'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 . . .

Well a pension is worth having no? If your DH dies you only get half or three quarters in rare cases. Lots of older women can't run their homes on that.

Also, while child care costs are expensive in the short term, they do become more affordable as a. the DC need less and b. the parents earn more...but this can only happen if the parents keep working.

Don't forget bOnoir here in the UK it is far better for tax reasons to have two earners at mid level than one at high level. 50% kicks in at 150k. But the second earner gets their own allowance and tax scale etc...

I mean the second earneresn't get tacked on to the first eaner for tax purposes like inFrance...oh you know what I mean .

Though god help you with the new president. Hasn;t he commited to 75% tax?????

My DH got calls from the Paris office today, all in complete turmoil. Do you think he'll really do it?

The premise is ridiculous and another stick to beat women with.

Clearly an engaged, interested nanny will be of great benefit to a child and there is a way of balancing both. Its not for everyone though and not for the faint hearted

Wordfactory, what happened in France is good for London in terms of brain drain over to here.

I was listening to the Today programme this morning when they interviewed a lady from Goldman Sachs' Paris office. She was asked whether the new government would mean all her team would move over to London. She replied that all her team were in London already

Having being widowed once, which incidentally left me much better off financially than being married, I have everything worked out financially, women would be silly not to. We are a partnership.

Accruing a pension is an important thing though, non? The tax position in Belgium, and I think, also in France, favours numerous children and a non-working spouse. On more stressed days I have often thought whether we might be not so much worse off if I became a lady of leisure.....But MY pension is important to ME. My salary - whilst lower than dh's (quel surprise! - though actually a lot of it is due to him claiming expat tax status that I don't get) is still enough to adequately support dd and I should the worst happen.

I like being in that position. Financial independance is more important to me than who loads the dishwasher I guess. But that is me. Out of all the posts on this thread, I most agreed with Hully (and others) that said it the work model that must change to allow equality. Not that women have to become like men in the current set up and work all hours.

Porto - i agree - the work model has to change. But it won't change unless fathers say that if their field/organisation arranges itself so that that the only way that a father can work is to have a wife at home or invisible children/boarding school etc... then it is not tenable for them.

There are a few jobs that require that - oil rigs, the army, pilots perhaps... but I can't believe that all the women on MN who say that their husband's careers are and all-or-nothing deals really have husbands who do those jobs?!?.

I am sure that many have husbands who work in careers like the City, medicine etc.. that just have embedded cultures and work practices based on men at the top/women at home.

I think that working hours should change for everyone, they are ridiculous. I t should be perfectly possible to be Head of a company and keep an allotment or volunteer with Scouts or similar, as well as have a home life and share child care. At the moment if you have a high flying job that is it- your life- with no time to even share child care. It isn't good for the person or the organisation, people could be far more effecient on less. It would just cost more, why pay 2 when one can do the job? People have just got used to the long hours and don't question the fact they get there at the crack of dawn and leave late. They can only do it if they are single, have a partner at home or employ staff.

But we dont live in a society where the majority want a lower income. I dont see how shorter hours can support the same level of income.

Plus as an employer, it doesn't suit me to have flexi time, part time, job share etc. It would be easier for me to close down and go and work for someone else and get the benefits and avoid the hassle.

i like my job, dont want to work pt. Is anyone suggesting pt should be mandatory? If not, dont we have choice now and ft is the choice for most?

exotic

first, your contention that women who can't sort out their pension and financial security are just silly is beyond patronising and condescending.

How do you propose the vast majority of women fund it if they are not working?

The fact is that they don't, not because they are silly, but because there is not sufficient in the family pot. The family retirement fund is predicated on their DH's pension. And if he dies before them (as will happen to most women) they don't get enough to survive. Things are set to worsen as the state pension will be further eroded if not removed for our generation.

Remaining in the workforce so that they have their own provision in retiement is often the most sensible thing for women to do. But then they come up against the breast beaters telling them how they are damaging their DC.

Honestly, can you not see the dichotomy?

And as for job shares etc...some jobs just don't facilitate that.

Imagine if your lawyer told you half way through a week's trial that she was going to hand over to someone else!!!!

Or imagine a company being told they will have to pay for two people to fly out to the States, because the first one doesn't work on Wednesdays!!!

I'm sure their are some public sector/office based jobs that might be sharable, but for many clinet facing roles in the private sector the paying customer just doen't want it. And why should they pay for what they don't want?

I am not saying PT should be mandatory.

I am saying that it should be a normal expectation that when two people have a baby together they both adjust their working hours and practices from the beginning to allow them both to maintain their career and bring their child up.

It really shouldn't be beyond the wit of man - given email, remote working, video conferencing etc... I think many jobs could be done in a more family friendly way - getting home on time, perhaps working 4 days a week, some days from home, being available for emergencies, being careful about travel etc... Organisations wouldn't fail.

Currently the country and companies waste millions of pounds training women who go off on maternity leave and then fade away. I do not understand how people can tell their daughters "work hard at school, you can be anything" while accepting working practices as the norm which will push them out if they become mothers.

If employees come up with workable job shares then employers (if they want to reatin those people) often listen to those plans. However as said above not all jobs are made like that and believe it or not a lot of ambitious women adore their work - I would far rather work a 10 or even 12 hour day than mind a baby for 12 hours. Not everyone wants more time at home or even more time totally idle and to suggest "women" are somehow made to be different from men and not want to work as much is sexist. They may have been made that way by culture or society or by having sexist parents but plenty of them do want to work full time. It is not "male" to want to work hard. The bottom line is most people are fairly lazy and never earn much of either gender. Some aren't. Others again manage to orgainse work so they have free time and earn a lot. You need to work smart not just hard.
I think I earn the minimum weekly wage in an hour. I have not chosen to live on that minimuim wage and work one hour a week although I suppose that's one option. Had I picked work paid at £6 an hour then I would have to work more hours.

Saying the work model has to change is all very well but fails to recognise that the vast majority of the UK's GDP is from the services industry and that a significant portion of the industry is global and so there is an interconnectivity that didn't exist even 10 years ago. UK legislation will only get you so far, but after that it makes the UK economy vulnerable to other cultures. I am not even talking about paying someone in India peanuts to do an IT job, I am talking also about the fact that in the US, they work much longer hours in their services industries, for less pay, less benefits and less holidays. Everyone may deride Xenia on here for taking 2 weeks maternity leave, but in the US no one would raise an eyebrow in the top law/accountancy firms or on Wall Street.

Something I believe makes a difference is women being in the senior echelons of organisations and them playing their part. So wanting to make a difference to the next "generation" of women coming through behind them and actually doing it. It is sad, that if a woman is at the top of her career and making sure that it is easier for other women to achieve the same thing that on mumsnet she isn't seen as another positive role model but is more likely to attract the comment of copying male behaviour () and damaging her kids . As I said before, perhaps we should heed the opinions, quit our jobs and leave the men to run things.

Himalya if I worked for a big company I might agree with you. But as a female small business owner, it would make it even harder for me to have a family than it already is.

i dont have any rights to ml and come back into a job. Its down to me keep staff happy and committed throughout. Its down to me to make sure clients aren't rattled by me having children. i need to keep the money coming in, to pay wages And get everything back to normal asap.

All of the above is fine, but I pay enough and dont require particularly long hours of staff so they can sort their own lives out.

Many jobs can build in some element of flexibility. I work in a office, but can work anywhere there is an internet connection. There is nothing to stop me collecting dd from school and logging on from home later. In fact that is what I do. My performance is measured on the work getting finished, not me being sat a desk from 9 - 5.30.

Maples - I really think then dads have to make them. Employers are not saying "we won't try this because we can replace you with a young man with no dependents" they are saying/thinking "we won't try this because we can replace you with another man who doesn't have such silly idea that his wife's career is important/he wants to see his kids".

If the wife takes a years maternity leave, that is a years notice the dad has to find another job, negotiate different conditions etc...I know that sounds harsh but this business of "my career is non-negotiable, I will support you in whatever you chose to do" is bullshit. Imagine a woman going back to work without considering how to make it fit with childcare and DHs work. She just hands the baby over and says "I will support you in whatever you choose to do" - that's no support at all! Why should the woman be the one to make all the accommodations and hard choices.

Himalaya, that's where I see it down to the individual to value themselves as much as the husband values himselfan that the role of feminism and these discussion is to help women in valuing themselves so they don't accept a man subtly over a long period of time establishing his role as financial provider and little else. "Society" isn't going to do it for them. My dh looks like he does his fair share but I know that is because I make it clear that I am not accepting anything else. His colleagues are the same blokes telling their wives that they can't get home for bedtime because they are doing a deal and they are up against a deadline and it seems like they accept this because work is to blame. No its not. In a lot of cases I see, it is the man who just hasn't tried hard enough to work flexibly and recognise their home committments.

men who are highly valuable will be able to make this change. but in a NMW job it seems unlikely. or if you are both on average salaries, with free childcare from parents/childcare vouchers, how is less income going to make your lives easier?

Himalaya I completely agree with you - in principle it should be equally incumbent on the father as on the mother to work out where his career needs to change so he can do his fair share of childcare.

The thing is, though, that the woman often wants to compromise her career (i.e. work less hard!) and see more of her child(ren). The man often doesn't want to. That is the case for maples and for me. We are not taking these roles because of our gender but because it fits with what we and our DHs all prefer. Clearly this wasn't the case for Xenia and novice but I think (from my very non-scientific observation ) that they are the rarer breed.

minipie - you might be right with the woman often wants to compromise her career (i.e. work less hard!)

but if its true we will remain IMO second class citizens.

In my experience though, both in RL and on MN, women are ofyen happy to take a step back from their career but don't think it will be a permenant issue.

You hear all the time, women convinced they will be able to get back into the work force unhindered by being out of it for several years. They cite all the skills they've gained.

But the reality is often women who cannot get back into the game, certainly not at their old level. They often end up taking lesser roles for lesser money.

I'm not saying they were wrong to do what they did, but I wish women were advised of the implications better than they are. Making an often life changing decision based on imperfect information isn't ideal.

wordfactory I think (or at least I hope!) that more and more women are aware of how hard it is to get back into work after long periods at home.

But that doesn't mean they choose to stay in their high flying/long hours jobs. It means (IME) that they look for part time or 9-5 jobs instead. So from a feminist perspective, we still have women taking a step back and letting their DH be the main breadwinner while they are the main childcarer - even if they are not becoming SAHMs.