mothers with young children are the most discriminated against at work

[paddingtonbear1]

I haven't actually found this in my company, and it's very small - only 18 employees. But I can imagine if I looked for another job, I might find it hard to get one, being a mother still under 40. I couldn't believe some of the comments in the 'have your say' on the bbc website though - most people seem to think that women who can't afford to stay at home shouldn't have kids at all! That would be me then! I don't think in this day and age, with mortgages and other rising costs, that's practical. I don't take advantage though, fortunately dd isn't sick very often, and dh does his share.
I think most of the people making the comments were men, or people with no kids...

And according to my sister it was even worse in Spain - families would have two or even three employees (at 400 euros a month all told) straight from the Bolivian jungle and leave their children with them for 12 hours a day. My sister tried for home help for four years and eventually found a Polish girl for 8 hours a week of cleaning - but decent childcare? Just impossible to find.

How shocking, Anna.

But thank you for sharing your stories, as the UK seems to see European-style childcare as a sort of goal to aspire to.

expatinscotland - I know about those aspirations (I read the British papers on the internet every day) and it's a case of the grass is always greener. The point is, unless you earn absolutely masses of money, you are always going to have to make major compromises on the quality of childcare (whatever country/economic system you live in) because mothers provide masses of things that only love and devotion for their own child can incite them to. The value of a mother at home is huge to a child...

4 in 5 British couples both work and they contract out that childcare to very competent childminders, nurseries and nannies. They children do as well (often better) than those at home with parents. Many posters on here had parents who work and many are those self same childcarers.

In general we have no problem at all with the care of children because parents love their children so much they virtually always ensure the care is good.

Yes, the pay isn't always that high to nursery workers but it will be the minimum wage and people don't go into chilcare, nursing, medicine for the money anyway. I think it's better in the UK most under 2s are not cared for in nurseries but in homes by childminders, nannies, grandparents and often parents on split shifts. I also think this generation of men do largely share childcare and domestic tasks despite a few horror stories. My daughtesr' generation is even better (the girls are 20 and 22 now). Chlidren are benefiting hugely from women playing a proper part in the world, Government and in industry. The planet is a better place for it and the ability for women to play that proper part stems first from the legal changes which gave them that right (well they had them probably until about 10,000 years ago when they started being stripped back) and secondly from the domestic politics and equality which enable them in their relationships with men or their female partner, where they are gay, to negotiate a fair split of home and work responsibilities.

Xenia - so the massive increase in the past generation in child and teen mental health problems, in obesity, the increase in divorce is totally uncorrelated in your opinion with families spending less time caring for each other and more time working outside the home or in non-family care?

Anna, while I agree that those situations are shocking, I don't think that all childcare is like that at all. DH and I spent a long time checking out the options available to us and we (and DS) are very happy with our childcare choice.

What about the value of a father at home? Heaven knows my DH is better at some parenting aspects than I am.
What about a grandparent? My parents look after my nephew once a week and he gets probably more devotion there than he does with his own parents (who have to do boring stuff like housework as well).

My point is that it is not right to say all childcare is bad just because there are some childcare situations that are bad.

potoroo - where did I say all childcare is bad? I never intended to, because I don't believe it to be so.

What I do believe is that lots of childcare is substandard and that we as women are being hoodwinked and pressurised into working by governments who want as many wage earners as possible so that their economies boom. But money is not everything in life.

I wish Governments forced women out more, Anna beccause many women don't know what's good for them and think being home is best, but they're deluded. Bit more force to get them playing a part in the world would be a huge good. Obviously you and I are poles apart on that.

Most women on here will have had grandmothers and great grandmothers who worked. I certainly did. Women have always had to so as not to starve and historically children have never had a parent with time to devote (i.e. smother etc) on a one to one basis for hours on end, thank goodness. People are getting fatter because they aren't starving to death any more, again thank goodness, but also because many people eat the wrong foods but that is not because women work. The best health we ever had in the UK was when my mother was little in WWII and there were no sweets. Most women had to work then in factories, on the land etc. Child mental health will be no worse than it ever was. It is worst in war zones like Somalia.

What a patronising thing to say, Xenia!

You're assuming that half the adult population don't know what's best for them just because of their gender?

I enjoy staying at home. This choice wasn't an option for me due to financial circumstances.

But you're somehow assuming that if I'd been able to exercise that choice, I'm too stupid to know what I want?

And I need the Government to decide what to do with my life?

Bit of a contradiction in terms from someone who is supposedly a proponent of small government.

Xenia really! 'women don't know whats good for them?'

piss poor argument - re-think it, come back later.

trez dictatorish. and a base rubbish argument. agree with you or not - your arguments are compelling reading. however thats simply poor

Anna. Ok, you didn't say that all childcare is bad, but I thought that your implied point was that some childcare is bad, therefore it iss best not to take the risk. Sorry if I misunderstood.

However, in that case, I'm not sure what your original point to me was.

My point was that if a child is brought up in a stable loving environment with their needs met, then they are unlikely to be pyshcologically damaged. If the "childcare" they are being raised with is of the appalling type that you described, than that would not be the case.

Xenia, I agree with what a lot of what you say, but I am not sure that forcing women out is the answer. But then I am lucky in that I come from a long line of strong working women (grandmother was a GP, great aunts were an architect and lawyer respectively, mother was a teacher - although she worked partly because she had to financially) and it would never occur to me that I couldn't work if I wanted to. Likewise I would never have married someone who didn't have similar views of equality in the home and workplace.

People eat the wrong foods because they don't have the time to shop for fresh food and cook it. Obesity is far less of an issue in those regions of the world where people don't have access to processed food and food full of fat and sugar. During WWII, as you so rightly point out, those processed foods weren't available and people spent hours growing and cooking their own natural foods.

Women play a huge part in the world from the domestic sphere, and frequently a far healthier one. I would rather any day lead a structured life from home developing my children, my self and helping my partner (as he helps me) than sell my soul to many of the companies I see women around me working in.

My partner constantly remarks on how much more independent our daughter is than his sons have ever been. This is easy to attribute, because the boys were waited on hand-and-foot (and still are) by a servant, petrified that they might come to harm while under her responsibility, whereas our daughter has her freedom to explore the world. My friends who have children in nurseries (often in other countries) are frequently very surprised to see what my daughter is able to do, because she had so many more opportunities than their children, cooped up under health and safety regulations.

Child and teen mental health has already become a serious issue in the Western world. Why deny it?

Yes, this working as a nounou business, for example, sounds much better than being home with your family indeed. Days spent at the park chatting to your pals, or parking the charges in front of the telly.

And getting paid for it, too!

Yeah, that's what's good for everyone and society all around.

potoroo - that is my point, I think that putting children in childcare is risky (and I have illustrated some of the reasons why on this thread), I also believe that young children need a very close relationship with their mother (for their emotional security) and I am deeply opposed to any government that forces women to work and coerces families into putting children into childcare against their wishes.

My family = my life, our decisions. Human beings are not robots that should be forced into money-making structures to be taxed to finance the state to run our lives.

but we are and have no choice

Oh, and Xenia - my stepsons constantly tell their sister just how lucky she is to have her mother at home and to enjoy every minute of it because they didn't have that when they were little.

nice that you have that option anna

custardo - yes, I know just how lucky I am to have the choice, but the point is (and obviously you can't know that) that my stepsons' mother also had that option and didn't take it. In fact, my stepsons' mother is independently wealthy because her father died when she was young and she was the sole beneficiary of his substantial will... so she really doesn't need to work. Whereas I do make quite a lot of sacrifices to stay at home with my daughter.

I quite liked my argument that we need to drag women kicking and screaming into the work place in the 21st century actually because they wrongly think they're better of scrubbing floors but I can see it hasn't gone down very well.

I don't think one's own example is always the best to use. Many second families think they did things better than the first time around but you can't know because you weren't in the position and shoes of the people who made those choices. Of course a new husband who has acquired a new wife who wants to stay at home etc might prefer that, more fool him. Most men prefer women with interesting jobs actually and I would always take what step children say with a pinch of salt as they always say what the person they are with wants to hear.

Gees Xenia, just accept the fact that some women and men don't want to go to work and leave their children in care. AND if they are able to, they would prefer to stay at home and look after their children.

This is not a communist country, no-one has to be forced to go to work 'for the greater good.' Get off your soapbox.

Accept that some people go to work because they want to, some because they have to, and some don't work because they don't need to and don't want to.

Xenia I'm sure you wouldn't be to happy if a government forced you to stay home and spend more than an hour with your children with no nanny and no cleaner. Why would you propse that government should make those of us who are happy miserable?

'Most men prefer women with interesting jobs actually '

Oh, please! Now you're just scraping the bottom of the barrell here.

Most people prefer someone they find interesting and interesting company and physically attractive to them.

Hello?!

MOST people just work to live not the other way round.

Many people see housework and staying at home with children as anything but a burden and even prefer it to licking the master's boots.

You're coming off sounding like a bigger misogynist than Hemingway.

My DH is quite happy thank you very much, Thats because I do have an interesting job, I'm a Mommy. This pleases him in particular because his mother worked, about the same hours you do from what I can gather, and has resented her for it.

Well done Expat. I'm going to go and de-mean myself now by cooking dinner for my family.

I work outside the home, funk, but when I get home there's no cleaner, cook or nanny, so I'll be prostituting myself by cooking my children their meals, bathing them, ironing, doing the wash and cleaning the kitchen.