Advantages of Going Back to Work Early

[Judy1234]

Coming out of several other threads this is interesting. As I said elsewhere with my first child I went back to work after 2 weeks. I always work up until I went into labour. I think the longest I took off was 5 week with any of the 5. You don't often get parents writing about returning to work quickly so I thought just setting out some of the advantages might be helpful for those who can't decide how much time to take off at home. I don't want this to be seen as me saying all parents should both be back at their desks within 2 weeks however; just food for thought particularly with the new paternity leave rights coming in next April.

1. The baby does not have a huge wrench when you suddenly return at 6 months or a year. At 2 weeks she can get used to her good childcare from the father, relative, nanny or whatever so has continuity and no shock to the system of a later return.

1. You don't have time to get out of the swing of work so it's all less disrupting to your life.

1. You can establish a breastmilk expressing system early on without worrying about how to manage breastfeeding when going back at 3 months.

1. Both parents are equally as involved with the children. The pattern at home isn't established that the mother does everything to do with the baby. The mother isn't better than the father at child things. You may get a more involved husband.

1. You only lose 10% of pay in the few weeks you take off.

1. You don't lose touch with work, lose promotion, position etc.

1. If I'm allowed say it, being at home with babies can be boring (not for everyone, I know) so you can skip all that and concentrate on the fun cuddles bit.

1. You inconvenience an employer or your customers less. No one will like me for saying this but in the real world fathers and mothers taking leave is hard to manage. I can say this having had to manage maternity leave for two of my nannies over the years.

1. You may find the physical recovery from birth easier in an office than managing small children and domestic work at home with heavy lifting, toddlers who kick you, heavy rubbish to put out, floors to scrub etc.I certainly found sitting still at a desk, time to rest, relax, get drinks at my leisure helped me get back to normal. Dressing in office clothes too helps get you back to being your normal self. I loved leaving behind the clothes at home covered in baby sick etc.

10. Sometimes it aids mental health particularly if you hate being home with a baby.

bacon, your selflessness knows no bounds.

so what do you do, Xenia?

she's probably an unemployed guy from the highlands who lives himself and so spends all his time making up strange life views on internet chatboards.

I don't want to say. I think it's been virtually said on here anyway. I'm sitting here doing some bills at the moment. I realise I am extremely successful and talented and also rounded and nice and have a large family etc but that shoudl not be regarded as unbelieveable. The fact that it is just proves what a sexist lot people are. The assumption that it is not possible for women to succeed at work, love their job, have a large family etc. It's one reason I've always tried to publicise it over 20 years. One reason I mention the 5 children in public fora, rather than hide the children at work so people know you're normal, have a family life and can still do what I do. Luckily so many women with larger families now work full time and happily it's become less necessary to make any kind of point about it. All will be well and all manner of things will be well.

Xenia, I would love to know what you are taking and can you get it on prescription?[teasing emoticon]

I should not be taken so seriously. I don't tend to lie. It's against my religion but I'm not better than anyone else. I seem to have been born and raised to be good at passing exams plus able to work very hard and also able to take risks and I think those three things have led to where I am now. I also had very very strong maternal instincts from about age 14 and I'm sure that is part of the reason I had so many children starting at 22. I was also lucky to be born looking reasonably good too.

The unfairness of the different things we are all born with is something no socialist society can ever do much aboutbut as I am sure everyone on the thread would agere with what matters more is how we live and lead our lives. People are more an example to others than they realise and being reliable, caring for your family, doing the right thing is much more important than the fact I can afford a car or whatever.

you probably havn't read this thread about motherly love?

but if you had, I just wondered what your thoughts were xenia, because as far as I can work out, going by your theories, this woman should still go out and get a job and put her foster babies in childcare (in order to send the correct messege and contribute to the economy etc)

or does she not count? is she right to be staying at home to care for all these kids? or is it ok because these are someone elses kids she is mothering? (allbeit unpaid).

(btw I do beieve you exsist but people are struggling to believe you exsist because in none of your threads or post have you ever even hinted at knowing what motherly love is all about. I'm sure that is why you are being mistaken for some weirdo.)

Good grief. Are people still having a go at Xenia?!?! (and putting words in her mouth)

Xenia, the power you have around here does make me laugh. I expect it does the same for you.

Yes, my special powers.
Thanks for the motherly love link. Of course I know about motherly love. Working parents love their children, by the way. I don't think the fact you're prepared to be parted from them for 8 - 10 hours a day in the working week means you love them less. It's not a competition.
If you can afford not to work a father or mother can stay at home. After all work was supposed to be for the plebs wasn't it, whic his why we had that distinction between the professions - law, medicine, vicar etc and "trade", business etc. to be distinguished from those who didn't have to sully themselves with any of that at all because they had a private income. Those in the latter category certainly rarely chose to look after their own children and why shoudl they? You can love them and be a SHAM and have a full time nanny (if you marry well or have the funds) and still just choose to see them for a few hours a day. I don't see the problem with that at all.

so are you going to answer my question xenia?

Poppet, your question to Xenia makes an accusation that she believes and has advised that all parents should go back to work whether they want to or not. What Xenia actually says is those who want to can and shouldn't feel bad about it.

So, the question is based on a premise that simply isn't true. Xenia has already said on numerous occassion on numerous thread that peopl who are able to stay home and want to stay home should do as they wish.

uwula she has said exactly that. In this thread -have a read.
she has obviously back-tracked in her last post.

Yes, as u said.
The answer is a foster mother or father who stays at home to look after children fulfils a very valuable role as do parents who stay at home. I've always been with the Jesuits or was it Thomas Acquinas - give me a child to the age of 7 and I will show you the man. But we differ in that I think you can influence and mould a child to the good as a working parent and as a stay at home one.

oh right I was just checking because before you were banging on about how it enhances the family for the mum to go to work and how you are making it one of your missions in life to get all parents out to work.

Here you go uwula (from xenia Thursday, 23 November, 2006 10:27:54 PM)

I certainly have political and feminist problems with SAHMs. I think they help ensure we never get equality in life, work, politics, business and the more SAHMs there are the more those inequities are engrained. Thankfully SAHMs are gradually getting fewer and fewer so my political agenda is being achieved because most of them resist the model of well educated stay at home status symbol my brother was going on about. They want to play a part in world economic activity, not just help arrange the church flowers and take on roles that aren't paid. I don't despite them that choice (those very very few who have that choice) but I don't think it's good for society or children or the long term good of this country.

So how is it ok or better for a foster mother to be at home with their foster kids?

you see now you contradict yourself by saying that foster mothers and sahm are fulfilling a very valuable role.

your confusing me xenia, please set me straight, without all the waffle this time!

In general if we can get fairness at home and as many fathers stay at home as mothers it will be better for those rasons I set out so to aid that fainress process SAHM should consider it perhaps their duty they work and theis husbands stay home if they feel a parent shoudl be there until we get to about 50/50 men and women at home - that's the duty I feel perhaps we should have for the greater too and achieving a fairer society. But if there weren't that unfairness then yes, it should be sexually neutral decision who stays at home.

Xenia, I would have agreed with you 5 years ago. I vehemently believed that staying at home should be a sexually neutral decision, SAHD should be as obvious a choice as SAHM.

And although there is still a feminist part of me that wants to see better equality between men and women in the workplace, I just can't see how.

Just as there used to be a move in the 70s for girls and boys to be treated the same, girls given cars, boys given dolls. The children naturally gravitated towards masculine/feminine activities. Ask parents of girls/boys, and teachers in early years. There are differences.

Now I am not saying that this means a woman can't be a plumber, or a man a nurse, or anything that limits the job that a woman or a man can do. But when it comes to raising children, I believe that this is one gender hurdle women are never going to get over as a group - they want to be with their children when they have them, rather than pursuing a career. Some women like yourself, Uwila, mohze, yes. All women, the norm in society, no.

I have witnessed for myself and in other women the transition from competitive, ambitious career woman to mother. I honestly think that it changes women more than men, and that in 20 years time we will look back and realise "We tried it this way and we learned xxx"

I suppose in summary I am saying "You can fight nature and win, but not many women want to".

I certainly don't agree men and women are the same. Traditional feminism not surprisingly said it was how we brought people up which led to the results we had. However there is a lot of evidence now to show important innate gender differences. So that may explain why so many more women than men choose to stay at home and indeed why so many women marry men who earn more than they do rather than less.

I am divorced and not in the same position as lot of people. There are interesting debates with fathers after divorce over whether mothers love children more, who children should live with etc. and it is heartbreaking for many men to be parted from their children just because they have a penis.

If we do accept most women will always want to stay at home with their chidlren (although that is not so much the case in all countries with good childcare - women do work more and happily in France and other places in Europe, Scandinavia and places with paternity leave rights so I am not 100% convinced) then we need to look at what that means. For example girls should get experience of babies, prepare for their major life role at school. They can certainly go to university etc as they may never marry and they may be in the category I am in of wanting to work etc but if most won't really have a career long term then the traditional route of better education for boys presumably was right then?

If we think women want and should be with their children when not at school then it's important for those women to marry men who can support them during that process. So advice to daughters on how to find such met etc is wise, perhaps that has led to all the money/commercialism/views on TV etc that girls should get pretty and find rich men. Plus ca change.

"For example girls should get experience of babies, prepare for their major life role at school. They can certainly go to university etc as they may never marry and they may be in the category I am in of wanting to work etc but if most won't really have a career long term then the traditional route of better education for boys presumably was right then?"

But you're assuming that women want to opt out of the world of work forever when they have their babies. I don't think that is true. Most women take a longterm view. It's the way work is organised which goes against their ability to follow their desire to spend maximum time with their children and hold onto their careers.

Yes, you have shown that it can be done but being able to afford a nanny puts you into a completely different category from most families in this country. Having a nanny is like buying in a substitute parent. Not only are they providing good one-to-one childcare between the hours that the parents work but they are able to fulfill other roles.

Having a nanny means the child gets to stick to their routine in their house (my dd never napped at nursery!) The nanny is responsible for cooking children's meals and taking care of their clothes and bedrooms. A nanny can take children to swimming lessons/gymnastics, ballet. Some nannies even clean the parents home and prepare a meal for the parents. I expect if the child suddenly outgrows their shoes, you can send the nanny out to buy new shoes for the child.

A parent who uses a nursery or childminder has to take time off when the child is ill. They have to fit in, on weekends and evenings the cooking of the children's food, cleaning of the children's clothes, buying of clothes and shoes, attendance at swimming lessons. Contend with a grumpy child that hasn't had adequate daytime sleep during the week.

It's such a different picture to yours Xenia. On top of having a nanny, you have excelled at your chosen career, alongside being a mother, by (as GQM put it) acting as though you haven't had any children.

I don't know what I believe anymore about how innate gender roles are especially since reading 'There's a Good girl'. I would like more parents to be able to share childcare - i.e. both parents work a 3 day week and so they only need to use external childcare one day per week.

But so long as paid work is valued more highly than family life, I can't see big changes occuring. If more men aren't going to take time out of work and provide childcare for their young children then what women need is to be valued more highly in the workplace. Women need to be able to return to their careers once their children are at school. Flexible working needs to be valued. Part-time working needs to be valued. More studies about part-time work need to be shouted about in the newspapers (instead of hitting mothers with the guilt stick) Statistics like someone working 50% of the time manages to complete 75% of the work of a fulltime week.

And even if people don't think all men are as good as most women at looking after young children, there's no reason why men shouldn't be insisting on more flexible working patterns, whatever age their children.

What saddens me about you Xenia is that you think it's your way - get a nany and pretend to your employers you don't have children and family commitments - or else women all go back to the 1950s model of parenting.

Surely an intellignet women can work out a more imaginative solution than that?

A nanny is cheaper than 3 nursery places by the way just about anywhere in the country so it depends on your number of children. I did find it helpful having someone who could be sent out to buy school uniform, take them to the doctors when ill etc. Quite a lot of people in London share nannies between two families too which can work well.

A lot of people rely on grandparents for some care. Some people work shifts so they can both parent - my taxi driver last week gets the children up and off to school and then goes to bed. His wife is a nurse and works shifts. Of course I know people work without nannies.

The higest billing woman, the one with the best contacts book etc will always get a maternity or flexible working package that she chooses. So excellence and the employer depending on you are often your greatest tools and if they won't have you on their terms they lose you and you set up on your own. If instead you work at Tesco or whatever you won't have that power. It's just how it is. When there's a business need to change things as in some kinds of companies then parents get better paternity and maternity leave packages. When there isn't and employees are two a penny they don't.

Gender difference - I haven't read that book. I just think a lot of male/female differences are innate and I don't mean in ability to change a nappy.

Xenia - although I have not always ageed with your many comments I think it is only fair to say that you are one of the most informed people if not the most when it comes to working rights/legislation.

I have one specific question for you:

What rights do fathers have to request flexible working, when it comes to both working partners working hours to suit. Do they have some certain rights which are unbeknown to most of us, or is just the mother who can request flexible working?

Fathers are allowed to request to work flexibly so long as they fulfill the other criteria - child under 6 etc...

I don't know how many do, on a formal basis.

Fathers will start taking time off work to look after their children when:

1- they are paid the same as women (ie when paternity pay equals maternity pay)

and

2- When it socially acceptable to do so.

1 is easy, 2 is a bit more challenging.

As I earned significantly more than my partner at one stage (before children - interestingly he has caught up now after just 4 years of me being in the pregnancy/maternity/part-time loop), we had always said that I would go back to work and he would care for the children.

In the event, I don't think he could have handled giving up work to look after the children, whereas I am more fulfilled by it. Maybe this is society's expectations on us both, or maybe as a woman you are "rewarded" socially by being a traditionally "good mother" - cleaning, cooking, caring etc.

Maybe if it was seen as admirable for men to excel at these things, as much so as women, they might find it more appealing to stay at home.

As for women marrying men who earn more - isn't this just because men on average earn more than women? Surely for every woman that marries a man who earns more than the average more than her, there must be an equivalent woman who has married a man who earns less? IYSWIM?