'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 . . .

exotic the problem is to separate the personal experience with talking in generalities.
You might have had a good experience being a SAHM. Others (like myself) wished that they had carried on working instead (for all the reasons you can find in the relationship threads).
That's personal experience which will differ greatly from one person to the next.

When you talk in general terms, the picture is different. In average women staying at home is to the benefit of the man who can then advance his career wo having to worry about HW and kids.
You also need to think about the impact on how women are perceived and how the role they usually have in the society are perceived.
eg mostly women are expected the be doing the caring role. I know a few women who are carer but no men who stopped working to look after a sick parent, a child for example.

You also need to wonder if what we need is more women to do 'men's jobs' and more men to do 'women's jobs' to redress the balance. Or if we should first give a better status to roles that are seen 'unworthy' and then expect things to get more balanced.
So do we need more women as CEO and men as SAHD. Or do we need to give better status to caring role such as looking after dcs or an elderly parent?

To me, it comes down to the children.Women stayng at home is to the benefit of the children.Like you say, few men stop work to look after sick people, though I do know of a couple of men who have,. or their kids.
If women didnt, men still dont.

It should having a stay at home parent is for the benefit of the children . It doesn't quite matter whether it' mum or dad is it?

But if men wont do it, what then?

But what IS the benefit to the children? Working class women have always worked. If not out of the home, then in the days before freezers, microwaves, washing machines, shopping deliveries, they had plenty to do to keep a house. This individual devotedness to entertaining vs caring for children to the exclusion of all else is so new.

I agree that some parents can go the other way with their children and as I think Xenia put it,the children can end up becoming little emperors.

The best thing for DCs is benign neglect. I get the impression that I parent in a very similar way to Xenia, just from a different viewpoint.
I just think it should be choice. We seem to have got to the point where men can choose the traditional female role but women are frowned upon if they do.
If women sorted out their own partner we would make great progress. Reading MN can be depressing, you get women saying 'is this normal' and they are western women in 21st century, who don't realise they are being abused.
We have come a long way from other cultures. DS was in Saudi Arabia last week, temperature well over 40 degrees and the women he was working with we're not allowed to use the hotel swimming pool! He could use it if he wanted to.

amillionyears, that's an interesting question. If men don't, what then?
You see so many complaints here "oh my DH won't change diapers, won't pick up his socks, won't do this and that, so I have to do it". But if she didn't do all that either? We, women, still feel that it's ultimately our responsibility. I wonder why?

No idea, HazelNutt- it is just as much their responsibility -women should make sure from day one but they don't.

I admit that I do take on a lot of the organising at home but DP does a lot of the domestic tasks and a lot of childcare.

I checked he could read and follow instructions non verbal clues don't seem to work, I do have to spell things out and I do have to make endless lists! but he follows them and often asks if I need help and has been known to run the house and do all of the childcare for several weeks when I was ill.

HazelNutt I think its "conditioning" and expectation of society. It's really important that women parent from the perspective that there is no "senior parent" and "junior parent" and reinforce this. Sadly if you read mumsnet, that seems to be rare.

I think that many women like being 'senior' parent and put themselves in the position. There should be no need for lists. We both started as complete novices so apart from breastfeeding we could both do it all. Many women simply won't just go out and leave the baby with their partner.
I could just go out without issuing instructions but you do have to leave them to do it their way, you can't control when you are not there. They used to have a very strange combination of clothes when DH did it, but I didn't comment.

They also have 'my kitchen'. As well as women who would like DP to do his share there are women who lock him out of it.

Exotic - I have realised something that has been bothering me. It is your line that "some people don't like meetings" (not just yours of course! I have heard others say this)

It sounds perfectly reasonable on one hand - who doesn't hate bad meetings....

But given that meetings are a critical part of managing any kind of complex process (including meetings with teachers, PTA, volunteers etc...) it puts you at a huge disadvantage if you can't work a meeting.

It reminds me of attitudes to maths (which I think are improving) where it has been seen as quite intellectually respectable for women (including primary school teachers) to say they hate maths, and them to pass on this fear of maths and attitude that smart girls who study humanities, or not so smart girls who study child development and healthcare don't really needto be good at maths.

Sure, not everyone loves maths or meetings, but allowing girls (disproportionately) to leave school thinking those topics are not for them is a huge failure. Mothers at home thinking it is ok to say to their sons and daughters that they left work because they "hate meetings"' is not like saying they hate chocolate ice-cream.... It is modelling failure to be able to be part of decision making.

Running and operating in meetings is one of those things you get better at. Meetings are where decisions are made. Telling girls and women it is ok "not to like meetings" is like telling them it is ok not to like budgeting or planning or getting feedback on performance. It infantilises them.

I do actually go to meeting! They are necessary. I expect that I go to a lot more than average as I tend to get involved with things. I just don't want a job where they are a big part e.g being PM means a life of meetings.
I have always liked maths, it was my favourite subject at school. Everyone needs it. I would still hate to be an accountant or banker.
I am not telling anyone it is OK not to like them, just that I don't. I can't see why it is any different for a DS or a DD to feel that way- plenty of men go for jobs where you avoid them.
I don't see why we get so hung up on gender. My parents never made the slightest difference in attitude between me or my brothers. I just think it sad that it now seems taboo to admit to liking anything that is a traditional female role- unless you happen to be a man!

I see that you quoted me as 'some people' don't like meetings- which is what I meant, I didn't say 'some women'.

If women married on the whole men who earned less and were a bit lower than they are in status and ditched their guilty (those who have it - I never had) and avoid being senior parent at home (I was always more than happy not to be) then they can have much nicer and fairer relationships and earn a heap of money and have power too all of which are huge fun.

Trouble is , my man would hate it.He loves being provider,has got masses of energy,and would not want to be cooped up indoors for very long.

To some people Xenia!
This thought that we all want the same is very strange! I think that skiing is wonderful, I would love to do it all winter I fully accept that it is some people's idea of hell. DH has tried it once and won't go again. We still get on well.
Having power isn't something that I want. There are people moaning that David Cameron dares to have time off doing silly things like karaoke! He is a family man, sometimes he has to actually spend time with them! I expect he wants a life like the rest of us, he is human!

My father died young, and I expect there would have been lots of regrets had he known, but not the fact that he didn't have longer in the office.
There was a man on breakfast TV, didn't catch it all but he was saying he had it all, wonderful job that was going places, great wife and child, house, material possessions etc. His wife then died in an accident and he has changed his views and he takes time for the small things.
My experiences of early death have changed mine, I want time to appreciate the small things- and the big things are OK, if they leave time for them.They rarely do in my observation.

His wife had it all as well, she had a great career- but I bet it would be low on the list of things missed.

Tehre is nothing wrong with feminists on a feminism thread wanting more women in positions of power. It is at the heart of feminism. By all means women can justify their own non feminist choices but they are not choices which help women achieve by any means. Instead they are choices which ruin things for other women.

They do not ruin things for other women. Feminism is about choice. Maggie Thatcher was at the top, she did precious little for women; she was in a position to do much more.

I hate the double standard. A man can stand up and say 'I don't want power' (and lots don't) and no one tells him that he is letting down men- and yet a woman can't do the same. Men are not so judgemental about others.
There is nothing wrong with feminists on a feminist thread saying they want power, equally there is nothing wrong with feminists on a feminist thread saying they don't want power. I doubt whether any 2 feminists are the same. I am a feminist.

I earn less, I have no guilt and I am not senior parent- the kitchen is not my room.