should you stay at home being paid by my tax.

however should you be in the position of not claiming benefits - your husband has a good job - you chose- chose to stay at home for lentil weaver reasons. then suddenly your all mother goddess shit.

Marls I do agree that society has UNBELIEVABLE expectations of women - to be able to do it all and I think thatin some way, whatever your choice is, you feel judged - you could be doing X instead of Y more frequently etc.

However, I do not think that society actually LOOKS DOWN on a working mother as someone who is lazy, or unambitious, or uneducated, or even stupid, which are often the criticisms that are made of SAHMs and even more so of men who give up work to provide preschool childcare.

Anyway, I really don't want to get drawn into a SAHM/WOHM debate, because I have already stated that I have absolutely no issue with either position so long as it is a true choice.

I'm signing off this one, because it is impossible to have a rational discussion with people who think that everything is about them and what they do.

Of course the UN must be wrong because there is no social divide in Britain, we do not have the highest level of obesity in our children in Europe and none of our teenagers ever get pregnant, people do not work the longest hours in Europe and our education system is absolutely tops, whilst ASBO's have thoroughly wiped out crime and ensure that our prisons are empty.

Rantum you are right. We have major issues in this country re. the way children are raised. The UK does not have the happiest children on earth, we should accept that just through social observation and high teenage crime rates. We should be honest enough to accept it whether it comes from the UNICEF or not.

I see enough unhappy and anti-social kids around me to accept that what the UN has found is probably true. This Govt. and all previous Govts. have a lot to answer for.

You do know that you are the government?

Eh, no, I am not THE Govt. but as far as my son is concerned you are right I am the Govt. of his world because I am his biggest influence. If he turns out an anti-social misfit I won't be blaming Blair, I will be blaming myself and DH.

Thats a very good point. I think alot of the behavior problems won't be solved by ASBOs but better parenting.

All I meant was that in a democratic society the people who live in a country are the government. The people have put whoever is in office there. I don't think its always fair to go blaming the Government for everything. The answer to alot of these problems can be found in our homes.

"Women have always and will always work and that's actually better for them anyway even if they're jealous of rich posh spoilt middle class stay at home mothers"

Yes, it's been scientifically proven that it's better for them. Even if they don't want to. They're too stupid to know what's good for them, these posh birds, it's a good thing the government won't fund the common ones to copy them.

paula - agreed. we can't blame govts. and schools for kids behaving badly. they may contribute to the problem but are not usually the root cause unless the child is an orphan, etc.

Oh I missed this. Read Affluenza on childcare this morning on the tube on the way to my job, and cried.

Posting so I may get aroudn to reading this later./tomorrow/the weekend

(welcome back Aloha)

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Well he might also be making a correlation/causation error. He?s looking at kids in day-care and seeing that some are insecure, but there will be other variables. It doesn?t state if such variables have been allowed for ? so his conclusions are a bit suspect.

I agree about the status of the role of parents ? but cannot agree that feminism per se has ?hurt? children. The ideal of enabling women to make choices, real choices that help them feel like they have some control over their lives (which has been found to be a crucial element in happiness/contentedness) is still the broad goal of feminism. And if you make women happier, their kids will be happier too.

Some of these goals have been a bit botched though, for various reasons.

I am hoping to be involved in a study about paternity investment soon across classes.

"that means women having careers as men do ? but not at the expense of their role as mothers. Likewise, it entails men becoming much more involved in caring for their small children and investing less in their careers"

So how much is OJ not investing in his career and looking after child/children? Until we have far more stay at home fathers, I don't think you can blame feminism for more children being in childcare - maybe not enough feminism!

Also, I am a bit fed up with him banging on about his one week of nursery experience as though mothers who send their children to nurseries haven't really noticed what goes on there. In addition, the way he goes on about the evidence shown in well known studies that just happen to agree with his viewpoint and ignores the ones that don't doesn't really help his argument.

There are probably some good points in that article, but they are buried in pompous twatiness.