'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 . . .

People have all sorts of exciting lives. A friend of mine stayed at home with her DC s and was a childminder.She then went back to teaching full time. Got divorced. Met someone else, went off abroad with his job, then they both emigrated and ran a restaurant- new experience to both. A much more exciting life than moaning about why his job came first. She could have stayed, got to a headship and had a better pension but I can't see that life would have been nicer for her.Safe but boring probably. Everyone is an individual and it is up to them to sort it out and not some nanny state organising it for us- especially when lots of us prefer to do it our own way. I am not going to get to the end of life thinking 'gosh- I wish I had been senior management'. If it was what I wanted I would have gone for it.

lots of women arent happy with how men/socity treats them. this is the feminism section, so its going to be dealing with sex inequality.

Women need to start at home with their own partners before they start trying to tell those of us ,who are quite happy with what we are doing , that we shouldn't be happy.

if you mean me (1) what makes you think i dont live in an equal household? (2) where did i say you should be not happy?

this is feminism, its a debate about how to make the world more equal for women. WOHM have been challenged about their choices. SAHM have been challenged about their choices.

its not really a debate if we all say 'i am quite happy with what i am doing and dont want to discuss it.'

We are trying to ensure 5-0% of positions of power are held by women in the UK. We will not get that as long as women follow men abroad to run a restaurant when they might have stayed in the UK and done well at work. As long as women continuously put themselves second to men we will never get anywhere. It has to stop even if they are happy as a sandboy staying at home dusting.

If 50% of women get the power,and by what you are saying they are not happy,wont there be a heck of a lot more women with mental health problems?

why would power cause mental health problems in women?

If 50% of women get the power,and by what you are saying they are not happy,wont there be a heck of a lot more women with mental health problems beacuse of the extra work

We are trying to ensure 5-0% of positions of power are held by women in the UK. As long as women continuously put themselves second to men we will never get anywhere. It has to stop even if they are happy as a sandboy staying at home dusting

Right fine, lets send all the dusting "sandboys & Morons" off to work. However for that to happen, we need all of these "morons" to provide childcare because as Xenia is so fond of pointing out only a moron of low intellect is suited to childcare.

What's the answer, make men do the paid childcare? Whilst we make women go to work on pain of death.

Is running restaurant not work? or is that dependent on location?

amillion - i think most feminists would agree that if women has more equality they would be happier.

Xenia How are your Indians? Do you remembered what the tittle of the book is that you are reading?

I shall have to look into it but there has been a massive increase in the last 20 years or so in prescriptions for anti-Ds and during that time there has also been a massive shift of financial pressure onto women. There will be evidence of both factors but I am not aware of any research into why women are taking happy pills showing that it is because of work. Although it seems that there probably is a relationship btw the two.

I wonder if the increase in antidepressants in the last 20 years is greater or less than the increase in "mothers little helpers" i.e. valium, librium etc. massively prescribed to frustrated housewives in the 70s....quite a lot of addicted housewives then as I recall.

(This does not mean I am against SAHM. Women should do what is right for them as far as I a concerned). But anti-Ds or tranquillisers? Name your poison.

Gin it is the only way I can face doing the hoovering.

So to me, it comes down to "Are women more genetically disposed to look after children than men?". Is there a genetic/biological reason, at least past the bf years, or is it cultural? It seems that women (lots of) WANT to look after children, and less men do. Why is that? Biology or conditioning?

"Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours, produce half of the world's food, but earn only 10% of the world's income and own less than one percent of the world's property. On average, women earn half of what men earn"

www.globalpovertyproject.com/infobank/women

i dont think the problem is we are less capable of work!!!!!

No - it is not WORK that is the problem, or how hard women work. It is that the work that women do is seen as lower in value. So to Xenia, as an example, we reach equality when all women are top earners. To me, we reach equality when men are equally doing the caring roles. This would free space at the top for the most deserving, and balance things at the bottom.

I think it is noticeable ,that when partners split, that 1/3 of men have little or no contact with their children after a few years.I may have got the figures slightly out there.Cant see that number of women doing that.

Bawdy - i want equality in all areas.

amillion - i dont know any men who arent active parents. your fact, if correct, cannot be just down to their sex.

"The atmosphere of benign neglect, compounded by the rooted gender inequality, all adds up to a death sentence for countless millions of women in the developing world. For whatever reason, we can't break the monolith of indifference and paralysis." From TillyMintos link to Women in poverty.

Which brings me back to the point that western women gaining "power" through work is really not the big issue we think it is. When did Merkel and Le Garde last consider what could be done about poverty in developing countries. The IMF makes loans to developing countries and then tells them what they can produce and locks them into contracts through WTO and places stringent conditions upon the loans, not to mention the crippling interest repayments.

We prosper in the west off the back of poorly paid women in developing countries and female workers in south east asia. Nothing will convince me otherwise, that for every well paid willing female worker there is at least 40-50 others who work simply because they have to, often in low paid work and that is just in the west.

It is the fact that the really important work that women do is seen of lower value. Luckily lots of women don't see it that way, or there would be no nannies or child are for all these high flying women. It is a mad world where a woman has to stay in UK doing a job she doesn't want instead of an exciting life running her own restaurant merely because she followed the man!
Maybe lots of women don't want these positions of power because they would find them deadly boring. I gave up teaching, I loved the hands on in the classroom but hated the paperwork and meetings. If you are senior management you get even more meetings.
I met a 60yr old yesterday, she didn't have DCs and had had a career as a secondary teacher, she was now a childminder and loved it.
The problem is that some women want to put us in a narrow career path of a few 'approved' jobs. I also met someone yesterday whose DD had an internship with Price Waterhouse. She gave it up after 6 months, she hated it. She also said that most people there seemed miserable. She is going to be a maths teacher instead. A friend's son is a maths teacher after a short stint as an actuary, that he found very unfulfilling. The problem seems to me that a lot of women want interesting jobs, but they just don't pay well.
The pay is the thing that needs sorting- but sadly it never will be- we don't value the right people.

We are also prospering in the west off the backs of poorly paid men in developing countries.
I would agree that we need to help women in developing countries. Women in the west can sort themselves out.

exotic, the truth is that accountancy, whilst being well paid, only suits some. My dsis has a first in Maths, Operational Research and Statistics from Warwick University. This course of study sounds like hell on earth to me, so I wasn't surprised when she informed me it had the highest suicide rate of any Uni course in UK.

I am much more of a people person - I like interaction. Cold hard numbers are not for me. Her first job - for Price Waterhouse, involved receivership - going in to companies and sacking people. I couldn't do that for a living either. Is that because I am female or because I am a nice human being....?

I hope your friends DD enjoys the maths teaching. I used to work with KS1 & 2 teaching maths (still do some work, mainly children with SN) loved it, hugely rewarding and not very well paid. I think the main thing is women do care, they are good at it and most women want a career that is rewarding, not just to persue power. I always think "power" is a horrid word because if someone has power that implies there is an opposite, someone who hasn't.

In a truly egalitarian world, we would prevent ANYONE male or female from having power.

i have sacked people and it is nothing to do with being masculine or nasty. if there is no money to pay someone or they cannot do the job to the required standard, as long as you given them their legal rights, you are doing the right thing.

emplyment is not charity it is a trade.