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."

blueshoes, you make some very valid points as well. In fact, my own dad was fantastic with babies and better than my mum from what I can gather particularly with regard to practical stuff like nappy changing (although mum fab with grandchildren babies). And of course some mothers do suffer from PND or just struggle for different reasons in which case a baby might be much better off with a nanny/cm/nursery. In general terms, though, I do feel there is something special about the mother/baby "motherese" bond.

It is quite ironic that some of the pioneer studies such as Bowlby have been criticised for cruelty because they experimented on baby animals whereas Channel 4 seemed happy to do this recently with real life human babies!

Xenia, there was another interesting article on page 15 of yesterday's Times on this issue.

Ha ha...so we should do some reading to find out should we Anna?
But only the titles YOU like. You don't like all books. Not the ones who disagree with you. You are very sweet.

Anna, I'm with you on this one.

Also, I don't want to generalise here re fathers, but I remember a 'received wisdom' that some dads tend to be more interested in the child once he/she starts to do more than tiny babies do. In other words, after the first few months, when they seem more like 'people' & you can see them developing & starting to communicate.

Not saying that fathers don't love them from birth, just that they may become more involved, 'engaged,' a few months later.

Anna "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"

Having taken a year off, I did read LOTS OF books, many on attachment parenting, which I followed for my dcs, as best I could.

If you are familiar with Dr Sears' work, I had 2 classic high need babies and a dd with life-threatening health problems to boot. So I understand that babies need consistent loving responsive care.

Often the mother is the best placed to provide this, and the books largely assume that as the circumstantial starting point. But I don't recall any rousing debate on those books as to if mother is not available, what is potentially damaging about another (equally loving) person providing that care? I got excited when I thought you meant you read studies (I was wrong) because that would fill in some pieces of the puzzle for me.

As for my intense feelings mellowing over time, having had and still in the throes of difficult babies (ds), my feelings are getting better and better and actually going from strength to strength over time.

dd is so much more of a delight now, compared to her baby days.

FairyMum - really, your English is letting you down very badly. Where did I suggest that you only read the books I like? Nowhere.

But you might need some reading lessons first.

Also I don't for the life of me see why we should disregard gut feeling. Blimey, I'm sure it saved our ancestors often enough in our cave past. (Imagine if they'd disregarded gut feeling in favour of logic? "No, there can't possibly be a sabre-toothed tiger creeping up behind me. It's too early in the season for AAAARGH!!!")

Stepford - I quite agree, we shouldn't disregard gut feeling at all.

However, I think it is also very useful and interesting to read psychological and sociological explanations of our gut feelings.

Or, if you prefer, "Should I leave my baby with her, or take him with me?" We still all use it, all the time.

On the hormonal argument, one counterargument is that the surge of hormones can trigger post-natal depression in some mothers, which is a huge tragedy for both mother and baby.

I agree with and respect gut feeling. But I am asking for rational argument and objective proof of a mother's specialness, which I am not getting beyond being questioned as to my reading - which I admit has gaps in it and that is why I am asking in the first place.

It's ok not to have all the answers ...

I think in the first few months that a newborn has the greatest connection with the mother because it is used to the sound, smell and sight of her from the time before it was born and through breastfeeding. I don't necessarily think that continues to be the case once breastfeeding has stopped, or if when there is another person available to feed the child either through ebm or FF.

That still doesn't mean there can't be a strong bond with the father but it won't be quite as strong.

my gut feeling is that my dh is just as wonderful with tiny babies as I am and that his bond with his newborn is just as strong as between me and my newborn. and of course more importantly i can see with my own eyes that this is true. reading these posts I understand that my babies are very fortunate to be allowed an equally strong bond with both their parents. some men must really miss out i guess..

blueshoes - there is a (very good, IMO) argument that the hormonal surge must be fully acknowledged and that both mothers and babies need intense care in the first few weeks - the forty days "lying in".

PND can be triggered by mothers not being properly cared for in the early weeks and therefore getting exhausted/lonely/overwhelmed and being unable to properly fulfil their new maternal role.

If dh were landed with the dcs for the first year, I can see that he would have a very strong bond with them, though probably different.

In reality I was the one who took 1 year off. But in the more limited contact he has had with them, working FT as he does, there is nothing that he cannot in ds' early days and now (ds is 14 mths) interpret that I would say is wrong. A lot of the times, he is either right, or just doing the same guesswork I would do in the day-to-day care of ds (ds is very demanding). Same with dd, now 4.

Niecie, BTW, I liked your earlier post about Bowlby > Margaret Ainsworth. Thought it was great and balanced.

blueshoes - actually, I think you are getting a lot of answers (and think back to the Ruby Wax letter that fired this debate - not the OP one though) but you want some sort of bank guarantee .

You aren't going to get it. We are discussing feelings and they are much, much harder to discuss than £££s.

Anna, 40 days' lying in! Wow, there is really a HUGE hole in my reading. Must have missed that one. Would have loved to quote that one to dh and MIL!

As far as I know, post-natal depression can strike even years after birth. Long after 40 days' TLC. I agree lack of support is a triggering factor for PND. But that is why it is so important for mothers not try to do everything in the sometimes misguided belief that only their care is good enough. Far better to embrace multiple (loving) carers.

blueshoes - actually, the NHS goes along with the 40 days thing. In the six weeks after childbirth, mothers are visited at home, first by midwives, then by HVs. Other specialists make home visits during that time - I had a physio come to the house to make a diagnosis on my daughter.

Mother and baby attend the GP's surgery together for the six-week check, and only then are mothers expected to go to the HV or GP's surgery.

Of course, fathers, grandmothers etc also need to cooperate...

Gosh, Anna, since when was I discussing £££?

My dichotomy is between emotional and rational argument. Not feelings and money, huh?

BTW, found your link to Ruby Wax's column: "How our brains grow is all down to how your mother put you down, held you, smiled, didn't smile, ignored you, dropped you, forgot about you, whatever. Talk about being at the mercy of someone.

All that noise-making and raspberry-blowing is a language called Motherese and it's in our hard-wiring. It's a human cha-cha: when the mother sings, hugs or smiles at the baby, a hormone is released in both of them and in the baby it helps to make that brain grow."

I don't disagree with any of that. Ignoring the obvious issue that Ruby Wax is NOT a child development expert of any sort, nor holds herself out to be. But I did read her column now. She (don't know if she has children) is qualified to talk about feelings as any of us.

My question is (and continues to be) if it is someone other than the mother signing, hugging etc would the hormone still be released in the baby's brain? Not answered by article. Not a guarantee I am asking for, just an answer ...

blueshoes - actually, I don't agree with your conclusion.

Rather than too much sharing out of care of the baby, I think mothers should be given total care (so no cooking, housework, shopping, ironing etc) so that they can concentrate on recovery from pregnancy and childbirth and on looking after the baby. I think it's the other duties that are the killer, not the baby.

yes, I had that 40 day 'care' as well. This is the NHS, remember, so only 1 home visit, the rest I legged it to the GPs clinic. Hardly lying in. Actually a bit of a bother when I could be bonding with my wee babe.

"My question is (and continues to be) if it is someone other than the mother signing, hugging etc would the hormone still be released in the baby's brain? Not answered by article. Not a guarantee I am asking for, just an answer ..."

I've read plenty of stuff in my time (though cannot lay my hands on a quote this very instant) that imply that it is the mother-baby bond that is critical for the hormones being released in the baby's brain.

Actually, my experience with 2 difficult babies, is that looking after the baby 24/7, with little and disrupted sleep, IS the killer. Housework, cooking etc just never got done.

Well, I had NHS care and the midwives visited me at home the day after I returned from hospital (so day 4 after the birth), and every other day until day 10. And then the HV visited once a week until the six week check. And the physio came.

OK. But I would have found it immensely stressful living in chaos without proper meals.

In an ideal world women would get better post-partum care.

BTW - I don't believe that there such a thing as a dichotomy between emotional and rational argument....

Anna, the implication is always there in the books (I read the Deborah Jacksons too). Like I say, the mother as carer is the circumstantial default assumption in these books. Has the mother as special hormonal vessel actually been scientifically investigated?

I would be very grateful if you could find those quotes. But I suspect that short of a rigorous peer-reviewed study (sorry, keep banging on about it), it would just be one experts' view, just as GF is an 'expert' of sorts.