Working mothers lambasted again!!

[Missmibaby]

Has anyone seen The Times today? Yet more articles telling us that wokring mothers are bad for their kids development. Isn't it funny how all the examples they use are middle-class women who left well-paid jobs, who are married to husbands with extremely well-paid jobs: bankers, lawyers, media-types. One of the headlines was that a woman didn't go back to work until her children were ten years old. The article then went to explain how she worked from her attic whilst employing full-time nannies! Real world? Not for most of us. I am the main wage-earner in our house. My DP is on £20,000 per year and our mortgage is c.£10,000 per year. What little luxuries would anyone recommend we cut back on if I were to give up work. Beleive me I do nothing but think about my son all day, I would love to be with him. I have another on the way and am trying to think of ways that I can work less. My son has always been cared for by well-chosen loving people. The childcare arrangements have changed very little inhis short life and I think he is a well-balanced, sociable, well-advanced little boy. I think the most important thing that he has in his life is that I love him to bits and I make sure he knows it!! Sorry for the rant I know it's not mumsnet faultbut but these generalisations make me so

I don't think women who stay at home are better or worse than women who go to work. It's how they treat thei kids that matters.

UCM, you feel guilty because you work. That's fine. I'm sorry you feel like that. But plenty of other women don't feel that guilt. Or they feel guilty because they stay at home with their children and don't enjoy it much.

Guilt's only there if you let it be. Personally, I don't bother. I know I'm not leaving DS to climb chimneys when I'm at work; if I was, I might be more inclined to feel guilty.

Your POV seem circular. Odd.

UC - no one minds debate!

What I find utterly deplorable is that you singled out Issymum and basically said that she is a bad mother for adopting her children then working.

Issymum has always struck me as a wonderful mother - have you read her comments on one of her threads about life books? She adores her children and has given them a great opportunity to live a much better life than the one they would otherwise have had.

It is quite shocking behaviour IMO and one which hasn't won you much support on this thread. Unsurprisingly of course!

seems to me if the study agrees with your point of view its a fab study if it doesn't its sh*t.

The thing is that vast majority of women love their kids to bits and whether they bottle/boob feed work or don't work doesn't change that fact.

I feel sad for women who are affected by such studies - I made my choices confidently and have no regrets.

Me too, JT

I love DS. I love my job. I'd save DS if both were being driven at by a bus. End of story

Mind you, had to get pregnant again to avoid working on Christmas Day this year Drastic or what?!

Going back to the the beginning and the whole article that started this. What i struggle as a Mum who has periods of being a sahm and a working mum (my job isn't consistant)is why mums who work have a problem with the fact that children benefit from being with their own mum. I know this sounds confrontational, but please bear with me. Although my child is happy with being with my mum or my childminder, i can't think of a better complement than the fact that they would prefer to be with me. If i stood my children in a room and asked them who they would prefer to be with of course it would be me, it doesn't mean they are unhappy with the situation they are in, it just means that mum is preferable, what a horrid world it would be if they chose nursery or the childminder everytime over us.
I don't know if I have made my point clearly but what i'm saying is lets not undervalue the role of a mum just because we work and some study which interprated can make us all feel bad but actually isn't essentially that bad initself.

like your style pumpkin

But if I asked DS whether he'd prefer to be with a biscuit or a lettuce leaf, he'd say biscuit every time.

Actually, he'd say biscuit if there was a choice between me or a biscuit. He'd say Noddy if there was a choice between me and Noddy. Ho hum. Good thing I have my job to go to, really A mum could feel a mite unwanted otherwise...

LOL JT! If I wore orange...I'd look like a blinking pumpkin atm I appear to be winking a lot tonight. Oops

I think you need to think more widely than that though.

Our 'job' as parents is to grow happy, well adjusted adults capable of independent living (for the lucky ones). I believe that having exposure to more than your mum in the early years helps with this, and indeed in old civilisations care was always shared between all the women of the tribe!

I think the focus on the 'nuclear' family has done children a disservice. The idea that the only way to bring children up is closeted in a one-to-one exclusive relationship is quite different to how the majority of children through the ages have been brought up! And on the basis of the survival of the fittest - the fact we are still here as a species is testomony to the fact that the age old tested ways of bringing up children worked!

SB, heartily agree. DS LOVES his family - often points to photos of them and gets really excited when he sees his grandparents (recognised their roads and houses before our own!) and his aunts and uncles and cousins. Before he was one, he used to look around to see who was sitting at the dinner table, grin at them all, then settle back down, beaming. He's totally relaxed at both my parents' and DH's parents' houses and they love having him.

I'm incredibly lucky, I realise that. But I think people often look at their own situation (eg elderly, infirm parents, mad-as-bags-of-frogs ILs, etc) and assume that people are leaving their children with similar people.

I have read recently in an article that it is not the quantity of time spent with your children that counts, but the quality of time - and this didn't refer to quality daycare or the like - it was quality mummy/daddy time.

I'm convinced that's what counts in the main. I know of SAHMs that spend all day in the kitchen smoking fags and drinking coffee with CBeebies on as the babysitter.

I am writing this as a current SAHM btw, living on a wing and a prayer until I have to go back to work regularly, and I consider myself to be in a bloody lucky position by that. (Although sanity may prevail soon and I find something to do at least twice a week)

Do you know the morning that bloody article came out i went into the hospital where i work and the looks on all the nurses faces i could have cried.....

Undercovermum how can you criticise others and put your children in cheilcare 40 hours a week You obviously don't believe you are right with any conviction otherwise you wouldn't do it.According to you I am the perfect mum still at home and waiting with cookies and milk every day even though ds is 11 now but this is because I am too ill to work Every family is individual and what works for one wouldn't work for others.