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."

Xenia - "I don't agree either that a baby is damaged if its mother returns to work which is what you just posted"

Where did I post that?????????

FairyMum - "Actually Anna, that is crap even if you consulted experts. How can you be experts on this anyway? Yes, if you have the sort of father who is happy not to see you much at all in the first year, you probably would not benefit fromhaving him around much anyway. My children love and need me and DH equally from birth. I think you are constructing a need your child has to be with only you because it is YOUR need."

I can equally retort "I think you are constructing a need your child has to see you and their father equally from birth because it is YOUR need".

So what?

It's great and fantastic if both parents are around a lot from birth.

It is not damaging if the father is around very little/never, so long as the mother is contented and support.

It is, however, much more potentially damaging if a child hardly (or never) sees its mother.

The mother-bond and the father-bond are not the same in the early part of life. Is that so surprising? Do you really think the special relationship that the mother has with a child in pregnancy ends in the delivery suite, when a human child is so terribly immature?

blueshoes - I don't have any issue with a few consistent carers from birth, especially when alternative carers to parents are close females relatives like aunts and grandmothers (I have yet to see an uncle or grandfather be a reliable carer for a baby] or very trusted external family members.

The issue I do think is fallacious is that father and mothers are equal and interchangeable for babies from birth. That fact is inconvenient for mothers' careers. I think it is more honest to recognise that it is inconvenient, and to look for ways that are good for mother and child to work around that inconvience, than to bury one's head in the sand and pretend (because is is more convenient) that little babies have no special need for their mothers and that the special hormonal/physical/emotional bond of pregnancy ends in the delivery suite when the umbilical cord is cut.

agree Anna
small babies need their mums
toddlers enjoy both parents as do older kids

its inconvenient but true and in my experience a paid carer will do their job, but not replace a happy, loving mum, which most of us are most of the time )

Another perspective on the inconvenience of little babies needing their mothers.

My partner runs a business in which he employs very large numbers of women of childbearing age. So - lots of maternity leaves every year.

Here in France maternity leave is four months for a woman's first two children, rising to six months for the third.

He hates the short four month maternity leave as it is impossible to employ people to cover temporarily for four months - it's too much hassle/expense. So teams go short, which is far from ideal. He would much prefer a long, one-year maternity leave as he could then employ people to cover, and a year is long enough that the company could probably then find a permanent position for anyone who wanted it and was good at their job.

agree Anna and snow

Bowlby is still quoted as an authority in all the academic child psychology texts that I have read (for A Level, undergraduate and Child Diploma courses), albeit with criticisms and provisos. Ruby seems to be giving a modern day version of this, as to most of the things I read at the moment.

Babies are quite boring really, unless they are your own, when they suddenly tranform into the most wondrous, amazing little creatures who seem to demand all your cuddles, kisses and attention most of the day. This is why the mother and small baby bond is so important. Nature intended it that way for the survival of the species. Agree in general terms with Anna that most (not all) of the men I know aren't that good with tiny babies but make all the difference from about 6 months to 1 year onwards.

"I wonder what the studies say that is so special about the mother?"

Isn't that just a little sad?

evelina - Bowlby is a bit like Freud, surely - he is the father of certain ideas in human psychology, but those ideas have been refined over the years.

I am also interested in how one can judge "successful" security and attachment. Surely the only true test is when a child grows into adulthood, leaves home, creates a life independent of his/her parents and forms his/her own happy family?

Antiquity - do you mean - do we really need studies to tell us that mothers are special?

(No, of course we don't )

So tell me why mothers are so special Anna? What makes me more special to my baby than DH?

You know what FairyMum - I can't be bothered to enter a conversation about this with you, because you don't engage in a rational dialogue but throw cheap insults back at posts that I (and others) have taken time and care to write and put together.

What cheap insults Anna?

Isn't it true that you cannot have a rational dialogue about this because your arguments simply are not rational?

If you don't get why you're more special to your tiny baby in the early stages than your dh then you're not going to understand a rational argument in favour of it.

It doesn't make your dh any less of a parent than you carrying your child for many months made him less of a parent. It just is. Just as those times when your child is older and you're just a boring presence to them and their dad is the best thing ever in the whole world and more fun than you could ever be doesn't make you any less of a parent.

FairyMum - I suggest that you (re)read the rational arguments on this thread, of which there are plenty . You might learn something about the complexity of the decisions that families have to take about work and childcare.

Well its not the case in my family. Dh is wonderful with tiny babies as was my dad. Funny how you apply this as it is some sort of universal truth just because it happens to be true in your own family. And why are fathers more fun? Why are mothers not fun?
How incredibly stereotypical.

Anna, you have not answered my question about what studies say is so special about a mother's care, as opposed to equally consistent and responsive care from another caregiver.

Antiquity, it seems to me that you see the specialness of a mother as a kneejerk emotional thing. Yes, I can understand that. I too have feelings too. But I want to understand from you and Anna the RATIONAL argument in favour of a mother in the first year, as opposed to another carer (leaving aside bf-ing which I have already explained below, which is not applicable in all instances and which can still be and is carried out by working mothers at night).

That is why I am asking Anna what the studies say are special about a mother. I do want to know. I took a whole year off on maternity leave for each of my 2 children. But I wonder whether that was unnecessary.

My dh is fantastic with babies - so much more patient, loving, energetic and well, creative. If a nanny could do the same (and I assume from her chosen profession that she likes babies) and I was prepared to pay for such a high quality one, perhaps I could also have left my babies with her and gone back earlier.

The fact is there are good and bad mothers. Post-natal depression, I understand, is not that uncommon. Whilst it is unfortunate and not the mother's fault, the fact is, the effect on a baby emotional development is potentially devastating, especially in the first year. I feel, in these cases, biology (and hormones etc) actually mitigate against mothers being the primary carers, if only to the extent she should be supported and in some cases supplanted over periods of the day by an alternative carer.

militate not mitigate

blueshoes - I have read a lot of books on child development, and consulted professionals (HVs and child psychiatrists).

The books that really spoke to me were Steve Biddulph's, and Toxic Childhood. Authors I dislike intensely are Frank Furedi and Claude Halmos (French). I never referred in any post to "studies" so I don't know why you are asking me this.

FairyMum - are you actually able to read English fluently? Because you seem to have misunderstood Antiquity's perfectly articulate post - and then got angry with your own misinterpretation.

blueshoes - no one on this thread is going to be able to synthesise all the arguments for (or against) the importance of maternal presence for young babies - I think you are asking rather a lot and if you really doubt that it was important for you to take a year off to be with your babies, I suggest that you read some books and also question whether your memories of your intense feelings for your babies have not mellowed with time

Anna: "Xenia - a lot of posters on Mumsnet, myself included, believe quite strongly on the basis of what we have read (not just on our gut feeling) that babies do need a lot of one-on-one time with their mothers."

Ah, I misunderstood then. It is just books and experts. Forget studies.

I am still interested in the rational view (even if it does not come from studies) as why you and Antiquity feel is special about mothers (as opposed to loving fathers, grandparents, relatives, nannies) and why a baby is potentially damaged if looked after during the day by loving non-mothers, as opposed to mothers.

Come on, Anna, help me out here. Just give me ONE rational argument. All things (care, love, warmth etc) being equal (and leaving aside bf-ing) what is inherently special about a mother as opposed to an equally loving non-mother?

blueshoes - "just books?" Come on .

I understand that you are interested and I suggest (in the nicest possible way) that, rather than asking people who have actually bothered to do a lot of reading to write you a résumé, that you do some reading yourself if you want some answers

Anna, you forgot to add a little smiley face or wink when you asked me about being able to read english.
How funny that you apply what is true for your own family to all families as a universal truth.
And how funny that you can't actually tell us what makes a mother more special to a baby than a father despite writing so much about it. Just "Well, I have consulted experts" and sort of dismissing it as being so obvious that no need to explain why.

One argument is that new mothers are in an intense hormonal state that makes them respond better to their babies needs than any other person.

I was very interested, btw, when I had my daughter, in my mother's reaction (my mother was around night and day for the first few weeks of my daughter's life). She also had that "hormonal surge" of love, for me and my daughter, that made her want to care for us intensely. She admitted that that had also happened with my sister, at the births of her three children.