Wise Ruby Wax - working and stay at home parents

[Judy1234]

In today's Telegraph....

"Dear Ruby

I stopped working when I had my third child. It didn't make sense to continue with my job when I had a stressed-out husband requiring my support and children who needed me at home. It was an agonising decision, but my salary only just covered the cost of childcare.

And we didn't need the money - my husband earns six times more than I did. More importantly, I felt really guilty going off to the office every day and leaving my kids behind.

My problem is this: since I stopped working I feel like a non-person. Oddly, it's other women who give me this feeling. Women who have somehow managed to keep their careers afloat through babies, breastfeeding, nappy rash and all the mayhem of motherhood, treat me with barely disguised contempt. It's almost as if, by staying at home, I've lost the right to have an opinion, or say anything interesting. It's deeply upsetting.

Life is hard enough as it is, so why can't women be allies at least? Why can't we respect each other's choices? Amanda M, Edinburgh

Dear Amanda

I have heard that cry from some of my "non-person" friends when they decided to give it all up for breastfeeding duty. The reason I would also probably treat you with disdain if I met you is that I am secretly (well, not so secretly any more) jealous.

You are lucky enough to have a husband who makes six times the amount you made and that really irks me, as I'm sure it would other females.

But in your position, I would have worked anyway, as all my self-esteem is stored up in my job. I could never have applied the word "housewife" to myself. I'd rather have put a sabre through my head.

Although I admire your sacrifice to the little one, on the whole, I find women who don't work to be just a teensy bit boring with their obsession with schools and stools. Not all, just most.

Perhaps other working mothers are reminded how guilty they feel about abandoning the home. Perhaps we take it out on you. Enjoy your home life."

Yes, I acknowledge some stay at home mothers and stay at home fathers feel happy with their lives and some would only earn a pittance if they were on the checkout at Tesco anyway so there's not much point to that unless they are depressed at home and bad parents anyway although if there's a choice let's have fathers at home (if it's a low income situation) just to right the political balance a bit etc.

On input -who is to say the mother's heritage is best though that you want to pass it down and insulate the child from others, mother as God like thing who is the only one who knows best. Does that position not lack humility. I might be reasonably clever and good at a few things but no reason why the children's father, their nanny, their relatives haven't as useful things to impart as I have if not better.

So what is enough? For me about 2 hours a day. Most men are content with that to to be honest and most non working women in the 1920s would had live in girl to help probably went for about that two 0 lots of time to bond lots of time to talk and do the nice things but not 16 hour days of babycare which is a millstone round most parents' necks when they have it day in day out.

Xenia - surely even you would acknowledge the desirability of children learning to speak the same language as their mother and maternal family?

Please answer my question, Xenia (you have avoided it on so many threads now). What is your take on educated women in good careers who choose to stay at home for the first few years of their children's lives (say, until they start nursery or school). Do you think they are some how misguided? If they are happy, their husbands are happy, their children are happy - and if eventually they will return to work and resume their careers - what is the problem?

You know I was thinking about this thread today (in between lessons!!). The thing that remains with me is this issue of balance. How to strike a good balance between giving time to our children and retaining our own lives and identities, which after all, are also a vital factor in showing our children how to live a positive, stimulating life. I think when it gets really tough is trying to plan how your decisions now are going to impact on the future.
To give an example, there was one phase when my kids were younger when they weren't totally happy with their childcare. The nursery they went to, and the CM I used when they were pre-school were fab - they were all really happy and stimulated there. But when they were a little older and at school, they spent some time attending an after school club which was less than ideal. The activities weren't great, and they moaned at me that they'd rather go straight home with mum . HOWEVER, for me to remain in my career (middle management, school)it was essential for them to be there for a while. I made other arrangements for some days, but they spent 3 days a week there. Was I wrong? Should I have abandoned my career for the sake of them not attending this club? I don't think so. On balance, by compromsing their comfort for a while, I think I've benefited them greatly in the long term. A few years on, they are proud of the fact that their mum and dad both have interesting and successful careers. I have colleagues who gave up teaching completely for a while, who have taken literally YEARS to re-establish themselves. At the moment, a contemporary of mine is working as a teaching assistant, getting pretty frustrated and earning crappy money, because having spent years out of the classroom, she's unable to get back in. I can't beleive that this is good for her family - she's coming home bored, fed up and frustrated.
This is a long post, but I guess what i'm saying is, life isnt black and white, it's a hazy grey. Life is about a constant balancing act, managing our family lives so that in the long run, EVERYONE achieves maximum happiness and success.

Well it could as equally be the man sacrificing a career because the club isn't good. No reason this is a female issue at all.

To Lovea's question...being happy has never to my mind been some kind of aim or moral good so we can discount the happiness of the family for a start. It's a rather selfish aim. Most of those women don't get their careers back on track ever. They are irretrievably damaged by a break as are many men's if they take 5 years off. Of course if the career was serving at the counter in a bank there may well be no damaged but that's a different kind of work, mcjob stuff.

Yes, they are misguided and need the scales lifting from their eyes to see how politically unacceptable it is to have a situation where they serve and provide sex and in return a man pays. It's a disgusting dynamic which should have no place in the UK in 2007. It lowers the status of women. It makes employers treat full time working women worse. It damages their daughters' prospects in the work place. It makes their children see women as in effect servants. I probably have 1000 reasons women in that situation are better off working but I'll leave it at that tonight.

Absolutely Xenia - this isnt a male/female debate. It's about the whole family looking honestly and openly at what is going to be in EVERYONE's interests in the long term. It's a constant balancing act - there may be times when one partner takes a 'back seat' temporarily, or the children have to learn that they can't necessarily have everything exactly as they'd like it (not a bad lesson to learn in life!). But overall, every one person in a family is equally important to everyone else. My children put up with being bored a few times a week for a number of months - but hell, they were safe, warm and had to fall back on their own resources a bit more than usual. The pay back is that a few years down the line, they have a mum who is stimulated and earning a good salary and showing them that they too can grow up to be mothers and have interesting jobs. I think this is all about being honest and open about everyone's needs and wants. If you're being a SAHM because actually you were pretty bored in your job anyway, and staying at home is nicer for you, then fine, but be honest about that. Don't kid yourself that your child is somehow getting a better deal. They're not. They will no doubt be happy and contented if you are as a parent - but so are the millions of children of working mums and dads.

Well, I disagree. I think happiness is the only goal worth having in life: one's own and that of the people around one. The only moral way to lead your life is to have happiness as its goal.

Now I understand why you are so discontented, Xenia

I never said I was discontented but I think if people aren't after being happy as an aim they're a lot better off as are those around them.

I also think that being happy as a goal is quite dangerous. Contentment should be a result but not the goal itself.

But that aside.

Xenia, I think you are only speaking for a minority of women who have careers in interesting jobs that make a lot of money.

But 100% of the female population (and that equally applies for the male poplulation) cannot have careers that need pursuing or else a 5 year break would be damaging to those careers.

We need, bank clerks, check-out people, cleaners, bus drivers and lots of other 'low' career jobs equally as doctors, lawyers etc.

Why not accept that everyone is different and not everyone has to pursue a career in life to be happy?
Otherwise I very much agree on your views on feminism.

I read an article about Sweden recently, where mothers are encouraged to go back to work very early through state subsidies at nurseries and tax incentives etc. This policy started in the 1970s, as a result of a feminist/sexual equality political movement. Apparently, there is a backlash going on with mothers resentful at not being allowed/encouraged to stay at home with their young children especially as (ironically) a lot of the work is in the public sector childcare industry! There is a lot of absenteeism in the workforce amongst working mothers and increasing numbers are voting with their feet by opting out of the system. At the same time, there has been a large increase in the suicide rate, mental health problems and a drop in literacy standards in the country.

in the gutter- agree with your points regarding how hard it is to get back properly into work when children are at school and the long term disadvantages re salary and pension. A real problem that needs a political solution, and I think it's a fair point that no harm at all in working when children are older although I would imagine it must be hard to help out teenagers with homework/afterschool activities if you yourself have been hard at work all day (I'm thinking of re-training as a teacher and this is one of my worries). I'm a bit more sceptical about your comment regarding children being happy with pre-school childcare as they are not really able to tell you how they are feeling at this age (this being a general point not necessarily applicable to your particular case or arrangements).

The political solution though is at home, each woman helping others by ensuirng where possible her husband asks for flexible working and career breaks. Until we are 50/50 men and women on that women will continue to be in ghetto.

But Xenia, men and women will never be 50/50-different hormones, genes, bodies, strengths and weaknesses. IMO this is never more apparent than when dealing with babies and young children. We females of the species are programmed to create and nurture our young. We are disadvantaged in so many ways compared to men- why not support and salute the many (imo majority) of women who are happy to be with their children in their most formative years (no disrespect or criticism at all of those who prefer or need to work). The political solution surely comes into play in the later years when the post birth female hormonal surge has passed and the children are not so needy.

Have I understood this correctly? We are to work regardless of whether we want to or not? We are to work regardless of whether we need to or not? We are to ditch any attempt to make ourselves or our families happy?

Yes, try and keep up swedes. Career first. Happiness second.

I am amazed people have a happiness priority in their lives. Is it because you don't go to church or believe in God? Surely your life is about living the best life you can and doing good? Isn't that the aim of most of us?

St Xenia.

No Xenia, life should not about "being good".

Have you ever seen a shrink?

Anna, pursuing happiness as your goal in life has many pitfalls.

Start with accepting that life is suffering and you might have a better chance at dealing with life's ups and downs.

To ask whether Xenia is seeing a shrink is not helpful to this debate.

Isn't Ruby Wax pretty screwed up?

I don't think you can pursue happiness anyway, to do that you have to decide what makes you happy and that can be pretty distorted. It's to do with your outlook. It's something you find within. A shrink might help..

Besides most of us are already the best we can be which is always a good starting point

RS - I didn't ask whether Xenia was seeing a shrink, I asked whether she had ever seen one... because shrinks are excellent at disabusing people of the idea that they should be pursuing moral absolutes... something this debate is all about.

'I'm a bit more sceptical about your comment regarding children being happy with pre-school childcare as they are not really able to tell you how they are feeling at this age (this being a general point not necessarily applicable to your particular case or arrangements).' - Disagree. I think parents know their own children and whether they are happy/contented/stimulated/bored/anxious etc
Romey - agree that you can't 'pursue' happiness. happiness and contentment may be the spin off of other things.
Anna8888 - to ask xenia whether she has ever seen a shrink is pretty intrusive and uncalled for.

Inthegutter - why are you so touchy about shrinks? What's the problem?