Why do people work part time ? I've never understood it...

[mozhe]

I never have, but lots of colleagues in NHS did....you end up doing 3/4 of the work for 1/2 the salary, and get passed over in the promotion stakes...And have you noticed that it's nearly always women who do this ? Why ? I actively discourage junior staff from doing this but lots seem to....

'I thought I just stay at home mothers because they are less well educated and not so bright tend to descend to personal insults and you never see that from working mothers. '

well FUCK OFF xenia

i am only living up to your expectations of me

sadly can't do the 'less well educated ' bit

yes xenia, you are right, it gets to a scary bit and then you wake up, happens to me alot. I can go back and change my dreams though if i can get back to sleep quickly enough, apparently not many people can do that. Did the other twin have a similar dream i wonder? Everyone has shite dreams like that about loved ones though, i dont for one minute believe in dreams fortelling the future, oh, i dont think for one minute that you do either by the way I think dreams are a way of our brains sorting through the day, or a chemical hangover maybe from all the neurotransmitters released during the day, just my theory.
I think my dream arose out of the fact that we had a ceasarian at work (i work part time!!!!!!!!!!!!) with seven cute little puppes, and well, you have lots of children - only explanation i can think of - lol.

av, depends on their other care. Most people don't work 12 hours a day do they though and if they do they tend on those occasional days to have a partner around or a nanny. SOme parents sent 8 year olds to weekly board not that I think that's very nice at such a young age. I never felt being out from 8am to 6 or whatever damaged ours at all, genuinely never felt it. Sometimes with under 5s we were tired but I think we'd have been as tired if at home.

If you thnk you need to be with children 24/7 as amonther then in a sense you're making yourself into a God like thing - only I can parent this child, not my husband, the granny the nanny the nursery, only I have the perfection to care for it and I am suited without respite to do this job day in day out. I don't get that at all. I think I make mistakes and having several different people looking after children over an average day is a jolly good thing.

In answer to the thread title, because they want to, innit.

xenia - god knows how you find the time to do anything at all with the amount of time you must spend on MN and working 12 hours a day

each to his own

i am far from a perfect parent but its a personal thing
I want to be there for my children despite my imperfections
my mother was too wound up in her career -children were a sideline
i do not want that to happen to my children

society is lacking young adults reared by educated sahms dontcha know

not everybody has the opportunity to work full time.

i don't have the support of family or partner so have to rely on official childcare. There is only one kids club that picks kids up, which is awful and very expensive. The kids really really hate it-childminders dont use this school too-its a small school so they target larger schoos

but i agree, its not worthwhile working part time-but at least i can pay bills myself without relying on state

Returning to this, I've just turned down a FT job because once I did all the calculations, I realised that my life would be extremely difficult, stressful and pressurised, I would see my children for about half an hour a day, and I would actually be worse off (to the tune of £50 a month) than in my current pt job.

Does that sound remotely rational to you, you full time pushers?

Xenia, to refer to many SAHMs as lacking in intelligence, education etc is just crass and puerile.

One of my friends is a SAHM. She had her DS when she was 46yo after trying for many years. She conceived naturally and unexpectedly. As a result, gave up her job as a Finance Director for a large company to spend her time with her little miracle. He is now 6yo. She is involved in his school's PTA plus she is a school governor plus she does charity work plus she is recovering from breast cancer.

She has no intention of going back to work because she worked for nearly 25 years and realises that her son means more to her than a paycheck, particularly after her health scare. She is an intelligent woman educated to Msc level and she chose to be a SAHM. She was not conditioned into making that choice.

I do not understand why this is such a contentious issue because everyone is entitled to make decisions about their lifestyle that suit their situation and core beliefs.

Anyway, I think you and the rest of your ilk should be eternally grateful to the army of women who are less educated than yourselves (and who you clearly despise) because without them, you would not be able to live the lifestyle that you currently enjoy in that you would have to raise your children yourself plus undertake all menial domestic duties as well.

Oh dear, Xenia. You really do make huge, sweeping generalisations about people, don't you?

Part-timers are self-deluding.
SAHMs are uneducated and, frankly, a bit dim.

I suppose F/T working mums all parade around in shoulder-padded power suits screeching 'Buy Copper! Sell Gold!" into their mobile phones? (And of course, all men are bastards!)

Why do you insist on judging people on the basis of your own extremely limited views of the world?

Overall I meant, on average. I still think any survey would prove I'm right and it was in response to other comments so let's not take it out of context. Surely if she earns a lot less than him and never had much of a career then she's more likely to be the stay at home one. I am afraid in my real life I do see this distinction - the ones who barely scraped the GCSEs are likely to stay at home. The ones who had interesting careers as surgeons or in the City keep on working.

Obviously there will be various sorts of curves on any survey like that because they'll also be the very clever high earning women who marry similar men who want the status symbol of clever woman stuck at home which pleases the male ego more than trophy thick blonde [I mean here non natural blonde and not being racist...] So there's a group where she doesn't work because he earns a fortune and he wants a non working wife. But there are plenty of two good career full time working couples where the husband loves that the wife works and then a group in the middle where they both have to work as both don't really earn much and they feel they need the money.

i ahev o levels and aa lavels and a degrea dn stay at home

does that coutn?

Cod, are you blond?

Thanks for your extremely valuable research on the subject Xenia

Is 'blonde' a race, now? LOL

Actually, Xenia, I think you'll find that the vast majority of working class women continue working when they have families because they can't afford not to. The middle and upper classes are generally the women who have any real choice about whether to stay at home or work flexibly etc.

You don't by any chance happen to read the Daily Mail do you?

Speaking as a member of the blonde race I can categorically state my racial origins have nothing whatsoever to do with my decision to work full-time, part-time or not at all.

Did anyone ever get to the end of their life and wish they had spent longer at work or had more cars or possessions?

I think the point is that women should be able to have some sort of choice - infact, FAMILIES should be able to have some sort of choice - about how the money is earned versus how the kids are cared for. We don't have enough choice and flexibility as it is, and people with judgemental, inflexible opinions like yours don't help anyone at all, Xenia.

For the people who regard it as preferable that women work outside the home and pay other people to look after their children can you explain why this is better from a wider economic perspective and from a feminist perspective?

Someone has to look after the children so all you are doing is substituting the mother, or father, with someone else.

Also can you explain why looking after children should not actually be one of the most important and valued jobs because without children we have no future workforce? We as a society are facing many serious social and economic problems due to the poor way in which many children are brought up.

I personally believe it should be a matter of choice and parents should be able to take the option which best suits them. But I have a problem with the illogicality of some of the positions taken in this thread (and others).

It's dull boring mindless domestic labour at the bottom of the heap of tasks there are to be done in the UK. okay the odd bit of mother child interaction is glorious and fun but you can have those bits and work full time. Many stay at home parents who are well off have always delegated the cleaning and 12 hour baby minding days to others for obvious reasons.

Actually I think I'd rather have a low paid job even cleaning pub toilets than just be home. I'd like the getting out of the house, the seeing other people, the role in the wider world, the earning of some at least of my own money.

But this is just a view. We all form our own views and it's good when people of different views interact.

..better from the wider economic perpsective because most single parents claim benefits so that's a drain on the tax payer (although I hear in part of Romania they are giving the 30 unemployment benefit claimants 10 goats instead of benefits so they can actually work for their money... nice plan....)

Better because most studies people get pulled out of poverty by work for various reasons.

If you have a husband who is rich enough to keep you which most people don't then it is better you work also because you get a fairer society where women aren't the servants of men and can keep the equality at work they fought so hard for.

You come across as an extremely bitter, intolerant person Xenia. I could rebutt point-for-point your dreadful generalisations (not to mention question these 'studies' and statistics you keep throwing in randomly), but it really would be a waste of time.

I'll say it again. Feminism does not mean lambasting other women's choices. Infact, you are sounding less like a radical feminisit and more and more like an ageing male Tory MP.

yeah, she sounds from "another generation" that Xenia... so bored of your words.... when do you work, anyway? You seem to be online every minute of the day...