'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 . . .

I think it's lack of interest rather than lack of time, snappysnappy. It's actually rather easy to go to a museum with small DCs and tell them stories about the works of art. Though you would need the cultural knowledge, I grant you! Parks and open air monuments are full of cultural interest too.

With one Bonsoir I will grant you its easy but with 3 one of which is a toddler and one a newborn. Thats not easy.

Going anywhere at all beyond your kitchen can be hard work if you have several very small DCs (which is, of course, also a choice). But I still don't think that museums and monuments and parks are inaccessible for mothers with young DCs. What really frustrated me (though I understood its purpose) was the ban on under 3s in the cinema in Paris.

Well of course parks are easy, museums are simply not do-able unless you can be sure that each one of your children will be reasonably quiet. Fine for a 5 year old, mostly fine but unpredictable for a toddler and completely unpredictable with a newborn

It's actually rather easy to go to a museum with small DCs and tell them stories about the works of art

lol, I think it depends of the child and the type of museum! I would have never taken my 2 dcs to 'Le Louvre' when they were little. Much too noisy, running around etc...

Each child is different and one type of outing will be OK with one child but not the other.
Besides, when I do cultural outing with my dcs, they are approrpiate to them (which usually means not to me).

I really think that xenia and bonsoir are just talking about people from different class. xenia is going on about working and middle class women who don't have a lot of spare money. bonsoir talks about women with some spare cash that can afford that sort of outings and will look for them as they will 'be good for the dcs' etc... (hence the development your friend is talking about. 'Intelligent activities' for children is a huge market here)

Having more than one small child isn't always a choice bonsoir, for me it was a case of buy one get one free .

But you're right, sometimes you just have to brazen it out and head off somehwere. If I had avoided all situations where having two babies was going to be tricky, I'd have never left the house. Similarly, if I'd waited for a time when I and both babies were beautifully turned out, when both babies had a fresh nappy and had just been fed, I would never have left the house either.

I learned very quickly

snappy I was always terribly envious of parents of one baby. So terribly portable. Have boob and a pair of hands, will travel. My biggest problem at that stage was where to put the other whilst doing somehting hands on with their sibling.

But I wouldn't choose 'Le Louvre' to go and spend my afternoon with 2 toddlers in tow either.
Nor would I choose any place with paintings etc... where it is expected to find nearly complete silence. Or to the theatre or to listen to classical music concert.
But I would go to a child friendly museum or to a park. These weren't however my choices of cultural outings.

Plus I could not fly alone with the babies on many airlines. They wouldn't let me!!!

The Tate Modern does a lot to encourage children (and parents). There are loads of children, they love the big hall and usually there are child specific exhibitions.

And then the Fiona Banner exhibition was fairly incredible for any age. Ds1 was amazed.

Although I imagine it is a lot of work with three dc however. I have two.

thewhale there are some nice spaces for DC in London I think. Tate Modern is very good.

But to be honest, I do like young DC to be outdoors as much as possible anyway. At that age I always favoured fresh air over cultural activities.

Great minds marsha

The Barbican also does some lovely child friendly music concerts.

Ha yes!

Oh yes I know but unfortunately, I am not in London (or in Paris ) but in the 'idyllic' countryside of the North of England.

Doing any outing like this requires at least one hour travel one way. So it has been outside activities all the way for us.
And when we did 'cultural' outings they were always child orientated.

It's just that they were not what I would choose to do so I am struggling to see how I could pursue cultural activities as an adult with a young child (or two or three) in tow.

Late coming to this.

There is no doubt that the (in other ways excellent) nanny we had for my son until he was 8 provided a much less intellectually stimulating environment and much less constructive help with homework etc. than I would have done had I been there. She simply did not understand our emphasis on education and believed that Disney represents humanity's highest cultural achievement. At that age I don't think it mattered much but it was one of the reasons why he went to boarding school and we moved on from having proper nannies. In the holidays we now have graduate au pairs, both of whom have had first class degrees from Oxford and we spend a lot of time as a family in galleries and museums and at the theatre and cinema (sounds terribly earnest but is in fact a lot of fun).

If there is a creature more hated than the working mother it is the working mother with a "high-flying" job and a nanny and I dislike the way that everything is used as a brick to throw at working women. However, I was very aware when my son was at school in London that there was no way that he could keep up with the children of SAHMs who spent hours every day doing music/faking projects/ taking the child to Mandarin classes etc.. Perhaps this is not a bad thing?

Hmm vix that's interesting. I wonder if things have got more competitive since I was growing up. I didn't have much intellectual input from my nanny (got lots of love and fun activities instead) but managed to do well academically nonetheless. Perhaps that would no longer be possible in the current world where some children are being hothoused by their Tiger Mothers.

As you say, though, do you really want a hothoused child?

"Perhaps that would no longer be possible in the current world where some children are being hothoused by their Tiger Mothers."

While some parents do take their DCs academic, musical etc achievement ultra-seriously (home stay with a family in mainland China at age 7, after three years of Mandarin? Which was only the child's second MFL), I think a lot of what is dismissed as "hothousing" is just some very lucky DCs getting masses of opportunities for development. If the DCs are enjoying it all, why not?

I think children don't get the opportunity of free play nearly enough these days, without lining up a million "opportunities for development". I think learning how to cope with boredom is a valuable skill.

I think playing is highly valuable but boredom is anaesthetising.

Well - no the idea is that you learn how to entertain yourself. By reading, or writing a story, or making up a game etc. Children shouldn't be spoonfed everything imho.

Agree with you Portofino.

That's playing. Which is lovely and highly important, but boredom isn't any kind of pre-requisite for engaging in play.

No, but if children never have time to just be by themselves how will they ever master the art of entertaining themselves?

Maybe you never had that opportunity, Bonsoir? Were you hothoused and taken off to different development opportunities?