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Original poster

Working mothers lambasted again!!

266 replies

Missmibaby · 04/10/2005 11:26

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.

OP posts:
Enid · 04/10/2005 13:19

I don't have to work btw but I do cos I like it.

gossifer · 04/10/2005 13:19

I AM SEETHING

Enid · 04/10/2005 13:21

I think that the under three thing is a bit of a red-herring. I would feel more guilty carting dd1 off to a holiday school club in the school holidays as I have nice memories of just vegging around teh house in the holidays - think out of home care can be more miserable when they are older, they need you more.

Enid · 04/10/2005 13:21

oh gossifer dont let it get to you

everyone has different opionions it doesnt make them right (or wrong as a matter of fact)

Lacrimosa · 04/10/2005 13:22

Are you going back to work because you can not afford one of you to stay at home? I only wrote how I feel and what I believe, I really did not write it to hurt anyone its just my opinion

gossifer · 04/10/2005 13:25

i totally agree that everyone should be able to have their own opinions, but to say that anyone who cannot afford to stay at home and look after their kids shouldn't have any kinda rules out a lot of the population, my opinion is that is absolute rubbish, and incredibly condescending and it has me seething!

Fangache · 04/10/2005 13:25

So... if you need to work, then you should not be allowed to have children coz you clearly cannot afford them. I see.... nice non-judgemental person aren't you?

So perhaps we should all be sterilised?

MascaraOHara · 04/10/2005 13:25

oh, somebody hold me back!

gossifer · 04/10/2005 13:26

lacrimosa, crossed posts, thankyou & sorry , i have to go back to work, no choice,

LadyFioOfTipton · 04/10/2005 13:26

gossifer take no notice

some people on here are so up their own arses its untrue

beetlejuice73 · 04/10/2005 13:26

Sorry, I'm going to get Milly Tant and controversial now. I think there's a bit too much sentimentality about these early years actually. I don't underestimate the importance to a child's personality and abilities of heavy parental involvement in the first few years, but I can also see beyond that.

When the time comes, I want to be able to support DD through university, so she can concentrate on enjoying thos years (and maybe studying). I want us to be able to enjoy foreign holidays as a family, for her to do extra-curricular activities if she wants to etc. etc. If the time came when I couldn't give her those things, (as a direct result of the choices I'd made regarding her babyhood care), then I don't know how much comfort she'd take in knowing that at least I was the one who changed her nappy every day.

I realise that some mothers work their a*s off and still can't afford any of the above, so I know how lucky I am, but I don't really buy this 'materialism bad', 'mother-at-home good' argument. Those cuddly babies often grow into quite materialistic children and teenagers, I'm afraid.

ThomBat · 04/10/2005 13:26

Lacrimosa - so what terrible effect will it have on the child then? Out of interest, in your opinion?
Do you think that by having loving parents around in the morning,evening and all weekend and perhaps a couple of days in the week, and the rest of the time they are in the care of a relative, or a trusted childminder and other children, do you think that it has some detremental effect on the child then?
Do you think that there are instances where a child is brought up in the family home, with a parent who is miserable and unhappy, perhaps she has PND, could be ay number of reasons, that child perhaps has no siblings and very little stimulation. Just something to think about perhaps.

Just because both parents work doesn't mean that child isn't getting loads of care from them you know.

I work 4 days a week, DP 5 days week. When our DD isn't with us she's with her Grandad or her Nana. She's incredibly confident, happy, socialable little girl. Everyone involved is happy. Not looking to change anything about uour situation.

Fangache · 04/10/2005 13:28

When will we learn that there will ALWAYS be one!

BTW.... Lacrimosa are you new or are you a name change?

gossifer · 04/10/2005 13:29

thanks ladyfiooftipton (thats a name and a half!)

hermykne · 04/10/2005 13:30

i would love to know where you can get the findings of these reports/survey/trials to read the facts? i think that may give a better idea into the socio economic background of the partakers of the survey and the negative results with regard to sah "parent".
anyone know?

Lacrimosa · 04/10/2005 13:31

I just wonder why people choose to have children if they know they will not be looking after them ? I am curious about it , I really dont mean to be upsetting you all like this I really just dont get it

ThomBat · 04/10/2005 13:31

Ohhhhhhhhh this topic is always so great! The day this subject comes up without it 'kicking off', even in some mild way, well, the sun won't set that evening!

LadyFioOfTipton · 04/10/2005 13:32

i am fio2

oliveoil · 04/10/2005 13:32

I agree with Eaney, why do they bother doing this research? Who wants the information? Not me.

Blu · 04/10/2005 13:34

I can easily seethe about all this...but am managing not to, at the moment.
My situation is partly by coice, partly by neceesity. DP and I have turned ourselves into knots and inside out, working but giving DS time with us.
Meanwhile another 100 million factors that ALSO effect children's happiness, well-being and development continue unchallenged and completely out of our control.

It has been proven emphatically that PCBs and dioxins are a cause of limb deformities (like DS's)...see many headlines about that guilt-tripping the shareholders of plastic bottle companies? ? The numbers of children mown down on roads? And so it goes on.

And as for those of you who want to know why you would have children and then go out to work (on the other thread about the same subject) now there's another question that has rarely been asked of fathers.

Life tends to be multi-facted. Children of certian nomadic tribes get taught not to cry from the age of 3 days old, or get carted off to various work environments with theri parents. It's a very narropw model which is held up as the 'golden norm' gaianst which to measure chidlren's upbringings.

But if research shows that parental presence is (generally) beneficail, that's a good thing to KNOW...but not a good place from which to make sweeping judgements about the complex ways in which other people become excellent parents in dofferent ways.

gossifer · 04/10/2005 13:34

who says they are not looking after them? that they get to interact with all sorts of people, whether it be family, childminders or nursery staff, who will each bring them new experiences and teach them new things; are you saying you are going to be with your children 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day?

Eaney · 04/10/2005 13:35

Obviously we have them to look after us in our old age.

oliveoil · 04/10/2005 13:36

My friend had a child Lacrimosa because her and her dp wanted one. He has been in f/t nursery since 4 months and is now 7 yrs old and is a lovely little boy. I can't see it has been 'bad for his development'.

I wouldn't want to put my child in nursery at 4 months but not everyone does things the same.

You can't post strong views like yours then wonder why people react.

xx

ThomBat · 04/10/2005 13:37

Lacrimosa - sooooo, by working 4 days a week, 10.30 - 6 that means I don't look after my DD, is that what you're saying??????? Just want to be clear is all.
And it would have been better for everyone in my life would it if becasue i a) have to and b) want to work, if I had never have had Lottie. I shuld have remained childless in order to work??????

Why is it not possible to understand that some women want to, or have to, stop work when they have kids and some women havce to or want to continue to work when they have kids. Why is that hard to understand.

If everyone who had kids jusy stopped working you'd soon complain that hospitals weren't staffed, that there was a shortage of good teachers, that there wasn';t someone around to deliver your baby, that the police force was depleted in numbers and crime had soared!!!!!

And that's not a 'ohhhh working mums contribute to society and SAHM's don't' comment, it';s just something to think about when one says 'why have kids if you plan on going back to work' thought.

beetlejuice73 · 04/10/2005 13:38

YOu haven't upset me at all Lacrimosa, but to answer your question.

  1. To enjoy the times I spend with her 3 days a week as well as every morning and evening.

  2. To watch her grow up, to teach her the little that I know and introduce her to the things I enjoy(incl. foreign travel, eating out, uni etc.)

  3. To see life differently, through her eyes

  4. To enjoy a (hopefully) very long friendship with her

  5. To love her and be loved by her.

  6. So she can change my nappies once senility and incontinence set in!

Actually, spending time cuddling and playing with her now is part of all the above, but I think I'll come into my own as a mother when she's a bit older. There's only so much shape-sorting that i can do.

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