To be honest never understood this issue with being a working mum.
My mother and all the mother I knew in my previous country (I was born in Portugal) used to work all they lives and raised healthy children (physically and mentally).
Never heard about bullying is schools of fights with knifes.
Now I met my partners which is British and I love him a lot. I love Britain but I never understood this working blame woman mothers issue when we decided to live in the UK.
In Portugal no one could afford to stay at home. Only the rich families had that luxury of spending all day with their children. We all were raised with the concept that a child needs to be raised more than with a mother, the all family and society was deeply involved in raising children like it used to happen in "primitive" societies.
Now I love the UK and is now my country too but this is affecting me a lot. I cannot really get it. All this blame for working parents, specially woman reminds me of chauvinism. In the second world war ( and we studied this in History) all women had to work in England and that's what society did to cope.
Then women were dispatched as objects from the work area when soldiers returned from war. We do not need you anymore... Instead now we have a society with poor representation of women and are our children better raised? more educated? I am not here to judge everyone's choice. I respect full-time mother a lot if that was a decision they made themselves but blaming all of the other women that are trying to have a career is not fair. I am sorry but this should stop.
To be honest I am a little bit tired to be pushed out against the wall when the only thing I am trying to do is paying bills, give a better future for my children and giving them a female role model that is of a woman working and participating equally in the society than the usually and "acceptable" way?
I am really tired of having people pointing the finger at me when I request longer hours at school and help towards childcare like if I wanted others to take care of my children. I do not. I just want as part of a citizen that society takes responsibility instead of holding responsible the "weak" sex... us
The all of the Europe has longer days at school and the government invests a lot in education. Here is foreseen like a pain and an excuse for working parents? It seems I am a criminal or begging...I feel like an outcast all the time.
Maybe those people that criticize me so much should pay my bills or stopping voting or having the right to do other civil rights like those one since many of them were accomplished and won by working women and... mothers.
Just an Opinion