'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 . . .

NotsureIcancarryon really summarises it for me - surely a nanny is a 'significant adult' in children's lives.

maples could you clarify something for me? I can see how there has been a nuclear family from early on but surely that family (mum, dad, dcs) also had their own family close by, in the same village of not in the same street.
I can see it happening in the small town where I live.

In which case, the extended family was able to step in, even if the 'nuclear family' existed in his own right.
dcs would die close to family home or in their own home because they would be looked after by relatives from the same street?

yes, and most families had 12 or so children so the elder took care of the younger etc. And everyoen died v young. And noone worked outside the home (apart from fields) much before the industrial revolution. They couldn't get anywhere for a start. Unless they were "lucky" enough to get a job in service. It isn't a comparable situation really.

I have to say the nuclear family may not be ideal, but it's a hell of a lot better than the alternatives.

If we did a MN poll- who wants to live with their parents and their DH's parents?, I reckon there would be a big fat 20% max take up rate (excluding me, and I like both my mum and MIL- i just dont want to live with them, and as for my sister......sheesh.....give me strength.

If you look at social trends in the rest of the world, as soon as people can afford to, they stop living in extended family units.

I think there's a lot of nostalgia around the idea, but the reality would be somewhat different.

But the meedja tells us differently. Families absolutely rely on gp and extended family help to enable them to earn a living. They may not live in the same house, but they certainly live near them.

My extended family are far too selfish to give up any of their time to help with Ds. In 22 weeks I've had 2 hours babysitting. I'd emigrate before living with them again!

Although we earn a decent enough wage me and dh don't earn enough to pay for a nanny. We have no spare room anyway.

Our option is one of us to quit work and be fairly skint or use nursery, even if I do go part time. I think I've picked a good one. I feel endlessly guilty as i read on here I will be permanently damaging my baby by selfishly continuing to work and putting him in nursery where no one will care about him. However, using nursery is the norm in my social group as its what people can afford.

Is this a fair choice? I don't know. I'm rambling now.

Personally (and it is only personally) having used nursery, I'd go for a childminder.

8 miles? That were a gentle stroll that were.

Love it maples

'Oh Mr Darcy! I would most love to join you for a turn around your estate. But first I must put the washing in the mangle and sing 'the wheels on the cart'!'

MOST people in the seventeenth century were starving to death, not owning shops with their sweet kiddies helping out.

Bonsoir and Xenia: it is all very well to say "you just have to get really really good at economic musical chairs, and encourage your children to do likewise" - but the nature of the game is there is always one fewer chair. Why can't we focus the conversation on putting more chairs out, rather than not being the one on your arse on the floor?

absolutely vezzie

Bonsoir i think it an oversimplifcation to say working parents are not prioritising their children.

my family is from one of the top 10 deprived areas in the country. my parents both worked from when i was a baby but in 2 generations we have gone to the top 1% in income. i earn 20 times what my cousins earn. their parents did not work has hard, spent more time at home so more time with them, but they are not magically better adjusted or happier. perhaps the opposite.

school friends had SAHMs and as they grew up they wished their mums would get jobs and their own lives and stop focussing on them so much.

it is not simple. i dont care which solution familes use. i care that childcare is still 'womens work' and men contribute less and are critised less.

I don't know why I feel the need to engage with xenia's brand of 'feminism', but it is so wrongheaded that I can't resist. For a start, I boggle at this idea that intelligent women should have 'high-flying' careers - by which she means highly paid ones. God help society if that ever happened.

In fact, those of my school year who are now paid most, 20 years down the line, were far from the academic high flyers at school. They just had the urge to earn a lot of money. The academic kids, on the whole, have gone into creative, academic or social professions where the academic requirements are high but the pay rubbish.

I'm in the latter category, with a DH who currently earns (mid-30s) what I could maybe hope to earn in my 60s in academia, if I became a professor at a top university. Economically, it was a no-brainer for me to take a few years out while the kids are preschoolers. And I also made the 'mistake' of choosing a profession where part-time work is nigh-on impossible the way things in the UK are currently organised. There's nothing inevitable about those facts - they are social choices.

I'm damned if I'm going to encourage my DD to aim for a high-paying career just so she can go back to work when her kids are 2 weeks old and fulfil Xenia's bonkers idea of what a 'feminist' should do in order to slot neatly into a fundamentally patriarchal system. I want my DD to aim for a career that is fulfilling and exciting, regardless of pay, and I want society to change so that, as Vezzie says so well, she doesn't have to expend all her energy playing sodding economic musical chairs once she has kids.

I care that childcare is still 'womens work' and men contribute less and are critised less.

Yep! that's the thing, even if it was better for children to be looked after by one parent, it does not mean it has to be the mother or that father are any less responsible.

I actually think that people who wonder and worry about the effect of mothers working are the ones who can afford to do so.

When you do need 2 incomes to put food on the table, it is obvious that mum's working is best for the kids.
If having 2 parents that work means more opportunity to do things and be in contact with other ways of doing things, it is beneficial to the dcs.
Having more money can also mean being happier to go to Uni because you know (you have an example in front of you) that you will either have a bit of support from your parents and/or you will be able to repay your student loan (being surrounded by people who don't work/struggle to make meets end will not be conductive to feel confident that you will be able to do it).

The only time when these points would not be as obvious is when the father earns enough to be comfortable and the family enjoys a good standard of living wo the mother working.
It is far from being the case for most families.
But hearing again and again that 'nannies, childcare etc..' are bad for the dcs, women who could do with working are made to feel guilty to do so.

I have to say I find it odd that people genuinely think a person who is hired to look after children will love those children just as much as the parents. In that case is the parent-child bond just the same as any other friendship? Nothing special? It doesn't seem that way to me. I agree totally that a nanny can genuinely love a child, over time, but the nanny is not the child's parent and as such his/her relationship with the child is just not the same as the relationship the child has with their parents. To say that it is is quite sad really - it suggests that being someone's parent means nothing because someone else could easily step into your shoes and be mummy or daddy any day. I don't really think that's true.

I don't think women should feel guilty about working. I think both parents should make adjustments to their lives to take into account that they now have children who need them around. I don't think having just the woman change everything, by staying at home or going part time is the best solution by any means because in a lot of ways both the mother and father lose out. What I would like to see is a situation where it's possible for both parents to take on some of the childcare. In today's world that is nigh on impossible although some families do manage it.

Love can come in lots of different ways.
A nanny doesn't have to love the children like a parent.
but I would expect her to be attached to the dcs and have some emotional involvement.

Fair enough NotSure, I just think it's preferable for a baby to be looked after by a parent because they are the ones most bonded to the baby. The baby doesn't need masses of stimulation or intellectual input, it needs attachment and security, which the parent is most likely to provide. For the parent too, I think it's a shame to miss those first months when the baby is changing so much. In a lot of ways I think that emotional element of just wanting to be with your baby, that ache and longing for them is pooh-poohed in today's society as if it means nothing. Encouraging parents to leave a tiny helpless baby with someone else just seems wrong to me on a fundamental level. Babies, I believe, need that time of just being with their parent before later moving out into the bigger world and becoming more independent and if a child misses out on that I think they've missed out on something really special.

Cailin just seems wrong to me on a fundamental level

why? whats the consequence?

I think this is something that is individual and dependent on a person's specific pathology eg relationship with own parent etc etc etc.

Well if put any stock in attachment theory the consequence could be a child who has an unhealthy attachment leading to anxiety and depression in later life. But really the consequence is a parent missing out on just being with their baby which I think is one of the joys in life. I know I'm projecting my own preferences when I say that, but don't most parents want to be the ones to experience day to day life with their child, take them out and about, see them do their "firsts"?