So working mums (part time or otherwise), how do you cope with the guilt?

[charmkin]

?

I would feel guily if I didn't work.....my expensive medical education cost the tax payer thousands....working is what adults do, so feel proud not guilty !

I wouldn't worry about articles in the Daily Mail. Supposed female guilt sells newspapers, that's all. The point for all parents of whatever gender is that you want to be good enough. Anyone wanting to be perfect needs to see a psychiatrist. In fact it's the ability to cope with compromise which I think makes workers and parents manage best. It's the perfectionists who are crying because their work or children aren't 100% who have the most problems both at work and at home.

I'll certainly be avoiding Frenchmen then if they're so sexist. I think Scandinavian men can be quite nice and slim and fit too and blonde so that's good but also many men I meet particularly those with full time working wives with proper careers they are actually proud of their spouse and wouldn't expect her to do all the work. It's the sexist model of housewife and then man who gains no competence with his chidlren and pretends (a pretence his stupid wife goes along with) that he cannot change a nappy or turn on a dishwasher that leads to more unfairness and unhappiness.

I don't worry about Daily Mail features personally because I agree with you on the insanity of perfectionims. But I do have a general feminist anxiety about the fact that such features can be judged effective and popular and therefore commissioned in this day and age. In the same way, I dislike the "see which celebrity has cellulite" features. I wonder if it means that there are still women hung up on these things.

eleusis - you protest too much... I didn't say that women shouldn't work.

I didn't say you did.

genidef - yup, French women are all dolled up like poodles, how anyone thinks that is sexy is beyond me... and so much hard work for so little effect. But they don't get fat, at least not in Paris. I'm size 10-12 and sometimes I feel like a huge elephant in this city of size 6-8

NKF, it troubles me too. Woemn in 2007 are still having their chests carved open and silicone added under dangerous surgery which is not too different from foot binding in China centuries ago. May be it's some comfort men increasingly also do so. But a lot of real normal people just actually today lead fairly normal nice lives where most women with children do work in the UK and achieve a fair balance at home. I think in general things are better than they were.

Then what on earth was inflammatory about what I said?

Nothing. It is just that you're wrong, that's all. You did say women were better care givers I think, because of their hormones. May be we can right that if it's the case by hormones for men and women. The effect of the contraceptive pill in tap water is already apparently reducing male fertility and dosing men with oestrogen I think - a feminist plot? he he Some women have testosterone injections to improve their work performance.

Xenia - that's a joke right? Or an urban myth?

Xenia - TOTALLY agree that breast implants are no better than foot binding or that African tribe whose women are giraffe-necked from wearing so many necklaces...

Oh, a French doctor once prescribed me testosterone (didn't touch it though)

WHat you said was that a child's mother provides better care than anyone else, including the father. So, obviously, women who work must to sacrificing their children's care. You said this as if it is indiputable fact, which it is not.

Father, Grandmother, nurseries, nannies, etc. provide very good care and the children flourish just as well as they do under the care of their own mother.

Say that you are staying h ome because you want to. Or because you believe it is best for your own situation. That's fine. But to suggest that those who have chosen another course are sacrificing the quality of care for their children is not only rude and inflammatory (considering this is a thread for working women) but it quite simply untrue.

Some people agree with your statement. Some don't. It is certainly not an undisputed claim.

I want to hear about the testosterone. Will it mean I spend less time on MN?

Yeah, me too. Tell me about testosterone.

I felt guilty when I worked full-time in a senior job that required a lot of my energy. Just because most of the week I only saw ds in the rush to get out of the house in the morning and then the rush to get him through bath and bed when I got back (and when I was knackered and grumpy). Now I work freelance part-time and don't feel guilty at all. But not everyone has that opportunity, and I don't feel any need to criticise anyone else for staying at home/working/however they choose to run their life.

Thing is, historically and geographically, women have always worked - how else do you feed, clothe and house your children? Nuclear family with SAHM and daddy at the office is a fairly recent development and not the norm for human beings at all. If it suits some people, great, but I'm not going to feel guilty for not fitting into some mould that doesn't apply to me.

The oxytocin produced during NATURAL childbirth and breastfeeding makes mothers take care of their babies. The same effect happens when men give women great orgasms (through penetration) - lots of oxytocin flows through the woman and she wants to take care of her partner. That's why bad sex is such a marriage killer...

Personally I had great orgasms from breastfeeding.

Edam I like your point about the historical norms and women always doing some sort of work.

Am considering part time too but when I initially did that I ended up cramming in 5 days work into 4. But that's something for another thread.

Do I have to start a separate thread about testosterone?

It's just that I personally know more about how to go about getting fake boobs (joke!) Well, actually I do given the numbers of women in my family who have done it. Plus nose jobs supposedly to "correct" some sort of slipped soemthing or other. Anyway, they live in Florida so it's easy to avoid them.

eleusis - well, maybe women who work ARE sacrificing their children's care but that that is a lesser sacrifice than sacrificing their children's economic security?

Do you want the name of the testosterone doc?

No, not really Anna. I just want to know if it's true that women take it and, if so, why?

Women can be prescribed testosterone here in France, I have no idea about the UK. Personally I don't like hormone supplements, there are too many scare stories about cancer risks. I think testosterone is meant to make you more assertive.