follow from working mums threads, well someone was bound to do it!

[lucyellensmum]

Xenia, i must be one of the lucky ones then because my DP doesnt find his DD hard work, any more than I do - he would love to be around more for her but someone has to shut the bank manager up. Yes it must have been a struggle to pay the hired help at such a young age - does that sound bitchy, then i guess it is - jealousy does that, but well, im Ms average with average house, average bills, average aspirations and i dont see anything wrong in that. I actually worked my arse off for my ordinariness and am proud of where i am. Penis envy maybe xenia - no, thats not nice LE behave - my god, id never be so rude to someone's face but this is a free forum. Our DD2 was unplanned and has turned our lives upside down, was just about to be reaping financial rewards for years of academic hard work so i wondered if i was going to feel resentful to my little one for changing my plans, i was this far from getting a horse, lifetime dream, but thats out of the window now for at least another five years i guess. But actually no, i just thank god for her every single day, every smile, every giggle and every cuddle - shes my little angel and i dont think i would have survived the past few years without her. So here we are, still stuck in our modest terrace in a crappy street in a rather trendy and fashionable seaside town and i am happier (and more knackered) than i have ever been. Xenia please do not take this as a personal attack on you, its not meant that way just putting my side of the coin across. I'm sure you realise you are quite lucky and i certainly recognise you may have had a pair of balls at one time but have worked them off to get where you are so much respect for that - but take it from me, your babies aren't babies for long - i worked when my dd1 was wee (16 yr now) and she was with my parents more than me, i regret it sooo much i can't tell you. I have another chance (thank god - again).

Anna - i know lots of people who work harder than investment bankers,(nurses, teachers, university lecturers (now there's a bunch who deserve their pay packets if ever there was one) or at least as hard with no where near the return, so its not just a matter of degree but maybe a matter of starting points. But its only money at the end of the day and people chose their careers for many different reasons. AGain, im just expressing my view point. And we are far from on the poverty line by the way so this bitter diatribe is not through jealousy just mindful that everyone has a different challenge.

Xenia i am surprised that for someone who is obviously intelligent you come out with some very badly thought out statements. Firstly, i do not believe you work full time for the abstract welfare of future generations of women. I do not believe anyone works full time for that reason. I suggest that is a little bit disingenuous.

Secondly, saying that women who decide to become SAHM are kicking WOHM in the teeth is casting blame on entirely the wrong people. Again, it is assuming that child rearing is a useless task that offers no benefit to society at all. You really have fallen into a chauvinistic way of thinking. I think a society which truly held women in equal regard would respect [rather than resent and fear] their ability to have children and rear them well, and enable them to contribute to society in more than one role - as mothers as well as successful business women or academics etc. Margaret Thatcher became man like in her ascent to the top. She hired no other women in cabinet and was as sexist as the men around her. She was not a feminist. She was an individual hungry for power. You keep citing feminism as a justification for your attitude but i think it has nothing to do with feminism whatsoever. Fighting for true equality between women and men is a different thing altogether, and one in which intelligent women who want to bring up their children should not be made to feel useless and menial anymore than women in the workplace should.

btw i am don't mean to be rude Xenia i find many of your arguments interesting but just had to pin you down on those two!

I think you'll find that she did have a woman in her cabinent

early in her career she had one. First and last.

'Again, it is assuming that child rearing is a useless task that offers no benefit to society at all' I agree with that. This society is built on the backbone of unpaid labour, there is value in caring for children or elderly etc. It seems in this society that only those who earn are valued, hence people like the handicapped and elderly, and maybe children, are treated like a burden.Few people have total financial independence in this country, and even then then can loose it at any time. Low paid workers often need top ups to survive. I don't think a SAHP is letting down anyone. Why define someone by their employment status? And why is something only of value if one is paid to do it? Or by agreeing with or complying to a certain agenda? I agree with choice, not making all parents work outside the home, which seems this governments aim.

But for political reasons now we need more women doing more top jobs and one route to that is for now to have more women working and if it's a choice get the fathers at home until women gain that political and real power they ought to have in a fair and just society. Once we get there by all means retreat to your home as long as a man has an equal chance to put his career second to yours too. There are far too many institutions packed with women but no women at the top.

It may sound unfair to some, but women are always going to choose to stay home more than their husbands. I think we are more inclined to do so. Because of that you are always going to have fewer women at the top. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. Its just a result of our choices and if our choices make us happy who cares if boardrooms are full of more men.

But we're only choosing that because our mothers are sexist and buy us Barbie dolls and let us watch TV which portrays women as housewives etc etc If you go to some less sexist countries abroad there are more sexually neutral decisions about who works and who doesn't as I saw in Sweden last yet.

hey xenia- you are working hard over this weekend

I chose because its what I wanted to do, because it makes me happy not because I had Barbies or was brainwashed by TV. You'll be horrifyed to know my daughter plays with Barbies and even has some cute 50s style dresses that she tops with an apron while she plays with her kitchen and feeds her dolls. I don't think I am sexist at all. She is just copying her mother. Why shouldn't she I am a happy healthy person.

Yes, but like the women of the Taliban you are conditioned into acceptance and enjoy the role, like happy women in a Saudi harem. You need the scales lifted from your eyes and forced into true equality.

Anyway I'm trying to work, stop distracting me. I'm laughing at myself now.

Oh Xenia, some of your arguments are good and then you spoil it by coming out with that nonsense about gender-equal toys. Yes the 1970s feminists were sure boys and girls would grow up the same if they were given gender-neutral toys etc and it turned out to be complete bunkum. Women have babies. Women are biologically programmed to want to care for those babies when they are little and there is NOTHING wrong with that!!

Ml, I agree men and women differ. We need to take that on board more. We need medicine which reflects sex too and research and also on differences between adults and children and even races. The PC suggestion that women and men are the same is just untrue. There may well be more individual differences within a group of men than between men and women but it still should be looked at as a subject.

It should also be examined in terms of womrn promotion. A group fo MBA students were looked at. They all found jobs. All the men started on more than the women. Every man thought he was brilliant and asked his potential employer for more money than on offer. Every woman thought she was very lucky to get a job at all and none asked for more than the pay offered.

I suppose if we continue to leach out female hormones from our urine courtesty of the contraceptive pill men ultimately may be feminised enough to remove these differences. Perhaps it's a female led plot....

I stay at home my dp works but in the past I have worked while he stayed home.I am better suited to educate my dc's than he is so he works.It is nothing like educating a 5 yr old.My Dc's are 12 and 6 and believe me I work as hard if not harder than a teacher as I don't have the same resources as they do.
As for gender related toys,my son had a doll when younger he bought it with his own money.My daughter plays with cars and other so called male toys.They have a lot of influences in and out of our families.
As for being a SAHM injuring my dd's choice of future career,my dd wants to be a brain surgeon so I encourage that.My ds wants to be a paleontologist(prob spelt wrong) so I encourage that.My Dc's believe that all are equal in life no matter what.If that is injuring them to be taught that by their SAHM then I cannot see what working would have changed.Both working and SAHM have good points and bad but I believe in my personal opinion that there are times when a child needs a parent no one else for me that was when they were between the ages of 0 and 5.

glad you are laughing at yourself Xenia.
I really do think you've fallen into the trap of thinking like 'the oppressor'. I don't think your arguments progress the cause of feminism and I consider myself a feminist btw.
[and my 2 year old ds has a kitchen and a toy washing machine and he loves both of them! [grin ]

I'm always laughing at myself. I'm like Mr Bean in real life often. I go into a cloakroom and pull off the taps kind of thing.

Don't agree about thinking like the oppressor though. I think it'd done women huge good in the UK to get the vote, get the right o become doctors and lawyers, fight to get on Boards and into Parliament. It's been reall important for the country. I wouldn't like to get back to 200 years ago situation where women although they virtually all worked couldn't get into positions of power. I don't think it would be good if they lost that power although around the planet at the moment fundamentalist islam and old fashioned biblical US Christianity coupled with resurgence of woman as homemaker nad male desire to show off a non working wife as sign of their macho-ness and success etc. doesn't look too good. Thank goodness for Scandinavia and to some extent Tony Blair.

I gave a course one day and my high heel came off and gradually people there realised I was kind of unbalanced, moving up and down and started sniggering in the back so I had to declare the mishap or another time I had a nosebleed right at the start and had to start with tissued soaked in blood up my nose.

I never had you down as the Absent Minded Professor type

Xenia, we never think you're unbalanced

Er, but believing women should have the right to rear their own children isn't the same as wanting things the way they were 200 years ago.
From Wikpedia on Maternity rights..
'An example of generous parental leave is Sweden, where all working parents are entitled to 18 months' paid leave per child, the cost being shared between employer and State. To encourage greater paternal involvement in child-rearing, a minimum of 3 months out of the 18 is required to be used by the "minority" parent, in practice usually the father, and some Swedish political parties on the Left argue for legislation to oblige families to divide the 18 months equally between both parents. Norway also has a similarly generous leave.

The system in Bulgaria is even more generous, providing mothers with 45 days 100% paid sick leave prior the due date, 2 years paid leave, and 1 additional year of unpaid leave. The employeer is obliged to restore the mother to the same position upon return to work. In addition, pregnant women and single mothers cannot be fired.'

You have brought up Sweden as an example of equality in the workplace, but it is obvious that they respect the woman's right to bond and look after her own child much more than we do in the UK. So you can have an efficient and equal work force and more rights for parents and mothers to look after their children. The two are not mutually exclusive.

But IIRC in sweden, then everyone goes back to work after 18months.
There are very few people who stay home after this.
A friend of mine who was returning to sweden after having had her 2 children here was worried about being at home all day with the second one when all the other mothers would have gone back to work.... she said that invariably they all do.

So, great at the start, but over the age of 18months then the kids all go to nursery-

am glad you are laughing Xenia- I have enjoyed our converstaion this weekend... and i admire your tenacity

yes but that is quite a lot per child. if you have two children you can stay at home for 36 months consecutively on paid leave. And more obviously if you choose to have more children. A lot better than we have here. And also as far as i know, Swedish childcare is infinitely superior, with creches in the mother's work place, etc.

oh, i am not knocking it per se, it is much better than ours- but that is my firend's experience as a swede, she knew there would be no friends knocking around for her to hang out with and her child after 18months, as they would all be backa t work... obviously unless they were having another one