Guardian Family: Confessions of a Full Time Mother

[morningpaper]

Confessions of a Full Time Mother

"Kirsty Gunn is not working on her next novel. She is not a columnist for the London Review of Books. She has chosen instead to disappear from the professional world and embrace a domestic life just as rich and interesting and inspiring ... "

PAH! She's opted out of the professional world - well except for this article and the book she has just written about her "year as a full time mum" - full time that is, except for the 30 hours a week that her children are at school in which I presume she fannies about writing drivel like this.

At first I thought it was an ironic joke, but sadly not. Perhaps she is friends with that woman who survived the concentration-camp conditions of Fulham after that breeze blew her wooden grapes off the sideboard...

[Judy1234]

I agree. I was only chatting. It's only very loosely the same issue - to what extent do Government interfere in markets and to what extent do Government intervene in family life.

[yellowrose]

No it isn't so much STOPPING a free market mechanism as STOPPING cruelty.

Bringing economics into a discussion on the protection of children is very strange indeed

It just goes to show how poor and abusive care is in some homes that govts. HAVE to step in to protect children.

I say this because a friend was beaten until bruised when she was a toddler. Her father was never reported and never had to answer for what he did to her.

[Judy1234]

No I don't. Blair did not change the law as much as he might but he did ban it for all practical purposes so as long as mumsnetters are complying with the law I will not report them to the NSPCC. If it leaves a mark/is too bad then it's illegal. Very simple - in other words virtually all smacking is an illegal act, thank God.

[madamez]

Xenia, you want to trigger off a discussion on smacking??? I kind of hope that this will result in a few helpful veteran MNers supplying links to previous discussions, but kind of expect a thread or two to spontaneously combust immediately...

[Judy1234]

Prohibition in the US too...
It depends.

I am pretty glad we interfered into the home and banned most smacking. A free market to abuse our children stopped.

[madamez]

Ah, the social problems caused by the criminalisation of certain drugs.. now that definitely is another thread. Anyone care to start off, leaving a trail of silver foil for the rest of us to follow?

[expatinscotland]

Ah, but 40+, Xenia will still tell you that's free market at it's best - no government interference in the drug trade.

Never mind the cost to people.

[Monkeytrousers]

lol

I second that 40+

[fortyplus]

There are very few prostitutes working to pay normal living expenses - they're doing it to fund a drug habit.

I f a woman genuinely preferred to earn her living having sex with strangers then I wouldn't have a problem with it, either.

[Judy1234]

I never said there was anything wrong with prostitution by the way. It's one of the most transparent transactions there is and a proper use of the free market and often given women the only route to power and money they have.

[fortyplus]

I think she was quite amazed herself! It is a strange little tale in print - I could imagine it translating quite well to the screen. Her husband has been - to use an expression I hate - 'gobsmacked' at her success. She didn't start writing until her forties.

[UnquietDad]

I hadn't heard of Sally Prue. Anyone who gets a film deal is doing "exceptionordinarily" well.

[fortyplus]

I wonder if Xenia would say that he was prostituting himself to her? Or is it ok because he's a man?

[expatinscotland]

So did I .



FWIW, Stephen King was supported by his wife's teacher's salary for a while.

He felt pretty lousy abuot that, though.

[fortyplus]

Had you heard of Sally Prue?

[UnquietDad]

I think 40+ was joking.

But Michael Morpurgo is bound to be doing well - he sells well and was the Children's Laureate. I'm sure Jacqueline Wilson is doing very well for herself too, and Philip Pullman. But that's the problem - everyone can name 4 or 5 "known" writers who are comfortable. It's those languishing in the more obscure sections of the bookshelves who need our support, and our royalties - some of them are literally living under the minimum wage.

[fortyplus]

expat - well I did put a

[expatinscotland]

'Maybe it's only children's authors who get paid decent money? '

I think Stephen King and Ian Rankin would beg to differ .

[fortyplus]

I think I'm right in saying that Sally Prue was working full time as a teacher when she wrote her first 2 novels. Her husband worked for the same company that I did before children - so I would imagine that he's on a slightly better than average salary, but by no means a highly paid city type.

Of course I can't comment on writers in general, though a friend of dh's is best pals with Michael Morpurgo, who seems to be quite comfortably off.

Maybe it's only children's authors who get paid decent money?

[UnquietDad]

Although many of the are not starving, because they have a rich hubby earning a whack-off City salary while they indulge their little "hobby" at home, and that 7k a year is just right for paying Tilly and Humphrey's school fees. No pressure to be "main earner."

[Judy1234]

The article I read in effect it had a couple of "famous" writers who were earning less from their writing than I was earning from my bit on the side dull commercial type writing. But I don't suppose most people write novels for the money but because they enjoy it. The starving writer the garrett isn't a myth.

[morningpaper]

Not many authors get to sell film rights! Most are just poor and miserable and intense and spend years re-writing the same boring book over and over again until their editor is happy and then they've earnt about 7k a year

rubbish job

[expatinscotland]

'A lucky minority get a hit of some sort, either by completely random chance, or having an original idea that somehow fits in with the mood of the majority.'

Or they know someone in the industry who works to their advantage . . .

[UnquietDad]

Quite right madamez - no correlation between effort and earnings. If only writers got performance-related pay! (rather than sales-related.)

Xenia - publicists always talk up writers' deals anyway! It sounds better to say "a six-figure deal". In the US there is a system of "coded" descriptions for deals in partcular income brackets - e.g. "nice deal" means a certain range, "very nice deal" another, and so on. It's not quite the same here.

[madamez]

The thing is with writers' earnings is that they are as potentially variable as actors' earnings, musicians' earnings, craftspeople's earnings... A lucky minority get a hit of some sort, either by completely random chance, or having an original idea that somehow fits in with the mood of the majority. A larger number make a reasonably steady but not enormous living out of whateveritis. And an awful lot more make a few quid here and there, with the occasional bigger paycheck that keeps them striving.
But none of it has anything to do with either superb ablity or how much effort you expend, unfortunately.