Message for Xenia

[opinionsrus]

What I would like to ask is how exactly do you find so much spare time to chat on these boards about earning between £100k and £250k when you have five children of your own and also what seems must be a very demanding full time job?

I have just one child and a very part time job and this will be about the only 5 minutes I get to luxuriate on the internet?

Xenia..i am understanding you a lot more now.....

"In fact I probably have spent hour for hour more time than most stay at home mothers with 2 children".

Hilarious!

HC, prove me wrong please which would be fun. So 32 years as a mother of 5 but me at work. You work out the hours I am with them every day and every week over htat period. Surely that's more than the maximum 5 or 7 years at home with the average 2 child family? I'm sure I'm likely to be right. There are a lot of hours in a day working mothers spend with their children. I've been reading bed time stories for 22 years. I'll be doing it in 5 minutes time tonight and I hope I'm doing it grandchildren in the next 10 years... may be even if I have another baby although that's unlikely.

i think you are odd

Thank you for answering my question.

Xenia: "There's lots of childcare involved in being a working mother". Who'd have thought it? I guess that'd be the 'mother' part of the job title.

I'd like to know what your 22 year old thinks of the fact her mum went back to work when she was 2 weeks' old. If it was me I'd feel a bit hurt.

It's more likely, Thinkstoomuch, that you would have been conditioned to believe that this level of maternal detachment is perfectly normal and healthy, and that you would do the same to your own children without a qualm.

Which is alarming, really.

far be it from me to wade in with another bone of contention xenia but most of the people i know including myself had working mothers, and still have student debts. you will no doubt be in an enviable position of being able to cover the tuition fees, accomodation, and living costs of your boys through the 3+ yrs of University. most people aren't. many students do have to get a job to support themselves, but not all unis even allow this.

I'm in that position because I seemed to be born quite clever and good at exams, hardworking and picked a career which means I will earn enough to ensure my children don't have student debts. There's also an argument they appreciate university more if they have the debts. It's not a simple issue that no debt is necessarily good.

"I'd like to know what your 22 year old thinks of the fact her mum went back to work when she was 2 weeks' old. If it was me I'd feel a bit hurt." She's often been asked. She doesn't mind. First of all you can't remember, can you? Secondly I can't see any psychological damage. We bonded fairly well. She breastfed for nearly a year. She had the same nanny for 10 years (longer than some fathers stick around) and had close relationships and involvement with her mother, father and nanny so I don't see where the damage has been caused. In fact (see other threads) there are benefits.

I'm just saying new mothers should consider it. You have a right to go back after 2 weeks if you want and no one should feel pressured one way or the other. Not a single person in family or otherwise ever criticised me by the way over this. Fathers go back to work after 2 weeks often. I wanted to. She turned out well and I also loved the time I spent with her.

well i went to cambridge and i'm unemployed so go figure MAYBE you are lucky, not invincible

xenia, thanks for explaining how you achieved it. It is interesting to hear how a professional woman can start a large family young and still continue to be on career track and a grandmother before retirement! Respect.

Having 5 kids (including twins) over, what, 16 years, I presume you deliberately spaced them out. Was that an important part of your being able to maintain a fulltime career and motherhood concurrently?

did someone go to wrk after two weeks?
oh god htere more to life

I was at Cambridge too. Not everyone there was clever, or hardworking. Just like any other uni, really.

no but i am - actually am feeling bit shamefaced about how easily riled i got just now. do respect what xenia has achieved but feel she is a bit bullish about her choices considering even she must be aware of what massive dilemmas work/life causes for most people. perhaps she is lucky to be so driven - but I am enjoying my enforced SAHMdom so very much i don't think i'll ever be able to be ambitious again.

Well yes, of course she can't remember. But that doesn't mean she won't think 'hmm, my folks didn't exactly bask in the wonder of my tiny presence for long before they got on with their lives, did they?'.

Maybe you grew up in quite a harsh, stiff upper lip-type environment where it was thought a bit feeble to go all soft over babies. I guess I can't help but feel a bit sad on her behalf that doing some work was more important.

mind boggles at thought of going back to work 2 weeks after giving birth...........

I imagine she's read the literature - that going back to work doesn't damage children and she hasn't been conned into thinking wrongly that the children suffer if the parents work. That's all.

I didn't go to Oxbridge. Have I been lucky? The harder I've worked the luckier I've got. I've enjoyed my work, best advice my father gave us, pick work you'll enjoy for the rest of your life. I'm not driven. I have wide interests, sing, read, like going out, bought an island, like the garden, we keep a horse, interested in politics, I'm a Catholic... I love having loads of different things I like to do.. bikram yoga when I get the chance. Of course like anyone working or not it's hard to fit everything in

"did someone go to wrk after two weeks? oh god htere more to life".... depends doesn't it? Sitting at home with a baby for me is just about the most dreadfully boring thing you can do 24./7. It's very very tiring and you never get a break from it. Leaving that lovely daughter at 8am for that peace on the train to read the FT and then saunter into an office where people run around after you and then you get home (I usually left on time) to an immediate breastfeed - all that lovely oxytocin released as you relax etc and then time with the children. I think that's pretty much easier and nicer than at 3 weeks having the baby 24/7.

I just point it as a legitimate choice for all parents and not one they should be criticised for in a free society.

Re: "HC, prove me wrong please which would be fun. So 32 years as a mother of 5 but me at work. You work out the hours I am with them every day and every week over htat period. Surely that's more than the maximum 5 or 7 years at home with the average 2 child family? I'm sure I'm likely to be right. There are a lot of hours in a day working mothers spend with their children. I've been reading bed time stories for 22 years. I'll be doing it in 5 minutes time tonight and I hope I'm doing it grandchildren in the next 10 years... may be even if I have another baby although that's unlikely."

Xenia - I was not questioning the numbers of hours spent. I have no desire to spend time counting the hours you say you spend with your children.

What amused me was the fact that you feel the need to work out that you have spent the same amount of time with your five children that a stay at home mother would do if she had only two.

Just seems a weird concept to put forward, and one which adds no weight to your argument, IMO.

I wasn't aware that it was a competition.

I think the problem some of us have with you Xenia, is that you seem to believe yours is the only choice that a mother should not "be criticised for in a free society". You've done a pretty good job of running down other people's choices, on several threads over the past few weeks. So it's not very surprising that people respond to you the way they do.

Xenia you are one of the few here I would love to meet in RL.
I like your POV.

Xenia - clearly your job involves no element of perspective. on a normal distribution curve you would be neither mean (apart from to sahm ) median nor mode.

magicfarawaytree (my fav childhood book)what do you mean by "your job involves no element of perspective"
What made you think this?

ie uni at 17, work 2 weeks after childbirth, 6 figure salary. Agree with hc it is not a competition. we might be a six figure , seven bedroom household, in an exclusive postcode. we might also have a acre of land in an urban setting. or we might be a double digit salary

jasper - If you read through Xenias information she shows no respect the fact that other people have not followed the same path as her or that they have different but valid contributions to make as a sahm or d. she went to university early, married early had children early, went back to work two weeks after child birth. all these are degrees of normal but by no way the average. she show no respect for the fact that normal has a range not just one point.