'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 . . .

Xenia said:'I am not saying whatever parents do is right. I am saying housewife is morally wrong and can be bad for children. I am saying househusband for political reasons is more acceptable. I am saying both parents tend to be happier and their children where both parents work and use a nanny for childcare.'

What??? A nanny is better than one of the parents who actually loves them? No point in debating this with you as this is such an extreme intolerant position to take. FGS everyone should make the best decision they can make for their own individual situation which will depend on their circumstances and feelings (or not) of wanting to nurture their child, at the time.

I agree with ukat - I know many parents around me with incredibly hazy concepts of child development. They are so focused on achieving the status symbol milestones (early reading, fluency in several languages, conservatoire music, ski-ing, tennis...) that they manage to bypass the basics (cuddling, playing, family meals, self-care skills) almost entirely!

Oh yawn I see we're back to the old "having mum at home is best for the children" chestnut. ukat if you read back in the thread there has already been a debate about this. I don't remotely agree that having a SAHM is always better for a child than having a nanny. It depends on the nanny and the SAHM and the child.

Maybe that's a city thing bonsoir ? Or a Paris thing ? Or a French thing?
I've heard you say how horrible a lot of the parnets around you are, many times. And my experience of the education system in France leads me to think the powers that be have little comprhension of what small children need.

Here, things are not quite so bad. I certainly have some expereince of the parents you describe, but for the most part they seem a jolly decent lot with their DC at the heart of their lives.

Perhaps if we lived back in town, the experience would mirror yours more ???

I think Anglo-Saxon parents are awful at the bypassing the basics issue, wordfactory - for example, I see DCs in England who can read fluently at four but cannot eat cleanly and independently at table with a knife and fork. Small DCs who cannot greet an adult properly but can play the violin. But I agree that it is probably more noticeable in big cities where you get lots of Alpha-types who are status-symbol obsessed.

Bonsoir do you think most parents do a dreadful job of parenting?

I think children are increasingly less well brought up and educated, yes, and that all the indicators prove that.

Well at least that's honest.

I had assumed so, given the vast majority of your posts contain critisism of other parents and how they bring up their families.

I thought perhaps it was because you were surrounded by a particularly horrendous bunch...but your views seem to stretch much further.

Out of interest when was the halcyon time when DC were well brought up and educated?

I don't think there was ever a halcyon time when all was perfect for everyone. And I do think that some DCs today get an absolutely extraordinary upbringing and education that equips them to navigate the world in ways that were inconceivable only a generation ago. But those of course are the most fortunate.

What I think that Western societies have lost in droves is an idea of community and that being there for others and sharing your knowledge and skills in the interests of social cohesion has been driven out by materialism and the acquisition of physical manifestations of wealth.

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

Completely agree with that!

If you are going to have your first DC at 21 it is going to be very different from having your first at 41yrs and I can quite see that you would find it difficult to pick up- and unless you have a much older DH he is going to be very immature, I would have to hide my feelings of trepidation if my DCs embarked on parenthood before they had established a career.
When you are older it is far easier to share things out and be able to pick up careers.
You have to allow for different personalities - I have never had the slightest desire to influence the world.

Dunno about anybody living in wonderful cities, but out here in the dreadful countryside we still have a very strong idea of community and mutual assistance.

We might be able to unite English housewives and working mothers over the general English antipathy to most things French but I suspect we might get off topic.

On the whole the working parents tend to be those who did better at school and have a higher IQ so oibviously they are going to bring up children better thanthe average housewife although I accept some women are so conditioned by sexism but are intelligent they accept a role as housewife (as they have not read enough feminism threads on mumsnet yet to be converted).

"On the whole the working parents tend to be those who did better at school and have a higher IQ so oibviously they are going to bring up children better thanthe average housewife"

Absolute bollocks.

IME it's often the lower intelligence children who are cared for by people other than mum - because mum, like dad is working in a minimum paid job, and they both need to work to make ends meet.

The more academic DC are more likely to have a stay at home parent, who 4x4's and live in big houses because the family can afford to live off one (higher) wage.

The higher the IQ, the better the children will be brought up!!!

amillionyears, I don't think parents who both have an IQ of 180 will raise a child any better than parents who both have an IQ of 130.

It's like saying people of a high IQ will earn more than people of a low IQ. I know academics who don't earn as much as people, with a lower IQ (but possibly higher EI) who run their own business.

There is a bit of a correlation, surely? If you're average (100), you aren't likely to graduate and usually that means lower pay. If you'#re 120+ that tended to be grammar school/university level.

If housewives on this thread want to say again and again that it is better for children if their mother is at home and thus that a father or mother who works does a worse job, then they have to live with having the opposite case put to them - that generally children of working parents do better.

i think i'd prefer a couple with 130s and fancy their chances a lot better than a couple with 180s

there's gifted, and then there's definitely better off with a nanny (who is going to remember to feed you...)

i suspect the optimum iq for child raising is nowhere near 180

Lynette, I was joking, I copied what Xenia said.
Xenia, you used the word "obviously", but now say "there is a bit of a correlation surely?" I dont understand.

But do children of working parents do better?

Women have been going out to work in high flying careers long enough now for us to determine if this is fact or fiction.

There is nothing to say that people with high IQs are going to be any better at bringing up DCs- they may be completely lacking in common sense, they may be not be emotionally stable, they may be over protective, they may lack empathy-or entirely unsuitable in other ways.

Isn't IQ measurement a hopelessly crude test anyway? Surely aptitude and intelligence of various sorts is much more complex than that? Some of the best parents I know are less highly qualified than average, but have excellent caring skills.

Lynette and Xenia. I think we are a little at cross purposes here.
The problem is you both are meaning "better" as in more money, and maybe more status.
My definition of "better" is raising children who are kind,help people,loving,care for people etc etc.If they have enough money,that is fine for them and for me.Them and I are happy with enough.

I'm as big a fan of people with high IQs as anyone - my dh has an IQ of 163 - but even I gasp and stretch my eyes at the contention that having a high IQ of itself makes you better at parenting.
That's just daft.

amillionyears,you are right!

For a moment there I forgot what "better" really is.

The thing is, it's really, really difficult to measure how loving/caring/kind people are.