So, us rotten lot....

[scarredpierced]

How many of us actually meet Shona's little sidekicks criteria?
She states that all of us on Mumsnet are in our 30s, living in London and have a degree. How many people here meet that criteria?
How many are popping prozac depressed at the shit life we now have with kids?
Damn that woman is nasty!

"If we all have high powered jobs, who is going to do the childcare, there will be no childminders as that is low paid and not considered good enough.

Lucyellens, ideally:

we would have more flex working hours (ie part time, or 10-4 for example)
Not everyone has to be a high flier either, by that I refer to the hours as lets face it senior roles are NOT 9-5

I just get miffed that despite women being educated to be a very high level, yet they are the "default" parent!

I am also interested into why we have such shit childcare in the UK, as it does seem to be the normal assumption here that FT childcare is NOT good?

Listen dont get me wrong, I have a SAHP as there is no WAY I would want my kids with the local CM or nurseries FT. But it interests me that I have made a decision that they are not good IFSWIM?

But this begets the question WHY, is childcare in the UK poorer than in the US, France and Sweden?

WHY do the UK have a seemingly majority view that parental care is much better than nursery?

I just dont know.....

I think it is cultural. French women do not assume working is bad for children. Even in the UK if you go back to 1900 loads of women many of whom did not work had someone to look after their children. It was a badge of pride that you lived in your 3 bed terraced or semi in outer London but you still had that little box room for the live in servant. So back then we had a cultural norm that most women wanted someone else to do most of the day in day out child minding.

Then in WWII it was essential women worked and nurseries were installed at factories and work for women was a jolly good thing.

Not sure what happened since? A 1950s guilt trip started off my men returning from war wanting stepford wives to serve on them leaving jobs for men happy to put about the myth that mother is always best?

But no it still seems she has her posts pre-typed ready to trawl out whenever she feels she can hijack a thread

Yes, Xenia's posts do have this quality to them, sort of reading a B- essay produced by an A-level Sociology student.

They also tend to universalise her own experiences and disregard anything that doesn't fit her own life experience.

but the live in maid is just a teeny tiny corner of your world xenia the UK is bigger than LOndon people exist out of london not everybody does that or wishes that, there is nothing wrong with working full/part/time not at all it is how a family works that is important and families are all different not everybody lives like you xenia

If you only had one live in servant in 1900 she generally wasn't looking after the children but rather doing the general household drudgery.

It makes you realise that we have at least come a long way and people can no longer have a drudge in a box room.

Xenia, I think while you have correctly noted that lots of families employed (female) servants I don't think you saw the dynamic involved there. The ability to afford to employ servants was considered a feather in the wage earner's cap (this meant the man's). It was not something most women had a say in though they often managed the household and oversaw the training of staff, or trained them themselves, and though it freed up a wealthy wife to pursue a life of leisure this too was seen as something for a man to boast about.

Families employing servants (who were mostly women), to schlep heavy coal scuttles around the house at the crack of dawn, do the washing of all the dirty underwear, change the soaking and dirty nappies, change the human litter boxes (in the days before indoor loos everyone crapped and peed in potties and sand) you get the idea, the drudgework employed models for both the girls and the boys growing up of what women's employment looked like.

Being paid buttons while they wore out their backs and knees (washerwomen's hands and housemaid's knee are not just quaint turns of phrase) while often expected to submit to the advances of the male employers was another part of the picture that both boys and girls saw in their own homes. And no pension, nowhere to go in their old age unless they saved every spare penny.

If you pay minimum wage to a childcare provider or nanny then you have a drudge, just not in the garret. Life has not changed all that much for those involved in the business of childcare or housekeeping.

What mathanxiety said.

A household employing a single household would have been a 'maid of all work' in nearly every case.

it just baffles me that anybody could think it is ok to have a 'drudge' int he box room while they waft about being important oh how the other half live

I'd like Xenia to give us daily updates on how much of her time we've had, what she'd charge to a client for her to spout her opinions. Why isn't she keeping a spreadsheet on her charitable work (ie, trying to indoctrinate us?)

My parents had a live-in housekeeper/maid/nanny. Out of economic necessity not idealism. I grew up to have horribly low self-esteem and few ambitions, an underachiever most of my school yrs. DD has had a SAHM for as long as she can remember. She is feisty, high achieving, fiercely ambitious and over-confident.

Make of it what you will.

llkkj

tad bitchy non? Its just an opinion, like every fucker on here has!!!!

its moved from a debate to a bitchfest, well I never!

I think this thread should be moved to the 'Xenia' topic.

This is where we, as a sex, let ourselves down I think. It should be possible to disagree without being bitchy, surely? though guilty as charged sometimes

Xenia is Xenia, she will never change, she has been like this for years and I doubt, no matter how many people respond to her, agree with her disagree, she doesn't seem to take it in. I often wondered if she was a bot but her response to Lucyellensmum has failed me, she is human.

Okay, I guess I'm having an ASD moment, what was so bitchy about what I said? Xenia often posts that she makes a lot of money charging clients (for whatever, certainly her time, she has given per hour figures before), she also bitches about her high taxes quite a lot. She repeatedly says that she feels compelled, obliged even, to write what she writes on MN to persuade women to her POV. I have therefore started to joke by suggesting before she should write off her MN advice as charity work on her tax returns.

Which part of what I've joked is so bitchy??!

"This is where we, as a sex, let ourselves down I think. It should be possible to disagree without being bitchy, surely?"

No. It is statements like this that let us down. So we are disagreeing. Is that not allowed? How is that bitchy?

ah no, men bitch as much, if not more than we do!

"This is where we as a sex, let ourselves down I think" GG

I understand the frustration, but agree with Copper ....

So, let me think, where do men as a sex let themselves down ?
Could it be starting and perpetuating most of the world's wars, and other violent conflict do you think ?

Give me a good bitchy cunt woman any day !

compos you're definitely z-list for originality,and she said dis and dat gripes
id expect people to be consistent with their opinions.
i dont recall xenias posts but id not expect pov to deviate much

" I don't recall Xenia's posts" @ scottishmummy

I have the attention deficit brain and memory of a goldfish, but even I remember Xenia's post(s) - the plural is optional

i dont recall xenia previous posts seeing her posting style is being commented upon
on this thread i agree with fair amount of what she says,esp the expectations
i think women do need to maintain in employment,be visible, and not necessarily be the one to pack in job to be housewife

Scottishmummy Your post isn't hugely clear - are you typing on a smart phone?

But if I've got the gist of what you're saying, you are saying that Xenia is consistent in her opinion and I am being unfair.

However I would expect some sort of resposne to what other people say in the thread and some sort of acknoledgement of what they said.

Xenia just crowbars her mini-essays in regardless of context.

i think you understand just fine compos,and i think youre revisiting mn grudges
i have no issues with people robustly expressing themselves,in fact i like it
i think its puerile to grizzle about post/posting style because you dont like content

i think you understand just fine compos,and i think youre revisiting mn grudges

I think you hugely over-estimate the clarity of your posts.

ok,so you cut and paste
you bold
any original non gripey she said dis and dat in 19canteen thoughts