Upset by Mumsnet - please cheer me up!

[MargaretCavendish]

So, I started having a look at Mumsnet a month or so ago. My husband and I are thinking of trying for our first child in the next few months, and I was Googling some conception advice (alright, alright, I was actually trying to find out whether I really needed to give up drinking while we tried) and Mumsnet came up. I have become a bit addicted, particularly to AIBU. I know, I know.

Anyway, while I have been enjoying reading it (I've always loved problem pages, etc.) it's also been making me feel really depressed and even panicky about post-baby life. So many partners who see everything to do with babies as not their job, so many women giving up work so that they can dust four fucking times a day, so many women whose lives and worlds seem to have got so, so small. I tell myself it won't be like that for me, that my husband (who is far from perfect, but who is a proud feminist who has never seen us as anything but equals) isn't like that. We're planning to do shared parental leave, so I'd only be at home for five-ish months, and then we're hoping he could drop down to part-time longer term. I earn quite a bit more so it makes financial sense for us; I guess there's also some ideology there too for me. BUT I'm still scared that having a baby might turn me into 'wifey', I guess. So, please tell me that I'm being silly, that you can be a feminist mum (and a feminist dad) and that equal parenting isn't just a pipe dream!

(Some) women not being able to afford to return to work post-children because of the cost of childcare is an absolute, well-researched fact, cute.

It informed part of the reasoning behind the introduction of WTC and SureStart centres (which were initially introduced as being attached to centres providing high-quality, subsidised childcare, targeted towards low-earning women).

To point out the obvious: it is very hard to argue for the long-term benefits of a woman staying in work (benefits for an individual woman and for women as a class,) when her working and then paying for childcare is actually going to result in a deficit in the family income when the cost of child-care is factored in. Think of all those families on low-paid, zero-hours contracts. Her work will be categorised as an indulgence and - most importantly - the family really just cannot afford it. They can't. There simply isn't the money for it.

It's an acknowledged trap for some women.

You can't just wish that fact away.

You initial post got my back up, OP. Not the dusting mention so much-talking about how some women's lives have got 'so so small' and the reference to 'wifey'.

There is no either/or binary where you turn into a Stepford drudge or remain a feminist individual and those are your only options. Nor are high domestic standards incompatible with feminism, careers or a rich inner life.

I'm not saying this to be ratty to you, by the way. I think this is the crux of the issue. You are free to reinvent the roles you take on in any way you choose. Nothing is inevitable.

'Mother' doesn't mean a whole lot to me, either positively or negatively. I have a relationship with my two children that is as much about us as individuals than the fact that I gave birth to them. I have more traditional functions and more modern ones.

thecat

I know so many women like this, in fact they are the commonest type in the area I live.
There are very few career driven women whose husbands are in a financial position for the family to survive such a downturn in income.
It can cost a family a huge amount for both to be able to work and some people just can't afford it.

Obviously the women who aren't driven by a career for identity are happy to sah if it means not having to work for nothing, or in some instances actually paying for the privilege of making some fat cat (usually a man) richer

Felascloak - 'Also it's not true that working mums don't attend to the needs of their children or spend time with them.'

Of course it's not, and that's why it's nothing like what I said. I said:
' if they have stuff going on that means they need you NOW, or you see their childhood racing past while the pressure of your job means you hardly get to spend any time with them.'

I have been a WOHM and I have been a SAHM and have no axe to grind about either being better overall. I made it quite clear I was talking about special circumstances where these things apply, which sometimes they do.

Also, Felascloak -
'I am concerned from a feminist perspective because that kind of logic puts women in a position of being financially dependent on her husband and that can come back to bite them later if the husband cheats/becomes abusive. Also I know a lot of women who have tried to return to work when children are older to find that they need to take a low skilled low paid job, some have told me they wished they'd kept working.'

Yes, I agree with you absolutely about the risks for the woman. But I don't think it's primarily the logic behind the decisions that's the problem, I think it's the circumstances that make the decisions make sense that way. If there wasn't sexism in the workplace, if childcare didn't cost so much, if help for children with SEN was more readily available, fewer families would be feeling that it makes sense for their family to make those decisions.

I fully agree with the issue associated with not working. I would even go as far as saying that even if you end up with a slightly lower disposable income after paying for the childcare, then you should carry on working.

That's coming from going through a very hard time in my life where I felt I couldn't leave because I didn't have a job and two young dcs....

I would also argue that the other benefits you get from work (intellectual, emotional, social) can far outweighs any other issue associated with WOHM.
Coming from another country, the idea that 'it's so nice to stay at home with the dcs. I would never have wanted to delegate parenting them to anyone else' is a very British idea, a cultural one that can easily be said to fit perfectly the patriarchal ideas. Women = SAHM automatically.
It has actually eased a bit in the last 15 years and isn't as noticeable as when I came to the UK. The threads on MN reflects that too (More women who work and WOHM aren't always depicted as the worst part ever as it was when I joined 13 years ago).
I think this is something that will be more and more apparent as the new generation of mothers, the ones that the OP is part of, are often in the situation where it's the woman who is the high earner (In about 40% of the cases). So the financial argument that they should stay at home to ,oof after the dcs fall apart.

I think the big issue is more about not feeling you should still put your dcs always before yourself. It's all nice and good to do so but strangely enough (or not) fathers never seem to feel they have to... So they keep their career, the jobs with responsibility and the women still stay at home or have less 'rewarding' career as a result.
Children should be cared for by BOTH their parents and that is much harder to do when one parent goes to work, the other stays at home and feel, as the OP mentioned, that it's her role to do all the HW to perfection on the top of looking after a baby (And yes the OP is right. A lot of women seem to still be stuck in the 1950s).
I actually think it's harder to fight this societal pressure/expectation (both for men and women) when the woman stay at home (or works reduced hours)

OP in your shoes I would mainly be worried about employment discrimination, for you.

Your H might also not enjoy the probablr career damage etc from going part time - IME in the few cases where men are the lower earners and go PT they seem not to take the negative effects (that women experience far more often) too well!

for the PP who talked about "I am grateful I brought my children up myself"

There are some really good points and advice on this thread Margaret,It sounds like you have a lovely husband who will accept his share of childcare and a job you love and will need to return to. It does make sense to deal with these key issues before you conceive. However, I wanted to add that at the moment you are dealing with a still theoretical situation and therefore in something of a vacuum. I don't think anybody ever anticipates the overwhelming love and emotion that arrives with the baby. Till you have been through it you cannot understand what an impact it will have or how you will deal with it. That doesn't mean you disappear into mumminess, it is a wonderful love that sustains you through all the ups and downs of parenthood.
You will be a different "you" but you will still be "you" and you will define what compromises and changes you want to make in your home/work balance as a family.
My best friend's husband was a SAHD as she was the higher earner and now their daughter is 20 and has a great relationship with both parents - both of whom are the same as when I knew them as 20's singles.
I think you need to chill a bit if you can and neither see motherhood as a disaster for the real you, nor as a bed of roses. It isn't easy, but most of us who have supportive partners make it through!

Shared parental leave is great, but I wouldn't have been physically or mentally OK for work after only 5 months maternity leave, and wouldn't have wanted to stop breastfeeding either.

I returned to work at 4 months, but I didn't completely stop breastfeeding either. I was able to have DS on one bottle a day and the rest was breastfeeding. It worked well, but with flexible hours.

IME you need not worry - if anything you will become a lot MORE feminist after having DC.

And your feminist DH will have plenty of opportunity to strengthen his beliefs once you expand your family unit.

I returned to work FT at 6 & 8 months and continued to BF until 18 & 14 months. BF in the morning and evening, expressed during the day at first. Neither baby would take a bottle - they had a bit out of sippy cup but weren't overly keen on my expressed milk.

Eventually I cut out expressing and just BF them out of work and they had solids when I wasn't there.

It all worked out well and was relatively easy.

OP, you may find this interesting:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/01/why-disregarding-motherhood-and-women-s-bodies-won-t-help-feminism

Glosswitch just keeps on getting better.

Lweji that is so true. I was sort of vaguely feminist, I guess, as I propped up wine bars in my twenties.... salary went in to my bank account each month. It is totally different when you're contemplating the economic viability of working V sah, and the damage that will do... and how unfair it is, and how continuing the species is still very much a women's expense/ sacrifice! how the responsibilities and sacrifices of parenting are rarely 50:50

Gloss witch is great.

Wasn't it Glosswitch whose Twitter bio used to say 'radicalised by Mumsnet'?

I think, contrary to the op's fears about motherhood making their worlds smaller, a lot of women become more politically conscious, more engaged with the world around them, as a result of having children. I know it has vastly increased my awareness of lives outside my own class and community.

That is such a good article.

I returned to work at 6 months the first time and at 5 months the second.
Bfed.
Both time I was ready to start doing other things than 'being a mum' by the time the babies were 3 months old. But 5~6 months, I was really getting twitchy and had enough of being at home.

When I had dc1, that was the first year that you could take 6 months ML. By all account, most women thought it was suddenly a lot and to enjoy it.
My SIL whose babies were born 6 months before dc1 only had 3 months (and she had twins). Now THAT was hard.
But I do think that going back to work at 5~6 months isn't the end of the world.

I do have an issue with the 'extended' ML where you are entitled to 6 months ML and then you can take anoppther 6 months unpaid etc... Because it encourages women to take the max time off with their dcs (based on the 'Oh but my babies need ME with them') and that is detrimental to women's career and financial prospect.
How do you want e,mployers to trust they will have a good employee with them for a while if she is childbearing age, clearly want some dc and is also likely to take one year off each time?

My two are only 18 months apart. I got pregnant again a few months after going back to work.
I was also made redundant before coming back from my second ML. They were restructuring and didn't want someone who they saw as 'unreliable' it wasn't helped by the fact it was a very make dominated industry and I was the only woman there

So yes t's great to b able to have more time off with your dcs. But I don;t support a system that in effect pushes women our off some career/career advancements on the ground of 'having the chance to be with your baby'. It's not a chance anymore. It's an hindrance.
That would be very different if it was a system where men were taking just as much time off when they are becoming fathers than women do. but we all know we are far from that still

Great article.

Is it an article or a blog, by the way? I'm so C20 about these things! Anyway, I'd like to read more of what she writes.

She has a blog cat

glosswatch.com

That article is great :)

Thanks Fela'sCloak.

How do blogs work? do I have to remember it/bookmark it? Or do you register and then get sent alerts when something new appears?

(I realise I am revealing my state of utter idiocy here )

Thanks so much for sharing that article hilbertspace! And thank you every one for your thoughts on this thread, which have really helped me to start to think through some issues that were hovering on the edge of my consciousness.

Hahaha cat I have no idea! I just visit every now and again. Someone with more clue, help!!!!