I am in a state of feminist rage

[EllieG]

...because of stupid reports about working mothers (because fathers clearly have NOTHING to do with it) and sexist DV t-shirts from Topman and then having a conversation with one of the secretaries from work which went like:

Her - 'I think that women who just keep popping out babies to get housing off the state should be given no help' (Me - does anyone actually really do that? I think the Daily Mail just makes it up personally) and then she said 'I think it's wrong when a parent (but she meant mother) doesn't stay at home for the child's first 2 years having a career is selfish'. We were discussing a working single Mum who wants to go on secondment to another city for a bit and take her little child with her (thereby disrupting him for a bit) because - heavens above! - she has said she needs to do this for her career which is quite important in terms of providing for her child's future needs as her feckless ex (who does not agree and is using court to block her move) doesn't give them anything and she is the one who will have to pay for everything and she wants to be able to, and, even worse - She Likes Her Job. Awful, awful woman.

So it's OK to be a single mother if you -

a - just have one
b - provide for it yourself and have no state help (if you have state help are a feckless sponger who should Go Out And Get A Job)
c - don't try and have a proper career though, that is very bad. Especially if you might be quite good at it and enjoy it and might be trying to earn lots of money because then you are hard-nosed career woman who should have child taken away because you are going against you inner motherly nature.

[Becaroooo]

This is a really interesting thread....

I am getting a lot of stick atm from family/friends re: ds2.

I am a sahm - both by choice and neccessity - and my ds2 is not coping at all well with starting nursery. He has been so distressed (vomiting, hysteria, waking at night etc) we have decided to wait and try him again next year.

Its ALL MY FAULT apparently...he is "too happy" at home (?)

sigh.

You cant win.

If I were a WOHM and had to leave him at nursery covered in vomit and hysterical I would be thought of as "heartless" and "cruel" by the very same people who are criticising me now for taking him out!!!

Those wohm's who think that sahm's get any respect for sah are very wide of the mark!!

[sunshineandbooks]

Interesting contribution Bec.

THat's one of the things I would love to see change most in this country. Raising our next generation is one of the most important roles in life ever. That's one reason why some people (like me) are happy choosing professional childcare. For parents who choose to do it themselves, there should be a recognition of what they're doing. And how hard it is, because no matter how much you love what you do and how willing the choice, it is incredibly demanding and physically tough in the early years, especially if you have a child who's a poor sleeper/has health issues/has a more challenging personality. If money is limited and support not freely available, it's even harder again.

Something can be incredibly rewarding, enjoyable and yet still be hard. I get really cross when people go on about SAHMs as if it's easy - presumably they think they're all either lying around watching Jeremy Kyle while their child drinks bleach from the kitchen cupboard (if they're on benefits) or being yummy mummies while their child is largely ignored and treated only as a fashion accessory (if they're better off). Most SAHMs, whatever their financial arrangements, are really engaged with their children because they love them.

I hope your DS vomits all over your decidedly unhelpful friends/family then you can tell them it's their fault for making him like that.

[Becaroooo]

sunshine He saves up all the vomit for me!

My ds1 has SN which means that I have to be around and available 24/7, woh is just not an option for me atm.

I have always - perhaps mistakenly?? - assumed that all parents do what they think is best for their family and their dc whether that means sah or woh. I didnt plan to be a sahm for years and years but "circumstances alter cases" as my MIL would say. (I have been a sahm for 9 years now)

I am lucky that I have the option...many many women who would like to be sahm's cant due to marital breakdown, money issues, familial pressure..... just as some sahm's who would like to woh cant due to childcare issues, lack of child friendly jobs, familial pressures etc......

Its a very depressing picture all in all.

All wohm's take comfort!!!!! If you are "damaging" your child by putting them into nurseries. I am also damaging my child by not putting him into nursery!!!

Cant be right, can it???

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

I was thinking last night about how people bring in the 1950s That Never Were in these sorts of arguments, and thinking how real history might actually apply. Back in the day, most children wouldn't have had 1-1 care from their mums all day, every day (with a bit of imput from dad when he came home from work), surely? Most children must have ended up with quite a variety of people doing childcare. I know arguments based on 'The Past' are generally crap and pointless since most of us don't have a misplaced reverence for it (in the manner of 1950s That Never Was propagandists). But, still maybe interesting.

I was thinking as well that studies in child psychology will inevitably be shaped by the time and the place in which they were carried out - I wonder how much that's caused the anomalous bit of time when it has been most usual for women to raise their own children in the home, as main caregivers, to be over-emphasized? Does anyone know?

[swallowedAfly]

i think it is just that it was pre-60's era, pre women getting all uppety, pre women being able to control their fertility and starting to make freer choices about their destiny.

when people hold up that 'golden era' crap they're just actually saying, consciously or not, that women shouldn't have these freedoms. it's like harkening back to the good old days of slavery and how much simpler and nicer it was then - not for the slaves obviously.

[swallowedAfly]

and the stats and studies side of it is that people have been dead keen to prove that those changes were/are bad. they are of an agenda that perhaps didn't exist before there was something to fight against ie. women become freer.

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

That makes sense SaF - and I certainly agree it's absurd when people take women's health/benefit out of the equation - but what I'm trying to work out is, is being cared for by mum, one-to-one, for most of the day, really so wonderful and 'natural'? Studies and books written in the last century or so will tend to see it as the default and will therefore probably over-emphasize it, but it's a bit of an anomaly in history, that set-up. There's a problem in that, where you have a norm, many successful people will try to fit that norm if they're able to - not necessarily because it's the best or more natural thing for them, but because conforming to norms is what we're encouraged to do. So I wonder how many of the studies about childcare are a bit skewed in terms of what they conclude is best for the child?

Sorry, I know there's a zillion studies out there and plenty don't insist the best form of care is many mum-hours, but a lot do, and I wonder if it's a bit biased.

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

(Btw, in case it's not clear, that's me trying to show my working for why I asked the question, not me trying to argue a case - I just don't know what's correct and know it's your area of expertise.)

[aliceliddell]

I have already posted about //www.fawcettsociety.co.uk have announced Saturday 19th November as 'Cutting women out' day against coalition cuts taking us 'back to the 50's'. But it's a bit of a myth, women lost their 'male' war time well paid jobs and got part time jobs in eg electronics, then did the 'double shift' when they got home, using the Kenwood Chef they'd just made. (Great frocks, though)

[garlicnutty]

I was born in 1955. My father worked shifts in one of the uniformed services. Mum was a professional, but stopped working when she got married. She would have had to stop shortly afterwards anyway; there was no maternity leave. We didn't have running hot water in the house - though we had an indoor bathroom, which still wasn't the norm at that time.

They had a baby every 18 months or so for ten years, until the Pill became available. The first 5 years were without hot water (it all had to be heated in a container), all nappies were terry, there were no easy-clean products, no instant foods, no freezers, no automatic heating (fires had to be built & cleaned); they didn't have a car, only bikes.

Mum's primary role was to keep Dad comfortable (on shifts) and secondarily to look pretty (set hair in rollers, iron skirts, wear makeup). She took parenting seriously - she wasn't very good at it, but did view it as her job - which wasn't 'required' of a SAHM at that time. Children were to be marshalled, not necessarily to be parented as we now understand it. Disabled children, even the physically impaired, were considered ineducable and put away in institutions.

The '50s of the advertisements were just that - advertisements. It was a government-led campaign to keep women out of the workplace because we were still recovering from WW2. The emphasis on a wife's role was all about looking nice for DH and caring for him: that in itself was very hard work due to the lack of labour-saving commodities. Caring for children barely came into it. As long as they were well turned out, well mannered and not disabled, nobody gave a shit.

[aliceliddell]

Either way, a load of work for women. Happy days. The social order of thenuclear family is maintained.

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

GB - that's fascinating.

Can I just say - I did say I know the 1950s fiction is fiction, that's why I said it! Sorry ... just not sure if that was obvious.

[garlicnutty]

You were clear, LRD. Just thought I'd add the True Life Experience :)

You're right about child psychology being shaped by its times, too. I was reading about this a few weeks ago. That's the main reason our understanding of child development is moving so fast atm. Also, data on child development are incomparable between eras as the statistical base has changed at least twice.

When you consider that all children who deviated from the norm were removed from society until the late '60s - early '70s (with a few exceptions whose parents were stroppy enough), it's clear that mainstream studies took no account of disability. At that time, too, it was normal for an unmarried mother to have her child taken into care at birth so there were no proper data on choice parenting.

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

Good.

It is scary, isn't it, looking back? When I was at primary school there was a girl with Down's Syndrome in my reception class and it was a very new thing - her parents kept having to fight to keep her there and people were very worried the rest of us would be somehow damaged or frightened by her (we weren't ... obviously). But that was only the 80s.

[aliceliddell]

Disability rights is a very new idea; it was Alf Dubbs MP (now Lord) I think, and a couple of men in an institution who fought for their independent shared supported flat that brought us to the joyous state where we are now regarded as almost human by many people. Women have been attempting to convince polite societt of this for about a century longer. Don't hold your breath.

[motherinferior]

(Morris, not Dubbs. (Dubbs is the one who was a refugee child, used to head up the Refugee Council.))

[EllieG]

My mother's partner has an older brother who he never really sees - he has DS and has been in an institution since he was a child. His parents esp. mother were otherwise very progressive for the time - mother was a judge or something, but in the matter of their SN child they really thought the best thing was to put him away, no other option given. So although not typical 1950's thing as his mother always worked, the childcare options were still very limited when it came to needing more help.

[aliceliddell]

Thanks, mother!