In The Times today: Blind feminism has hurt our children

[twelveyeargap]

Blind feminism has hurt our children

And free sessions are avialable to children under thatage by a referral basis , am not sure if thatis a pilot scheme to our area or a national scheme.

Yeah, 5 2 1/2 hour sessions a week in the school year that they turn 4. So, September babies basically get it when they are 4.

How long is the free nursery session in Italy?

children go to nursery from 3 to 6yrs. I don't know exactly the hours, roughly, if memory serves me well, from 8.45 to 4.
Just want to specify that I'm not implying that Italy is in anyway better, but that it is just very normal to send your children to nursery.

And it's free?

My DD won't go to school for those hours until she is 5.

'I think the status of SAHM has increased rapidly in recent years'

if you're supported by a man, because if you're a single parent you're the devil incarnate if you work. or don't.

i hate articles like this. it's what you do with your chuildren when you're with them that counts. my kids went to nursery more or less full time from when I returned to work ( 6 mos, 9mos and a year respectively) it was an on-site facility, staffed by qualified nursery nusres and we could nip in at any time to see our children. they now attend after school and school holiday club and are (even though i say so myself) delightful, respectful, intelligent children who traet grown-ups with respect and have beautiful manners. i think a lot of that is because i input the little time i have in bringing them up 'properly'. now I'm obviously not perfect, they watch too much Tv. one plays age-inappropriate PC games until i catch him and them ban him for a week (then he does it again. it hasn't quite sunk in yet..) but i do expect them to do well, to go to uni, to get good jobs and contribute positively to society.

we'll look back in ten years or so and see where we are on that plan, but i refuse to be faulted in the way that i choose to bring up my children by anyone who doesn't know us, doesn't know why i have made the difficult choices that i have.

conversely i do think that parents should shoulder some of the 'blame' in this unicef report, but it's alot easier to point the finger at sucessive governments, society in general, teachers, litigation culture reality TV and journalists. there isn't a one word answer.

it's free, yes (mind you, in some areas/regions is not easy to get a place at state/or council scuola materna)

Oh, I'm terribly envious. I would love for my almost 4 year old could be in school full time now. She would definately benefit.

Oh well, I'll just have to wait.

as I said, unfortunately in many areas it is very hard to get a place (the council of Milano for instance -where I'm from - has been underfunding nursery schools, afterschools activities etc for many years no )

now

SOmething OJ's article and others like it never seem to quite get is that women's wellbeing matters too. Yes it's important that chldren are cared for by people who care about them, but a lot of the mother-bashing that goes on seems to imply that children's well-being only comes at the expense of women's, so if you, the mother, are reasonably happy or are doing anything that directly benefits you then your children must be suffering somehow.
While it's fair to say that everyone has to make compromises in life, the concept that women's well-being comes at the bottom of the pile (with men's of course, taking priority, then children's...) does no one any favours.

I think the issue is the lack of support generally through breakdown of family. I have no support and so I am the main focus for my kids when they want whatever. I was at home with dd for about 14/15 months and DS for about 8mths. Despite DP being around it is I they come to. It is soooooo draining. I work three days.

Recently I had a visit from my cousins and it was sooooo nice for my kids just to interact with others when I was there. It takes a society ot raise kids with parents being the most important but we all need a litle support from our friends and family and we seem to have lost the ability to provide that for each other. MN is probably so popular because of this.

Franca, that is awafully long though for such young KIds....
and yes it's only 2 1/2 hour sessions, and then the rest depends on the Nursery/Playschool...some give more freedom on how to organise it then others...
Madamez, the mothers wellbeing is, of course important, but I don't know how "forcing" (finacial reasons)mothers out to work is thinking about their wellbeing anymore then forcing anyone to stay at home would be...
Oh to live in a perfect worls...would that not be lovely...

drosophilla, yes I agree, family is so important, they are often so split and people often don't live near their family...

good point Madamez

Some of us wouldn't have had children if the only option was to be a SAHM with them.

For my children, it's a choice of some childcare while I do a job I enjoy, or not existing.

I have a feeling OJ has small child or children. In which case why isn't he a SAHD if he feels so strongly about it?

THe fact thatI can't afford to be a SAHM again is a major factor in our decision as a couple not to have more children.

3love, it is not compulsory, though. However, you'll find the majority of parents will choose to send their children to "scuola materna". And for many parents who work full time, that is unfortunately not long enough. I have many friends in Milan who rely on a mixture of nursery school, grandparents, babysitters etc. It is only fair though that a state provides this possibility for its citizens, imho. I, for one, can testify that I had a fantastic time at nursery school. And while the italian state school system is collapsing (and then I'll stop otherwise I'll start with mr berlusconi) nursery schools are still providing, on average, excellent childcare for the largest number of children.

Just out of interest Franca, do the Nurserys basically just give a safe place to learn through play or are they structured, almost like school?
I loved it when we lived in Cyprus, I send my es, back then 3 ish to a cypriot Nursery, and thinking about it, it was from 8am - 2pm...so...equally long really, but it was basically playing what they want, etc...ds loved it

I wish I could answer to your question more specifically, having been living in England for the last 7 years, I'm not so uptodate...
Anyway, i think that there's lots of learning through play going on, and probably activities change according to age. Don't think it is structured like school, and I think the trend now is to mix in the same class children of different ages. Older children are also taken to theatres, exhibition etc (I took my dc to the museum of science in Milan on our last holiday and definetely bumped into a nursery school class).

I wish I could answer to your question more specifically, having been living in England for the last 7 years, I'm not so uptodate...
Anyway, i think that there's lots of learning through play going on, and probably activities change according to age. Don't think it is structured like school, and I think the trend now is to mix in the same class children of different ages. Older children are also taken to theatres, exhibition etc (I took my dc to the museum of science in Milan on our last holiday and definetely bumped into a nursery school class).

ups!

that does sounds fun....

However, Italy is far from being a bed of roses...

I think I must have read a different article from some of you. I didn't see any woman bashing. He makes a distinction between "men in skirts" type feminism and what he calls "real" feminism, which imo is perfectly valid. (Although what he means by that and what I / you-all mean by that, may be different.) Of course capitalism took the bits of feminism it liked and dumped the other bits, I suspect that's what he's referring to.

In an article like this, I guess you can't go into major detail about what you mean exactly, so people surmise what he means depending on where they're coming from. Don't forget that just as the headline has been chosen by the sub-editor, some of the detail of the article may also have been edited out, making it more open to interpretation in one direction or another.

I really don't know why people are so outraged by his suggestion that both men and women should have more time with their children. Most working parents want to - survey after survey of parents, both fathers and mothers, give the result that a majority would work fewer hours if they could afford to. It seems to me that he's calling for that. But then, maybe I'm over-interpreting - obviously, I need to rush out and buy his book to get the full picture.

I'm afraid I do strongly suspect that secretly rather a lot of dads like the fact that working long hours (and playing golf and all the other business-development activities that they have to do in their "free" time) keeps them away from their small children.