'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 . . .

That is certainly somehting I see minipie.
Women who had hard fought and demanding careers doing part time jobs that fit in around the kids.

Don't get me wrong, if these women are happy then no one should be forcing them to go back to their old jobs, but it is a great drain of intellect and skill isn't it?

But I don't know what you do bout it. I took a step back after DC. And whilst my own job that fits in around the DC pays me handsomely, I am no longer in a position of auhtority. No doubt some guy got my old position!!!

They often only want to work less hard (women) because they are conditioned to that. Men aren't. If a prospective husband said I will be expecting you woman to work full time for 40 years.

If the husband would quite like quite a few years at home, time to go to the gym when the children are at cool and find my self and then return to part time work at £6 an hour until your (the woman's) pension kicks in which is how a lot of men might rather like to lead their life, the woman might well not accept he is the one to settle down with. Some women expect to have more free time and ultimately more idleness by being kept by male earnings (not all times and cultures but some) than men do and culturally that is accepted so men and women find it easy to follow that path. I am not sure how much real choice people have rather than just gender conditioning.

Most humans of whatevr sex if told you can work for a few hours a day and spend the rest once children are at school doing pretty much what you like no need to turn up at an office, just keep looking pretty and provide sex and supervise the cleaner and you are kept for life OR you can go to an office, deal with a nasty boss, work very long hours and if we split up lose the children.

Xenia from that post, it sounds rather as if you think SAHMs have got a great life and their DHs are the ones being oppressed by gender conditioning into staying at work and supporting their wife's lifestyle.

No. A great life is not a life being kept in idleness. I think work makes most women pretty happy and plenty of people get very depressed without the purpose of work. Also in my nirvana painted above - that is totally false if you are solely in charge of 3 childrne under 5 without help and a husband out 12 hours a day - that is harder work than being in an office. I was looking more at the richer wives once children are at school.

I suspect if we went back 20,000 years most of us were in effect lotus eaters, we would sit around a lot of the day (if you go into Amazon tribes their lives can be like this), with a few hours of work a day to gather food. Of course you might well die early and murder rates are very high (most over sexual jealousy issues and women being dragged away by men so they are not usually exactly feminist nirvanas).

No one has to work in the UK as we have benefits on demand for all. If we think chidlren do best with both parents there 24/7 then both parents should be seeking to live on state benefits to give chidlren the best attention which is what many couples do achieve.

society gives us very different ideas of what a Good Mother means versus a Good Father.

it not a surprise we conform the the stereotypes.

As someone who is currently very much not enjoying work, a life being kept in idleness sounds pretty good

Being serious, I agree that I'd find it dull/depressing after a while. I also agree that the "yummy mummy" picture you paint does not apply to most SAHMs, rather it is a day full of chores.

But that all makes me think "I want to work but in a non stressful, non long-hours job". It doesn't make me think "I want to stay in my current long-hours job and try to juggle family life around that".

xenia of all the poeple I know, neither the man nor the woman intended the situation to be permenant. It just panned out that way. The men don't blame their wives in any way.

word It just panned out that way that makes it sound like its random.... but it is almost always men does A and woman does B.

& thats not random. we are the second sex.

I meant the fact that the woman never got back into the work force at all, or if she did in a lesser role.

As for why it always sems to be the woman, well we've mentioned here a number of reasons why some of think this is. And it's not as clear cut as all their menfolk are sixist pigs! That's a neat explanation to hang it on, but the truth is more slippery.

word - i wasnt really thinking about they reasons. just 'we are fairly far away from my view of equal'.

i blew my first career in the City when i was 25 when i took one of the top investment banks to court for sexual discrimination. i went to work for 3 months & noone spoke to me & being 'sent to Coventry' makes 1 day very long.... 3 months.. aged 25.... was an eternity.

IMO full equality is worth fighting & suffering for. i want women to have equal power in this world & that means equal in all walks of life. i think its terribly sad if in this age, feminists think we have enough equality already.

I wonder whether those of us who had kids very early find it easier to build professional careers, as we have never really known life without them?

Wow Wasabi, that was brave of you to stand up for women's rights. I was terrified by the 18 months I worked in the City (MS). It was evident that in the place I worked, the easiest way to the top for a woman was to shag the least attractive VP around and play stupid power games, as my dept manager did quite successfully. Actually doing your job bore very little relevance to how you got on. I've never been so pleased to get of a job as I was then.

duchese JP something or other ?.. my problem was firstly my boss then secondly that the organisation could not handle a compliant of harassment (NO my gym bag, containing underwear, is NOT to be gone through, by my boss, showing articles to my male colleagues)?

That in the past. The long past. But I think its naïve to think we will get fairly fundamental equality until we hold something like half of jobs throughout organisations?

Will rape victims get proper treatment until something like half of all of the professional involved are women? From the entire police force to the head of the CPS to judges etc.

Will developed societies have significant number of female political leaders until something approaching 50% of men have women bosses?

Will 'you're a girl?' stop being a playground term of abuse until women hold equal financial and emotional power in the home.

I think saying that women and men can make different choices and be equal is avoiding the fact that women do not have equal power to influence the world ? so we will loose out.

I think MS is part of the same group isn't it? I wonder if that culture was endemic in every city firm at the time or just that one. Suspect all of them. As an aside, I found presenteeism was also a problem, to the extent that loads of colleagues would disappear to the loo for hours in the middle of the day so that they'd have something to do until 7pm. Which is of course very difficult for parents.

Wasabi and wordactory - I agree with you both...

It does kind of just pan out that way for many women for a lot of self-reinforcing reasons, which are not as simple as "sexist pigs" or as ok as "well they are happy with their choice".

FWIW I think there is a natural tendency for women to be more willing to put everything on hold when their DCs are small. It's a survival thing and we probably can't completely fight it. But I think it wears off, yet after a few years many women are so far removed from public life and their husbands so embedded it that they can't get back and so they choose to rule the domestic roost instead.

I think that it is the opposite, BoffinMum, and it is easier for those of us who had them later. I had got as far as I wanted and was ready for the next thing- looking after my own DCs - I knew that I wasn't missing anything. I also knew there was no problem going back. Had I been in my 20s I may have felt differently.

himalaya yes, that's what I've observed.

Women seem happy to stay at home or downsize their careers when the DC are small, but as they grow and become independent, and as the man's career has probably now really taken off, they look to rejoi the workforce and find it very difficult indeed. Often impossible in their old role.

And the point about public life is a fair one. I have very very lucky to have carved out a career working from home. And whilst my DC were small I felt it was the best of all worlds. Paid well, interesting, and fitted in with the DC. But now I'm feeling the urge to do something more visible again. In fact, I've been offered a fabulous role in September and I'm going to move hell and high water to take it.

I had the first lot young and so never was used to a life without them (I was married 21 and had the first when I was almost 23).

We certainly need to warn women that in many careers stopping work and thinking you can slot back and move to the top is utterly wrong in many careers. It usually means part time for life, no money of your own and at mercy of male earnings plus making the problem even worse in that it become harder to ensure 50% of a workforce is female including at the very top if loads of them drop out to have babies.

maples back to your dilemma. I am not yet a parent but we are moving nearer my office so if everything works out, nanny can bring bring baby to me/i can dash home if a break in the day is possible. (dp works from home in the school holidays so can see the baby then).

before we decided to move, we did look at buying/renting near my office for a base for the nanny. So I would take baby to work and drop off with nanny/could visit in daytime.

It might be the kind of idea, only a non parent could come up with but if you need to be in the office, can 'home' get nearer to work?

"yet after a few years many women are so far removed from public life and their husbands so embedded it that they can't get back"

One of the problems that is very English is the "roses round the door" ideal and the desire to move to the countryside, which, IMO, makes a huge difference to the ability of adults to participate in globalised public life (you can always be on the Parish Council and be a pillar of the local community). In big cities like London, Paris or New York there are endless opportunities to participate in public life outside the work sphere that are just not going to present themselves in rural villages, however idyllic they may be from a lifestyle/private life perspective. The commuter lifestyle may have been OK for women from another generation with less education who found enough to do in their villages but I don't think it satisfies many educated SAHMs today. Hence part of the perceived frustration with motherhood which may be more about frustration with the immediate environment.

That's true to a certain extent bonsoir

Where I live in commutor La-La Land is just a bit too far to make it logistically comfortable to get into town and do the school run.

That said I don't know how compatible even living in London would be, if ones partner were working long hours and travelling. Same old conundrum.

I agree that you don't have to live very far out of the city to make it difficult to really benefit from it. TBH the people I know in the adjoining suburbs are already living a more cut off existence than those I know in Paris intra muros. London is such a sprawl and transport so arduous that you can in theory live in London but barely participate in the global cultural/economic/intellectual life it offers because it's just not on your doorstep.

That is true.
I have girlfriends living in Richmond etc and they pretty much do what SAHMs here do....

We have a flat right in the heart of London (which we currently rent out) but we are giving serious considertaion to spiltting our week.

'another, but it surely must be true. Brighter women eran more, often more than their husbands, if they choose to have a man. Thus they are much less likely to give up work. Women who never hacked it at work or have average IQs tend to have not much choice about not working as their wages would not cover childcare. Therefore on the whole the brighter mothers work. They tend to breed the brighter children because of genetics and also talk to them better and understand child psychology more. Rarely does the press (except in times of war when we want women working) write about how much better it is for children if women work and it needs to be said. It's a feminist point.'

If they truly understood child psychology more, they would know that most babies/kids, if their voice were heard, would choose to be cared for and to see lots of their parents on a daily basis...not to be passed from pillar to post in daycare etc

As someone else said 'if I have kids, I want to be the one to 'f* them up'.

Your comments are very insulting to those of us SAHM who have chosen to give up our careers because we believe it is best for the kids to have a lot of input from a blood relative (preferably Mum or Dad).
It is not because we are thick, have small vocabularies, but because we love our kids and having carried them for 9 months want to spend time with them and be directly responsible for how they turn out.
I completely understand that not everyone feels that way or is able to afford the luxury of staying at home but if I were to counter in a similar vane to you, I would have to say, if we SAHM mothers are thick, then your kind are selfish and care not a jot for your children's emotional well-being lol.

ukat I think we all understand child psychology and development perfectly well.
I think some of us question, though, whether that requires a parent on hand 24/7 for the child's whole life!
And if it does, why does it always end up being the woman?