Yet another article re: why mothers should return to work

[boogiewoogie]

Just snatching a couple of minutes during a coffee break, will come back. What do you think of this?

SJ - all my good friends do the same as me by the way... there are lots of free and low cost activities here and we hate spending lots of money on manufactured crap, theme parks etc for our children. My parents are retired and my mother loves having her grandchildren to stay, and it's really good for both me and my partner and for our daughter to be apart for a week or so.

While I know I am very lucky not to have to earn money to pay food bills, I am very careful with money and certainly don't splash it around like a "yummy mummy".

Taylor - I ONLY said what my daughter's ONE school said. No generalisations at all.

And it is interesting to be reminded how good work can be. Not just necessary financially but also interesting. Women are so multi-facted it's not strange that motherhood doesn't always satisfy all their sides.

Pamina - my daughter is with her grandmother today, I am trying to do a tax return but feel defeated by disgusting cold and anyway I find this thread very interesting, people's perceptions of SAHMs are so wrong. But I also know some SAHMs who give the whole lot a bad name.

anna - i didn't say you generalised i said you insulted children in childcare ...

Anna, re what I wrote earlier 'can you show us how a good private school education, a good and fulfilling career and all that comes with it enriches the individual please??? '

sorry i didn't express myself clear here.

I didn't mean it th way it sounded.

what i meant was that i'd like to see Xenia in other threads, talking about other subject as I am sure due to her education and profession and class she is very able to and probably an interesting person too.

Although I agree that society needs to be challenged and women should work more and men should change (like I said I agree with Xenia often) I don't understand why this should be the only topic of conversation.

Xenia, I am sure that your independent daughters are proud of you and will have learnt from osmosis not too take shit from men and not to become doormats. I learnt that myself from my mum, unfortunately more by rebelling to her lack of independence IFSWIM.

TeeCee - I'll describe the very best nursery I saw.

A converted shop, the only windows being onto the street in the "reception area" where the coats were hung.

A middle room, about 12 square metres, for reading stories.

A back room, about 30 square metres, with computers, a slide and room for one table for painting.

A room beyond, no light still, with a row of tiny loos, a changing table and a paddling pool.

Another room beyond with mattresses on the floor for siestas.

SO: NO natural light, no outside space, no possibility of taking the children outdoors ever. Total probably 70-80 square metres for 25 children.

10 euros an hour.

My perception of a SAHM is of a mum who doesn't work outside of the home and spends time with her kids going to the park, taking them swimming etc etc and having the time to make a nice dinner every night if she wants to.

What's your perception of a WOHM?

so shall we now all describe a crap SAHM we all know? no let's not, there's no point.

Another thing - all the staff were very young and not mother-tongue French.

I saw this article and thought it was interesting - especially the bit about the womens "assumption of economic risk" in giving up work and staying home.

Would like to say that in the UK at the moment, men DO assume a fairly significant economic risk when the agree to get married in the first place (I have the 2 recent court rulings on alimony in mind)

Of course for non married couples, ir'a massive economic risk to give up work and not one that I'd consider taking

Sorry, not sure if being clear here but baby is on lap and smelly so gotta run!

What a shame Anna. It's so far removed from any of the nurseries I've been to round here.
It's a shame but then again your DD is not missing out on anything and you sound as if you have a great time together. I'm just glad I have soem great nurseries to chose from and feel even luckier now I've read what your best one was like.

TeeCee

In the UK, there are a lot of expensive, private nurseries, which I am sure are often excellent. But you have to earn a significant amount of money to use them.

In France, people generally use state crèches for nursery care. Fees are means-tested according to parents' income (our household income precludes us from ever getting a place). There are some private nurseries, but the ones I have seen are all terrible, worse than the state ones.

The school where my daughter lives is quite near the terrible nursery I described. So it knows all about children arriving from that type of environment and what it can expect.

Anna,

"people's perceptions of SAHMs are so wrong"

See, this is your problem. It's all black and white I am right, everyone else is "wrong". There are different choices that suit different people.

Pamina - I never, ever hide the fact that I live in France, on the contrary, I think it is very useful to share experiences from different countries.

You couldn't pay me to live in France.

Anna, yes i saw a few private nurseries but I also saw a lot of state nurseries and they were all as good as each other. The playscheme my DD is at today is run by our local council and it's lovely. Really big, clean and bright. Has a huge lovely new outdoor paly area and so on.
I only saw one slightly grim nursery with no windows the rest really were all lovley, I mean that hand on heart.

Has anyone seen this on the BBC website article here ?

I was quite shocked tbh.

I do hate these discussions as they seem to degenerate into these sorts of arguments.

However in return to the OP I thought the article was very interesting. I thought the point it was making was that SAHM are quite brave actually and are taking a decision that can be very risky. It may not be 'fair' that it is a risky decision but the reality of our lives is that it is risky for all the reasons in the article.

Some women seem to take the decision to be SAHM with the full realistaion that it is economically risky but take that risk because they perceive that the emotional benefits to their children outweigh this economic risk.

Others just refuse to accept there is any risk (eg 'but I love my partner he would never leave etc)

all things being equal it probably is better/nicer for very young children to be at home with one or more parents all day but in our society this is acheived only if one partner is willing to take a big leap of faith on their own behalf and on behalf of their children.

Those of us who are not so brave and who lack large supportive networks who might help us if we were to end up in a difficult financial situation usually choose to work.

Of course there are many women who work who would much rather stay at home and I am sad for them but I am also sad for the women who are pressuried into an unhappy life as a SAHM because they think it makes them bad mothers if they don't. It doesn't it just makes you a bit more cautious - not always a bad thing.

Pamina - I didn't make any generalisations like that at all, I was only describing my experiences as a SAHM and what my child's life might be like if she were in nursery.

I agree with you, Lazycow. The feature was a reminder of some of the economic realities of life.

Zog - You might want to read this one to balance that out a bit
nurseries not so bad

Haven't got time to trawl through all the posts - although the hundred or so I've read have been VERY interesting!- but would just like to point out that I think Anna is lookigna t it from a completely different point of view - as she has pointed out, in France being a SAHM ends age 3 when they start school. In the UK it ends around 4.5 yrs and that age from 3-4.5/5 is a very important one and the age at which, precisely, kids need to play with other kids and start learning a few basic concepts. So at the age of 3 nursery or playschool is much more useful and in many cases necessary for shy/only children - so you are not coming at this from the same angles as Anna is only talking about the 0-3 issues. I have also lived in France and agree that many of the nurseries are far below the standard of British ones - they are mostly state-run and very basic compared to the mostly-private and therefore competitive ones I've seen in the UK. So yes, I can see that as a 0-3 prospect, Anna has made the only choice she thought she could make in her circumstances. But the same factors do not apply in blanket terms to everyone else who has chosen to be a SAHM or working Mum in the 0-5 zone in the UK.