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?

Anna, when will this be your life again. Once you DD is 3. I think you might find that children dont need you less with age. I also think that you will find that most parents who might live this horrid suburban existence you are talking about DO put their children first and so cannot live these incredibly glam lives you are outlining in your posts because its just not easily done without comprimising your children.

Interestingly enough, when I read you Xenia - who often accuses me of being too involved in parenting - I think that you have made far more sacrifices in your life for family and children than you think or perhaps wish to admit.

How many countries have you worked in? How many countries have your children been to school in? How many languages do you all speak? How many friends and family in other countries do you visit every year, and how many visit you?

All those things are greatly enriching to a family's life.

FM - OK, so let's say it's a choice between:

• both parents having averagely interesting jobs, living in suburbia, children in nursery, both parents spend a reasonable amount of time at home during which they share out household chores

• one parent having very highly paid job, other parent taking time out (after very highly paid job and very interesting and at times glamorous - and also stressful - international career), both have made quite a bit of money already, can afford two homes, lots of foreign travel to see friends and family, children can go to fantastic international schools, pay other people to do boring chores

You know which lifetstyle I chose.

Not interesting because this is not the real scenarios most people choose ernbetween.....Neither does it say anything about the familys happiness.

I think lots of women take time out and assume they'll go back later and then find they can't. Xenia is right when she points out what five years out can do to a person's career. It's an issue that women could do with being aware of.

NK - I completely agree that it is an issue all women (or men, if they take a career break) needs to be aware of. It doesn't mean it should never be done.

Anna - what exactly is your point? Anyone can paint 2 very different scenarios and say 'which one would you prefer?' but I can't see how that's relevant or helpful. I suppose my life would 'best fit' scenariao number one. But of course it isn't like that in reality. My husband and I are both teachers - maybe you would describe that as 'averagely interesting'. I happen to think it's one of the most stimulating, challenging and worthwhile jobs around. Of course, the pay doesn't reflect that, but I'm not naive enough to think that the hardest/most worthwhile jobs are the best paid! I actually live in the country, not suburbia, but I certainly wouldn't condemn the many millions of people who do happen to live in the suburbs. How awful to judge people like that. I only hope you're not passing those values on to your child. It IS getting boring now, trying to get across the same message. Some of us DON'T carve up our lives into glamorous jet setter becomes idyllic stay at home mother becomes jet setter again once child reaches some magic age (3?) Some of us just get on with living our lives.

Exactly Ebenezer. I was just thinking it must be about time Annas daughter goes to nursery to be exposed to some lovely suburban children.

I don't know what brought all that on, Anna. We just all make choices and I chose what I chose. I wouldn't change it. I look out over a lovely suburban garden with huge trees and spring flowers and I am quite content with it. All of life is compromises.

On the question of long hours it is a very very difficult subject. Sometimes you are just so involved in something you will have a whole serious of late nights or even over nights. Most people with very young babies, male or female, do try to change things a bit when that happens so they try to get home earlier etc for those years and that's men as much as women from my experience unless they're very sexist men who leave children 100% of their wives. Perhaps there are 4 routes - no work, part time work, full time work but trying to maximise time with children and full time work in the 16 hours a day every day jobs. Some parents make the latter work even when they both work full time. I was reading about a couple whose children live in the country - those not at boarding school and both parents commute to London for 3 days each week and the nanny stays in the country. That sounded workable and a lovely family and then on the 4 days they're in London they do work very long hours.

What you do find men and women do with small children is make an effort to get home at a reaosnable time even if you';re then at the computer after bed time catching up and you know it's just for a short period of years before the children hardly want to know you anyway but at least you haven't done nuclear damage to a lucrative and interesting career which you then want to continue for the next 30 years.

ebenezer - I was responding to Xenia, and then to FM.

If you can't understand the point, let me clarify:

To be a SAHM is not necessarily an opt-out, boring, the end of one's brain's life, the death of one's finances, make one an obsessive mother etc etc (all of which SAHMs get accused of by WOHMs on MN).

And lots of WOHMs are, to my mind, making an uninformed choice about their life opportunities by insisting on this 50:50 life share business all the time. Life with a partner is give and take and probably a lot more fun if you don't insist on this 50:50 business all the time, just over a life time.

But Xenia - that's the point. I would go bananas in suburbia and I don't think your life has been or is or will be in the future more interesting than mine, but you seem to think that being an SAHM is all about wiping bottoms all day. It doesn't have to be at all.

where did I say DH and I fret over dividing everything up exactly 50/50? We don't. We just live lives that reflect a balance of both of us wanting to be parents and wanting a a life outside the home too. It isn't rocket science, and doesn't require hours of agonising about whether one of us has spent 0.25 seconds more on interacting with the children this week!! I think if you post on MB you are putting your view into the public domain, not simply responding to one other person, and your views make it plain that you dismiss huge swathes of the polulation because of where they live, or the job that they do. I would NEVER make such assumptions. Apart from anything else, I want my own children to grow up feeling loved and accepted whatever they do, whether thats living in a suburb or doing some 'averagely interesting' job like teaching.

ebenezer - I am delighted that you join in the debate, but on the 50:50 I am not responding to a point you made

No, not dismissing huge swathes of the population - pointing out to Xenia, most particularly, that there is a world beyond her London suburb where you can have a completely different lifestyle

But Anna, I dont think we are saying that your life must be boring and brain-dead if you are a SAHM. I think we are saying choose to be a SAHM for the right reasons. Dont think your children will come to any harm if you choose to work. Thats all. I actually think its a lot more hurtful to accuse parents of neglecting their children and harming them than hinting that life as a SAHM must be slightly boring. After all, you are not a child so why spend all your time with children. I am an adult. It makes me happy and healthy to work and spend parts of my day with other adults. I think that is quite natural.

And Anna, as a SAHM you are probably more likely to live in the suburbs and less likely to live a life of international travel.

I would not like to be a stay at home mother,. If I had to be one obviously I'd prefer it in Paris with enough money to afford someone to help with cleaning and money to go on trips etc. although does that affect the power thing - if the value of your domestic and cleaning and sexual services equals his £20k a year average UK salary then that's a fairly fair deal but if the housewife bit is worth at mots £30k and he earns say £20m a year then I think the power in a relationship can be very different and some, not all thankfully, higher earners don't always treat the other party right. So a measure of parity and equality usually makes things easier. Still couldn't bear to be financially dependent on a man though... but that's a separate issue.

What is interesting is the number of my City friends (men and women) who try to justify their return to work with whole debates about how they need to maintain their careers, pay the mortgage, etc. but in the same breath tell you that they are fed up with staying long hours at home with a baby. Huh ?

So one does wonder what the REAL motivation is for hurrying back to the office, the fact you don't actually like babies/toddlers that much and find interacting with them for more than x hours per day tedious, or the fact you think you need to maintain your career ?

I don't think I can count on my fingers the no. of friends/people I have known who express utter relief at being "freed" from child care to go back to work.

I have an issue with this sort of attitude. I don't think it is responsible parenting. Good for the parent and one's pocket, but not GOOD parenting.

Why has this become a battle between Xenia's life style and Anna's life style AGAIN ? Neither of you are "typical" UK parents.

FM - I didn't say you said it, I said Xenia said it, many times.

And while I wholeheartedly agree that, statistically, you are more likely to be a SAHM in the suburbs than internationally, the other scenario exists - again, Xenia doesn't seem to acknowledge it.

There are all sorts of SAHMs (as there are of course all sorts of WOHMs) and the only point I have been trying to get across, principally to Xenia, is that we are not all:

• Barbie dolls
• brain dead
• financially dependent
• wiping bottoms and doing housework all day
• possessive mothers

etc etc

and would therefore, 100% of us, be better out at work.

I do find Xenia pretty insulting.

YR - I know many many women who love their jobs but are so aware of hostility to working mothers that they express their choice purely in terms of financial necessity.

yr - because I get fed up with SAHMs being caricatured by Xenia (see below).

There are lots of fun, valuable, interesting ways to be a SAHM. Mine is only one, but I'm not going to fill this thread with all the other examples I know. Maybe that could be my next book, though [smile £££££]

I actually find xenia more mainstream than anna

i know anna, you are right she does do caricatures though i doubt she can paint and draw as well as me but it is NOT about your life style vs hers.

you are not typical UK women with ordinary lives. i don't think i am "typical" either, for one thing I have a dh who works from home 4 days a week and spends and awful lot of time with both of us, we are very lucky, but certainly not typical.

Xenia -

I don't do much cleaning for my partner, so that value = £0. But if I did it instead of the cleaners, it would be a miserable pittance

I do manage our household and lives though, pretty efficiently (he is hopeless at that on his own though quite good at making the right decisions if he is supported and he loves spending time with his children). By managing household, I mean children's upbringing, education, activities, our homes, holidays, cultural and social activities so value £ = pretty high (there aren't in fact so many of us on the market with the same experiences to bring to a relationship)

Investments - I bring a lot of value here on long term projects and investments

Work - he talks to me about work and I do solve some major problems for him (I have a professional network he doesn't have) so consulting services - £ = pretty high

Sex - I enjoy making love to him as much as he does to me so there is no monetary loss or gain to either party though there is of course a lot of value accrued to to both parties

And we have fun together, lots and lots of it = lots of value to both of us

I don't think a healthy relationship is ever:

Money versus housework, childcare and sex