'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 . . .

Month at Christmas, month at Easter, two and half months in the summer! Plus all the baby years. Frankly, that's a lot more than any working mother is going to do today.

Sorry, where is the article? Can't find it on the Guardian website.

I find it really bizarre that a loving parent could be ok with not seeing their child for seven and half months of the year. I actually want to be there with my child, every day, and I'm sure most mothers do, working or not.

Ah. There is a link.

here

Bonsoir, absolutely, I'm sure that there were lots of wealthy women in the past who enjoyed spending time with their children and were very involved with them. But equally there were clearly plenty of children who were brought up by staff to an extent that would be considered socially unacceptable today (especially when you consider that they would then be sent off to boarding school at an early age).

Personally, if I were a qualified and experienced nanny (especially one with 3 languages and an MA or whatever the author of that article had), I think I would be quite offended at the idea that I would be less good at fostering the intellectual and social development of the children in my care than parents without my training and experience.

I do love the idea of 5 children and 5 nannies, though . . .

The what I'm thinking articles are, indeed, made up and pander to guardian readers' envy preconceptions that anyone with money, or who isn't a social worker must be fundamentally miserable and evil.

I agree with you Cailin (as you know).

plenty of children bought up badly by nannies, and plenty of children bought up badly by stay at home mothers. as with all articles like this high on meaningless generalisations and low on actual evidence.

I've seen as many stay at home mothers dragging their children round coffee mornings, play groups/plonking them in front of cbeebies and ignoring them for as long as feasibly possible whilst their kids are crying out for attention as I have seen working mothers who dont see their children during the week.

yes, Cailin's thoughts sobviously have to be applied to concerned and loving parents and not narsty ones..

"Bling the families I was talking about, my former boss in particular, have a situation where both parents are gone from the house at 7 at the latest and back in the evening by about 8 or 9 so the only time they see their children is for a few minutes in the morning and evening and a few hours at the weekend, in between the children's extra curricular classes and the work the parents do from home. I admit they are probably unusual in the sense that both parents have extremely well paid jobs, their house it worth 4 million euros and they are both workaholics."

I'd say this kind of person or couple is in the minority and yes in their case, it does seem strange perhaps. But I don't think this is normal for families with nannies.

I take your pointabout you knowing DS better than your DH ,but you acknowledge that your DH and DS have a good relationship even so. So surely that could be true where the nanny spent the time with the child during the week and both the parents were more like your DH. And I'd say one benefit for the parent who works and has a nanny vs the parent who works and has the other parent at home is that part of the nanny's job is to tell you what's happening, get input etc. SILs nanny leaves her a detailed description of what the children did each day including what they ate, how they felt, funny things they said, friends they seem to have fallen out with etc. I'm lucky if DH remembers to tell me that DS's tummy is upset. ... SAHP do, IME, tend to just get on with it and forget that the working parent is desperate for scraps of news (or maybe that's just me? )

I do believe a good nanny can do a great job in bringing up children successfully. It's just my gut feeling that really a parent who is bonded to the child and loves them in the way only a parent can is the ideal carer. But obviously that's not possible for a lot of families. As a parent I just can't imagine being ok with the vast majority of my child's upbringing being done by a professional whom I am trusting with my children's welfare rather than by myself or my partner whom I trust implicitly. Perhaps I worry too much!

My initial thoughts on this article, and articles of this kind are that they serve to divide and rule - to pit mothers who work outside the home against those who are stay at home mothers, to pit working class women against middle class women, basically to set off the argument of who "does mothering" right and who does it wrong (when the answer is that there IS no right or wrong.)

It's rather sad that on this thread that is what has happened.

I think the thread overall has been pretty friendly and chatty KRITIQ.

It seems as though no one is allowed to question anything when it comes to parenting, we're all supposed to just assume whatever we do is fine and any questioning is seen as an unnecessary attack on women. Well, I think women are grown adults and can take a bit of criticism. Children are the ones we should be concerned about. Just blindly accepting certain ways of parenting because they benefit women isn't progress. It's just as bad as the way men's choices were accepted for so long. I'd rather there was discussion, debate and honesty about the compromises that are involved in parenting rather than a blanket assertion that whatever parents choose for children is fine.

I agree again. It's good to talk about these things, it doesn't have to be divisive.

i agree 100% with KRITIQ. i have seen people who IMO have been affected by overly and underly child focussed parents. its more complex than the arguments set out here but...

(1)...there is no right or wrong, only good enough.
(2) 'They f**K you up they do your mum and dad....'

Yes, Kritiq, very sad. Some people have also used terms like "farm out" when their husbands or the wife has farmed out the care to a spouse. What is different about farming out to a nursery school,school, grandparent or nanny that means it deserves such emotive terminology compared with farming out so some kind of madonna stay at home domestic servant stepford wife type who is so dull she is fulfilled through cleaning and childcare? Weird.

I stand by what I said above - that most working parents on the whol are better with their children than those at home.

Also most working couples I know try to maximise time with their children. I have always found a few hours a day is just right. It took me quite a few years and a lot of children to understand that balance.

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.

. "On the whole women who stay home are those who never earned much and are not very bright (not all but on the whole) therefore the children of housewives tend to be less clever both because they have worse genes passed to them and second because the mother is not using as many words as she knows fewer than women on say £100k a year who are successful. Working mothers produce better not worse children."

I have never read such an insulting amount of bollocks as this.

I think that you choose not to look very closely Xenia, because I know an awful lot of rather bored and unhappy - disturbed, even - DCs with nannies and a lot of very engaged, interesting, happy and fun ones with SAHMs.

The POINT though, is that it is interesting to debate and surely can be explored with PARD?

Of course everyone has their own experiences and strong POVs, but there is more to it than that. It's something everyone is stumbling through, trying to do their best and find a way for them and their kids. Just sneering at other people's pov/choices is dull and unhelpful.

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.

So if a woman with a lower level of education isn't going to raise children well Xenia, did you give your nannies IQ tests before you hired them? Or test them on the number of words they knew? If it's not ok for the less intelligent SAHMs to bring up children, why is it ok for the less intelligent nannies to be doing it?

I didn't know you were such a fan of Eugenics Xenia. Interesting yet somewhat dated World view.

The latest study shows that by age 3 children from homes where the parents are not very educated already fll down. Cailin's suggestion that only a nanny brings up a child is farcical and is a typical housewife type of comment. Working parents, male and female spend hours with children. As they can usually afford help too they tend to have more time like the Anna relative aith 5 nannies, one per child, to talk to the children more too. We would have bed time stories every night despite working full time as did my parents with us and lots of talking. The one thing this family can do spew out words

CrackFox, go forth and read. Are you seriously suggesting that IQ is not to an extent based on parental IQ? I know two very bright people have a slightly less bright child but if you're both as thick as a plank then the child often is. Many a high flying clever City man who marries a thick secretary is amazed his little darlings are a bit thick and yet he shouldn't be.

Where have I suggested drowning at birth the low IQ children?

Atre people suggesting hereitary has no impact? Go and read the human genome project. All that area is amazing.

I read loads about Eugenics when I was doing my history degree and, 20 yrs later, I have no real desire to revisit it. Certainly, however, it has pretty much fallen out of fashion within the scientific community and doesn't look like it will be making a comeback anytime soon.