'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 . . .

Liebelulle -

This is what I do not get "Those of us not able to afford nannies wouldn't have to entrust our kids to 18yos on the minimum wage, for a start."

... Why is it that the only option people seem to be able to conceive of is that mothers have to do the bulk of childcare themselves or pay some other woman to do it?

Yes I agree I would not sneer at someone who has not had the life chances to get an education etc... But this is not what is keeping women out of the top end of the spectrum. Women with tons of education and high potential are dropping out of the workforce and giving up their careers because their husbands job pays more and assumes a wife at home. Unless we challenge that how is it going to change? It doesn't have to be sneering, but it does mean recognising that women who find it easier (given the way things are) to leave their careers behind are giving up something worth having, and saying that "being a mum is just as valuable" does not make this an OK situation.

"Women with tons of education and high potential are dropping out of the workforce and giving up their careers because their husbands job pays more and assumes a wife at home."

No - I don't agree that this is the reason.

I agree with the sentiments in exoticfruits post. While I agree with Xenia on a number of things, I don't agree with her comments on "housewifes" and assumption that everyone wants to be a high flyer.

I get really annoyed though about the false assumptions that are peddled that if you have a high flying career that you will basically never see your children and that they will basically be raised by the nanny. That's just not my reality of that of colleagues. While a nanny and a PA might seem like a status symbol to some, they are for me, essential people who ensure that irrespective of what I am doing, my children are my priority and work doesn't "get in the way" of my family life. Between them they support me to ensure that I usually spend between approx 2 hours with the dcs each morning before work and approx 1 hour in the evenings. Those are the 3 days a week that I am in the office. The other 2 days, I work from home and spend half days doing activities with them - our weekly swimming classes on one half day and another activity on the other half day - and then work the other half days. So I spend 3 hours a day with my kids on 3 days a week, 2 days I spend about 8 hours with them, and then all day on the weekends. I get to spend this much time with them because of my "high flying" career because I am senior enough to dictate the hours that I work (I still work full time, I just make up the hours after the kids have gone to bed or before they wake up). Examples like me, where I work flexibly are rarely talked about in the media and the myths continue to be peddled on here.

But that is xenia's idea not mine - that childcare is so dull and easy that any low-paid sap can do it. That is the logical outcome of her position. I like the idea of both parents taking a career break or going part time, but keeping a hold on their career, and there being affordable high quality childcare to enable that to happen, for all families.. But the way things are set up in the uk, that is not possible. I'm saying we do challenge the status quo, but we do it by recognising the value of looking after small children, so that it is not always the woman doomed to give up her career to do it.

Bonsoir - why then in couples where both parents have education and a professional job do mothers more often than fathers give up/scale back their careers when they have DCs together?

Because women are more interested, on average, in "family lifestyle" than men and are willing/desirous to invest their energies and skills in raising children (and all the accessory parts of domestic life).

Because they are utter mugs raised by sexist women ( probably housewives) and believe the rubbish peddled in the media that their one true role is prostrate across the kitchen sink , marital bed or nappy changing table. We will root them out and teach them a lesson and make sure they go off to rule the board room, throwing their apron s behind them at the sexist pig they married and then all will be well....

The only reason why women are more interested in children is because from the very start they have been given dolls to look after along side a kitchen and a pram. They have been read countless fairy tales stories that tells them the end of a good story is when the princess gets married and has a lot of children.
It's because the example they have in front of them is the one when women are expected to drop everything just attend a last minute play/prepare a last minute costume etc...
It's because right from the start these girls hear that 'putting babies in childcare is bad for them' on TV, by parents etc...
Whereas on the other side, the whole culture will value men going to work, earning money and doing little in the house.

In a culture where childcare isn't the all in all role of a women and where girls aren't told that it is their role, you would probably not have the same feeling that 'they are more interested' than men. You might find that men are actually getting more interested in their job as a father and a parent and women more interested in pursuing goals of their own.

IME men are generally very interested in raising children to be successful adults. But they (unlike, sadly, an awful lot of women) have a firm grasp on economics.

About this 81 minutes malarky. I have just counted up and I spend about 18 hours a week with my kids, plus (obviously) night times and all weekend. I have a demanding professional job. Are we talking about tiny children asleep by 6pm or something, with the 81 minutes?

maples - I disagree entirely! Not my experience! What men are generally a lot less interested in is the hotel-keeping aspect of family life.

Most of the fathers I know around here do an awful lot of the nitty gritty ... a lot of them have very senior roles as well.

My own dad was like that too - he picked us up from places and cooked our supper (invariably lovely steaks/chops and home made chips!) and did the dishwasher (very scientifically), cleaned bathrooms (ditto) and even put washes on (although he was pretty bad at the last task, and shrunk my favourite cardigan), while mum was off at university and later working. He even tried to do my hair for me (one time getting a comb so stuck in there he had to cut it out!) I preferred dad's approach as a) you got great home made chips a lot, and b) it was a functional engineer's approach to home management with no emotion attached.

I never really encountered major role divide when growing up, it was a task divide depending on where people were, and what their best skills were (mum sands furniture, dad paints it - that kind of thing).

I think the reason why it is usually the woman and not the man who gives up work is a complex issue.

Sometimes it is because the man earns more. It was that in our case. I earned a very good salary as a lawyer, but DH's renumeration was silly money. When we made the choice, we decided on the silly money.

But I have lots of friends who were paid very similarly to their partners and yet still it is always the woman who makes the choice to remain at home. The reasons seem to include a pragmatism on their part. Sometimes a bit of delusion in that they thought they would be able to tootle back into the workforce when the fancy took them. You hear this all the time on MN and I think 'you aint got a scooby have you?'.

Of the SAHDs I know, the decision was entirely financial. The wife earned more. End of discussion. Some are uttely miserable in their role. One I know has aged terribly and never does anyhting but moan. Others do a good job, but very different to the uber SAHMs I know. A lot more laid back. A lot less talking up the chores and tasks involved. And most of them do some free lance work too.

I'm not sure that anybody gave weaning any thought at all in our household nor did we ever use a bottle. But DP is certainly the table-manners dictator around here.

God my DH wouldn't shut up about weaning and bottles maples. I've been around babies loads, so I was pretty much of the opinion that you buy whatever seems to work and change if necessary. DH hasn't had much experience of babies so he researched every bloody thing on the internet and then talked to me about it endlessly. He did end up buying a great travel system though, and it saved me having to think about it so I just put up with it :)

Thinking about it, I appear to have married someone resembling my dad!!!

Oh yes, and DD much prefers DP to wash and style her hair - apparently he is much, much better at this than me...

so we are back to men are like this, women are like that.

....and men are just super: super at work and superdads. and women let other women down if they SAH and their children down if they work

i really dont think reality is like this at all.