'High fliers' and nannies

[Takver]

I've seen in several places recently (including in threads on here, and for example in this article in last Saturday's Guardian) an assumption that if you are a wealthy and successful family where a nanny provides most of your childcare this is likely to result in your children being less 'stimulated' / likely to become highfliers themselves / otherwise missing out.

Typical quote from the piece linked to: "You assume they'll be intelligent, but you've never wondered how this will come about: when they try to interact with you, you're too busy."

Now maybe I'm overthinking this, but it seems to me that if we go back 40 or 50 years, it would have been the absolute accepted norm in a wealthy family for nannies / other staff to do the vast majority of childcare, and indeed for boys at least to then be sent off to boarding school from age 7 onwards. I can't imagine that anyone would have dreamed that this would in someway disadvantage their children or result in them being less successful themselves when they grew up. Of course back then the women of the family wouldn't have had the option to have top jobs themselves, they would have been occupied with their social functions.

Yet now - when women are able to access high flying jobs - we are told that this pattern of purchased childcare is going to disadvantage the children. And of course the corollary of this assumption is almost invariably that it is the mother - never the father - who is in some way being selfish by devoting their time to work and not childrearing.

I should say that I don't have any direct interest here myself - I am absolutely Ms-hippy-nature-walks-and-crafty-shit-mother but it just seems to me like another cunning way to stick women right back where they belong . . .

Er I had wonderful times with my working mother. And my dad too.

I dont think their work status was relevant.

My mother died rather unconveniently when I was 4. I was cared for by my working gps, father and various other family members. I turned out OK. I only have happy memories of childhood.

Yes I agree about primary carers.

If anyone was saying that they are 'irreplaceable' for any task, most people would say it's boasting and no it's probably not true.
For whatever reason, when you say that about childcare, only the mother can do a good enough job.

I obviously can't see an issue with the mum looking after her dcs. But can't help wondering why this aspect of childrearing is limited to the mum as if with her genes had come the ability to care for children better than anyone else and forgetting that mothers do learn how to look after her dcs just as much as a dad or anyone else

The concept of mothers devoting all their time to their children is a very modern concept. Prior to the later part of the 20th Century housework and "women's work" was so time consuming that most poorer women spent most of their time doing chores, even fetching water took hours, they didn't spend "quality time" with their children. Even those women whose husbands earned enough to keep servants did not spend all their time with heir children. Traditionally the women supported her husband and his career and most of her child interaction was working out how to marry them off advantageously.
It is only since the advent of piped water, easily available food, washing machines etc that it has somehow become imperative that women spend their time interacting with their child to the exclusion of doing anything else.

I do conclude that this must be a societal pressure to stop women doing work that makes them independent within a patriarchal power system. And I also note that this pressure has intensified since the introduction of effective contraceptives has meant that women can control the number of children she has. If you had 14 kids, what is the chance of you spending 10 hours with any of them?

I also think that if you are a woman who doesn't really get on with babies and toddlers and finds them excruciatingly irritating and annoying hiring a nanny who likes children of that age is a much much better choice than spending time with them screaming endlessly and failing to play at their level.

This thread has got more measured but god I really need to hide it because everytime it updates, I rage.

It amazes me that people have such little imagination and are such egotistical arseholes that they imagine that their choice way is right and is the only choice way. I always see feminism is a personal thing but my interpretation of it is that I believe in equality for all, and that means equality to make different choices and to respect each others choices/decisions. But actually the vast majority of people have little choice and end up making a decision that they are not happy with it - and that can be either to work or to stay at home. It's a very middle class thing to have a choice, so the digs in both directions are just disrespectful to the vast majority of women who don't have the economic power to have a choice.

I do a senior role and am in a leadership position in my job. It is the norm for me to attend a meeting with senior equivalents and be the only woman. If I really believed the bullshit subtext of some of the posts of this thread that by being a high flyer and choosing to work, I am damaging my children, then really I ought to just quit and be at home with them, and leave all the men to carry on with the senior meetings. This is where decades of feminism has got us?

The irreplaceable mother bit the housewives come out with is because the only way to justify their lives being 100% hearth and home, the old kinder kuche kirche thing, woman's sole place as home and family, is to "big up" that as some kind of job when it has never been a job. They have to pretend only they on the planet can be with their child and no one else can wipe its bottom properly because if they did not believe so they would realise they were wasting their time and lives in only having home and family as their sole life canvas. Psychologically they need to buy into the myth that only mother is good enough at home. We all know they are totally wrong of course but they do not like to hear it.

Of course working parents male or female do not damage their children. Unhappy parents damgae children. Parents who speaking nastily to their children and physically hurt them damage them. Parents who never see their children damage them or those present all the time but not present in a real sense because they are disengaged damage them.

The fathers and mothers I have known over 20+ years as a parent have virtually all tried to spend as much time as possible with children. As novice implies the more women who stay home the more feminism will have failed. Many women have wonderful careers and that not only benefits their family but also the wider world. If women are staying home purely because they want to is that not itself a selfish act?

Can I point out that this a very British idea though?
When I was in France (and they certainly do NOT have everything right!), you would never had heard that sort of discussion. You don't have articles after articles in newspapers describing how damaging WOHM/nursery etc.. is damaging to the children. And certainly not from men people who have declared themselves 'expert' and claim to have done 'studies' that are nothing other than studies.

So somehow, this idea that mothers should stay at home is a very cultural thing.
Which is reinforced by the structure of the society, from school expecting parental input at a very short notice to lack of appropriate care out of school holidays (esp after they have left primary school but aren't old enough to look after themselves).

I completely agree with novice. This is a problem mainly for the comfortable middle class who have some sort of choice.
And we should also have the choice, choice to stay at home, choice to work wo being pressurized to go any other way.

I totally agree with what Miggsie said above.

And I don't see the same guilt trip thing in Belgium - even though ML is MUCH shorter. What I do see is less presenteeism in the office and more men doing the school run. I have NEVER had a conversation with a work colleague about feeling bad for working - they would probably think I was nuts if I suggested it.

The take up rate for Maternelle here, starting aged 2.5 years, is 99%. Obviously the Belgians consider that it is a good thing for their children. My own experience, I have to say, is entirely positive. I have worked from home when my dd is ill and have NEVER felt judged. Most people take the time to ask if she is better now etc, on my return to the office.

There very much seems to be an attitude that your family and your health are of prime importance - much more so than work.

Why has this turned back into women working/not working?

It's the working model that is the problem.

...because we got to 1000 posts in the last thread

ah...

....i may be the only fan of the Battlestar Galactica remake on the thread, but that program has a saying 'all this has happened before, all this will happen again....

I suspect this thread won't be the last word on the subject....

Bb: its quite a feminist program with a female fighter pilot hero..

Yes, it certanily seems to be more of an issue for women here than in France or Belgium.The main thing is that British women realise they are not doing good by staying home and in political and feminist terms are doing bad.

Also if any socialists think shorter working hours etc are the bee's knees they can go off and start their own companies with that model. Some people have done. I work for myself. We can all make whatever models of work we can (unless as a teenager you picked low paid work without the ability to work for yourself in which case do ensure you do not direct your teenage daughters in the same direction or they will have no chance to found companies)

One thing I have noticed on this thread is sahm taking about being anxious regarding their dcs development. I haven't noticed wohm saying the same thing.

I think it relates to the judgment society puts on women.

Wasabi, I went back to work when dd was 5 months old. I have never worried about her development. There doesn't seem to be anything TO worry about that I can see. She is doing well at school, has lots of friends, is affectionate and thoughtful. She is a bloody fussy eater, but as I have fed her every meal except lunch in 8 years (well pretty much), I am pretty sure that has nothing to do with me working. Though it may have something do with the fact that I feed her and wait til DH has stopped working to eat myself.....

"One thing I have noticed on this thread is sahm taking about being anxious regarding their dcs development. I haven't noticed wohm saying the same thing.

I think it relates to the judgment society puts on women."

I think it relates to the judgement women place on the quality of their children's experience of life .

porto - that makes sense

bonsoir - the judgement women place on the quality of their children's experience of life which of course everyone is going to have a different view on.

any why is it only women who are interest in their children's quality of life? surely your SuperDad DP is able to be concerned about their quality of life and work FT? like women who work?

also, when you meet an adult, how do you know if they had a SAHM? you said its obvious who has a SAHM and who didnt. who do you know the mum work status of most people you meet?

so what i have noticed was the difference in the anxiety levels expressed on this thread by SAH/WOH mums. WOH mums dont seem worried in a way that some SAH mums do. i guess we all have different views of the world and how to navigate through it.

"any why is it only women who are interest in their children's quality of life? surely your SuperDad DP is able to be concerned about their quality of life and work FT? like women who work?"

I was responding to your post opposing SAHMs and WOHMs on this . There are many men who are deeply interested in their children's welfare and, IME, those men pretty much unanimously think children need a SAHP or a PT WOHP!

In France it's very easy to typify people according to their parenting in early adulthood (harder later of course when people have had their mid-life crises and neuroses and had their eureka moments).

Bonsoir -

You seem to have a completely different standard for judging what it takes to be a good and concerned mother and a good and concerned father.

Fathrers it seems just have to say "someone around here needs to make some career sacrifices for family" life, they don't have to do it
themselves.

Bonsior - i am commenting posts on this thread, that have been made by women (i dont think any men have posted).

1.There are many men who are deeply interested in their children's welfare and, IME, those men pretty much unanimously think children need a SAHP or a PT WOHP! how do you know this? how many men have you talked about this topic with?

1. In France it's very easy to typify people according to their parenting in early adulthood how do you know their parenting?

3.if you think its so obvious, what are the differences between someone raised by a SAHP and WOHP?

it seems a bit obsessive to me to look at someone & think if they had a SAHP.

We are getting a bit sidetracked. Most fathers and mothers for that mattetr who are concerned about child welfare do not think that means mother or father must not work nor one must stay at home.

If you meet a man who is going to insist you stay at home you walk quickly away, say sexist pig and realise he is not the man for you nor will be a good father. You do not embrace him as superfather whilst rushing off to go part time and wash his socks.

Gosh, it's a miracle anyone's children are making it to adulthood, given all the errors mothers are making with their domestic lives.

Even more miraculous the WW2 generation survived, given that they were evacuated or plonked in huge factory nurseries, or smothered with love by widowed SAHM.