'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 that at the end of the day, us women make the choices that suit us with the hand we are dealt.
Xenia, exotic fruits,me,minimathsmouth,Himilaya,novice,wordfactory,bonsoir,Wasabi,HazelNutt, BawdyStrumpet.....
Im not sure that any of us on that list feel particularly hard done by.

Exactly, a millionyears- and that is what feminism is about. I am not going to have a miserable life on some corporate ladder just to help other women, in the UK today they can sort themselves out. I do something to help women in developing countries because they are not in that lucky position.

From day one when you meet a man you make sure he can wash up etc. If he expects you to do it all you ditch him! Unfortunately women don't and then they have DCs and are stuck with an extra child and being a housekeeper.

well, I have chosen to be a feminist rather than a masochist :o

Xenia, you speak in a really abstract way. I think one of the things that I have learned from being on mumsnet, is that you and I are in fairly rare circumstances in that we are both intelligent enough to be professionals (not everyone can do this), have been able to get into the top 1% of income earners in the country (by definition 99% of people haven't done this, and that would include lots of people in our professions), earned/earn more than our dhs (again rare, although to put my dh's earnings in context he is also in the top 1%) and have been lucky not to have had major illnesses/special needs etc to contend with. One has to look at what allowed us to achieve the status we have and what would be relevant to others, especially when many women reading this are already down a path that wouldn't allow them to change course, or that they are not clever enough to do your/my job. I think the other thing that you and I both possess is resources of energy that others just don't simply have (male or female).

So take all of these things to one side, and the question is what is relevant to others? If I was going to give four pieces of advice to women irrespective of sahm/wohm, high flyer/not, higher earner/not it would be: 1, Don't set yourself up as the senior parent, or if you are get out of that mindset (I learned this from my parents). 2. Value yourself and contribution to the household because if you do, then your dh/dp will and your dds will see this and value themselves too (Dm earned significantly less than df but refused to let him be all pompous about it, much as he tried) . 3. Have high expectations for your dds as you do for your ds' (Df had a rather embarassing disdain for "girly" subjects hence we were only allowed to do the 4 sciences for A levels) 4. Expect your dh and your ds to cook, clean and tidy up. (Don't ever remember mum ironing dad's shirts and I get my cleanliness freakishness from him).

Imho, these four things would have more impact on women than telling them they should earn oodles of money and be the higher earner. I think we wouldn't see half the posts we see on the Relationships board that we do.

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

Wanting to care for your own children can not be proven to be either just societal pressure or biology, it is without doubt though a complex interaction of both.

Some women CHOOSE to work others choose not to, usually those with choice are higher up the socio-economic scale. In the past working class women have worked (non of my mother's friends or women in my own matralineal line have worked) they didn't need to but I dare say they could have done if they had wanted to.

Not all women want power and prestige just as not all men do. If all women aimed for top jobs (assuming Xenia is right, women are better at most work) then surely that would impact upon her own exhalted opinion and position in life. However as Xenia is so apt to point out not all women/men are super intelligent and someone with one brain cell is needed to do the domestic labour and childcare. What should these people with less grey matter come to expect from life, one of poorly paid drudgery to their all powerful bosses. It sounds all rather science fiction to me, like a world made up of two distinct species of human.

I fail to see how my, not wanting to leave my children in the care of someone with less grey matter (nursery staff often have few qualifications and many lack common sense and lack life experience because of age) could possibly impact upon my own generation of women. However raising two boys to believe what I believe, to know that women are equal is not something I choose to leave to others/chance.

An excellent list NoviceoftheDay. Easy to do and doesn't irritate people!

I perhaps should also add, that I am more than happy to be senior parent and make lists I met DP when I was his manager. The children very much see me as the senior parent and they very much see me as a strong, strident and powerful person who manages, who delegates, who makes decisions. So much so that I never raise my voice and I love my children's company because they are never naughty!! They are thankfully at the moment everything I hoped they would be, calm, measured, kind, polite, creative and in the case of DS1 very clever academically but children are the sum and total of all the work you put into them.

Why get so hung up on gender?

Because women get over half the science degrees but only 20% of the patents.
Because women make up 46% of the US corporate workforce but only 2% of fortune 500 CEOs.
Because women make up half of the world's citizens but only around 20% of its politicians and 10% of its heads of state.

Because girls are told at school that this is a hangover from older generations where there was less equality, and that those battles have now been won and if they just work hard at school and work they have every chance of getting to the top of their chosen career as any boy.

... and yet we know this is not true. We know that for most women having children means being forever disadvantaged in work and public life, and that this does not happen to me who become fathers.

Himalaya, do you agree that women should go back into the workplace, even if they dont want to?

I certainly won't be telling my dd that if she "just" works hard then she can get to the top of her career as any boy. My dad drummed it into me that it was a sexist world out there and that it wouldn't be enough to just get the same results as boys but that I needed to be top in everything I did so that "people"/society couldn't just ignore my achievements. That has sadly proven to be the case, much as I always thought he might be wrong. The corporate world, at the senior end is 90% male and it is a matter of fact that it is human nature to recruit and promote in ones image. Therefore, a woman has to overcome a lot of obstacles to get to be one of the 10%. I see those of us who are "up there" now, doing more for the new generation of women coming through (that Madeline Albright quote about a special place in hell for women who don't help other women is damn true), but do I think things will have changed so materially when my dd starts work in 20 years time? I believe not. I think things will be a lot better but she will have to work harder to prove herself, maybe just not twice as hard, as I and the women who have gone before me had to.

Do I think every woman dropping what they are doing is the answer? No, I don't actually, but I do think that those four things I listed in my earlier post (thanks exotic are very important) to attaining equality because I think that's how all women of this generation can do their bit for the next generation.....by not allowing sexism to flourish at home, even in its most subtle forms.

Amillionyears -

I think that yes, to the extent that we are grown ups and part of being a grown up is dealing with trade-offs between what we want right now and what we want in the future, sometimes you do have to do things you don't particularly want to.

Does that mean that women should feel obliged to go back into boring, unfulfilling jobs rather than staying at home? no. But it does mean that if you are in a boring, unfulfilling job it is time to think about how to get into a job you love, rather than choose to have a baby and become a SAHP at that point which will limit your options.

I would agree with novice's core list.
Also if women are in boring unfulifilling jobs they shoudl mvoe into ones they like. The more who just give up and go on to the mommy track the smaller is the pool from which to choose the future leaders. They can certainly also found their own businesses too.

They certainly have a long way to go and they aren't going to get there by being housewives and working part time and leaving it to their men to earn the big bucks.

Just to slightly put the record straight as regards myself who has been a SAHM,one of my DDs is currently at Uni studying what has been seen to be a mans job. A related company to the course is sponsoring her/scholarship, cant remember the exact word..There are 10 girls on the course, and 120 men.She does not find it a problem, in fact, enjoys it.

Wouldn't they be women then?!?

Who are you replying to Himalaya.I dont understand your post.

Your DDs course - 120 "men" and 10 "girls".

... Sorry to be snarky about language. I just hope they don't call them girls and men on your DDs course.

It reflects I think the old view that boys become men once they leave school and start towards their professional life and that is what defines them..Women remain "girls" until they get married/ become mothers and that is what defined them.

Some of them are mature student men.Dont think any of the young women are.

As the mother of DSs I see far more to worry about the prospects of DSs ,DDs seem to be overtaking them in all areas.
I do think that women are their own worst enemies and if they only stuck to noviceofthe day's 4 rules they would fare better. I have been out at work all day and DH was working at home. I got back and he had done the ironing, washed floors and started cooking the meal- I didn't leave instructions, he didn't have much time but he is just as capable of seeing what needs doing. On the whole women won't delegate- you get them upset if MIL even does something sensible like bring in the washing if it looks like rain!
I admire Xenia and I think that she talks quite a lot of sense, where she fails is when she makes sweeping statements about all women. I can quite see that power and money are fun for her, but they are not fun for me.
It is like trying to get a child into the deep end of the swimming pool- telling them it is fun, every child should do it,and they are a disgrace if they don't isn't going to get them in. Pushing them in won't work. If you want them to swim in the deep end, successfully and enjoy it you need to be a little more subtle!
Xenia could do much more service for women if she worked from the starting point that we are all very different.

Exotic, what is it you worry about DSs
havent had a problem so far with mine,I think they went to the right Unis for what they wanted to do.
In what way are DDs overtaking them?
You dont have to reply if this might out you.

just noticed this thread is on 997 posts.998 now. not that anyone is bothered

Mine are doing fine, I mean in general girls are getting better results. I think that it will be a bit different this year for any- not a good year for anyone to come out of uni.

On a feminist thread, I much rather hear Xenia, Novice and Himalaya pushing the view that women can succeed in traditionally male roles than from those (myself included) who took the socially accepted and easier route of part time work or home and hearth.

The latter is a dime a dozen and really does not need any more airing. Our dds would do better to strive for the former than the latter.