Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Work

Chat with other users about all things related to working life on our Work forum.

Original poster

Wise Ruby Wax - working and stay at home parents

592 replies

Judy1234 · 24/11/2007 22:01

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."

OP posts:
blueshoes · 14/12/2007 11:00

anna, agree that perceptions of the same child can be different. Also, like you describe of your dd, dss and dp, children behave differently with different people. Bet the nursery staff think ds is really easy at home. My dd is an angel at school and with her grandparents, aunts. At home, she and ds are just different.

dh and I can see the difference. We KNOW the difference, maybe because we can actually sit down and have a proper meal at my dh's parents' house, rather than eat in turn as we do at home, with the other liontaming?

Other people's children seem easier than ours when we observe them with their parents outside. But then their parents tell us they are monsters at home. And we nod our head sagely.

Swedes2Turnips1 · 14/12/2007 11:02

Feeling jealous is perfectly normal for siblings. It is probably made worse by the fact that your stepsons are not there all of the time so things are one way when your daughter has two parents to herself and another way when she perceives that there is competition.

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 11:05

blueshoes - that's interesting, because I really, genuinely couldn't say that I notice any difference in my daughter's behaviour when she is at home with us or when we are out.

The difference is when her brothers are around - she asserts herself vis-à-vis them and tries to be their equal in everything - which of course is quite a lot of work for her, since she is 3 and they are 10 and 12 .

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 11:06

Gosh Swedes, you are determined that my daugther is jealous - why? She isn't.

Or do you not understand the difference between self-assertion and jealousy?

Swedes2Turnips1 · 14/12/2007 11:09

Self assertion expressed as clinginess? It is not that I am insistent your dd is jealous just thinking it sounds as though she might be. Understandably. You seem very determined that she could not possibly be jealous - why?

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 11:16

Swedes - her brother clings and therefore she copies him.

Her brother wants a sandwich and Coke? So does she (even though she's never tasted either in her life).

Etc

She doesn't want it because she's jealous, she wants it because she wants the same treatment (self-assertion).

Do you understand now?

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 11:19

Incidentally, it only happens with the younger one, the one who clings.

When it is just my daughter and my elder stepson (not a clinger), she doesn't do it. But she'll want to play on the XBox with him.

Etc

Niecie · 14/12/2007 11:59

I have to agree with Swedes2 on this one. When I need to reading with DS1, DS2 can't stand it. He is all over me - classic clingy behaviour and why? Because he doesn't want to share me with his brother and he is jealous of the time I am dedicating to him. Same with your DD Anna, she is clinging to your DH because she doesn't want to share his time with somebody else.

Basic sibling rivalry really and perfectly natural. I would be more surprised if the younger ones couldn't care less.

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 12:02

Crikey Niecie, what is it with all of you?

My daughter adores her brother - she doesn't cling to my partner to get her brother away from him, they all cling together.

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 12:03

And when my younger stepson is in front of the TV (as he is wont to do ) he and my daughter cling to each other like lovers...

Swedes2Turnips1 · 14/12/2007 12:06

Thank you neicie.
Anna - I hope one day you let down your guard and stop pretending that you, your daughter and your life in general is without human flaw. I suspect you might be happier for it.

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 12:08

Gosh Swedes, you are being silly and nasty this morning.

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 12:11

Are you jealous of my life, btw, to think it's perfect?

Swedes2Turnips1 · 14/12/2007 12:15

Anna - I didn't mention the word perfect.

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 12:19

"without human flaw"?

Niecie · 14/12/2007 12:41

My DS2 adores his brother too - thinks the world of him. Misses him like mad when he isn't here, can't wait for him to come home from school most days.

However, he adores me more!

Or maybe he adores the attention I give him more. The attention of his DB is not as great as he gets from me when it is just the two of us.

We aren't getting at you Anna (I agree with a lot of what you say most of the time), but you have to ask yourself the question whether the clingyness gets worse when her brother is around. If it does then it is a reaction to him being there. You are right, partly it is self-assertion but why does she need to assert herself? From my point of view (and I am pretty normal most of the time) I feel I have to assert myself when I feel my position or judgement is in question and I am sure that the same holds true for your daughter.

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 13:07

Niecie, I don't think you've read my posts properly or understood the point.

It's not a case of "clingyness getting worse when her brother is around". My daughter isn't a remotely clingy child. In fact, she wasn't a cuddly baby at all, much to my mother's disappointment - all she needed in the way of cuddles was breastfeeds, and after that she didn't want to be held by anyone. She has got progressively cuddlier - she even likes sitting on my knee.

My second stepson is a very clingy child (always has to hold a parent's hand when he is out, always wants to sit next to his father on the sofa, at a restaurant etc). My daughter copies this behaviour - just as she copies my elder stepson playing XBox with his father, or copies the boys when they order a Coke. She couldn't care less about the XBox or Coke - but she wants to do what they want to do.

So she, my partner and my stepson all end up clinging to one another on the sofa. And she and my younger stepson cling to one another.

Do you understand now?

Swedes2Turnips1 · 14/12/2007 13:22

"For example, my very unclingy daughter clings to my partner like crazy the minute her brother (my younger stepson) is around, because he clings to his father. She is asserting herself because suddenly there is competition."

Swedes2Turnips1 · 14/12/2007 13:23

You should have said it was a group hug

Niecie · 14/12/2007 13:37

Don't you think it is relevant that she doesn't feel the need to do it unless somebody else is doing it. You said yourself she is being competitive about her father - she isn't copying her brother she is competing with him. She doesn't normally cling because normally she has her fathers undivided attention. But you can't make generalisations about behaviour. Sometimes I am sure that it is all a game but I bet you that sometimes it is a competition for attention.

I understand your point entirely. Doesn't mean that just because I understand I have to agree though.

I don't think clingy and cuddly are not the same thing, by the way. They are not interchangable. Clingy is a state of mind - you can be clingy without even making physical contact - you can use speech and behaviour to ensure that somebody stays with you, although often it is about being physical as well. Cuddly is another way of saying a child is very tactile and likes to touch and be touched. Not the same thing at all. A cuddly child need not be a clingy child and vice versa.

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 13:38

Swedes - think you should have just taken the post as it reads

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 13:44

Sure, there's competition - but competion between siblings doesn't mean jealousy. The two are different. And that distinction is very important IMO.

When my daughter is on her own she does girly stuff like dress up in a tutu and dance, or whatever comes to her imagination, and that gets her father's attention. When she sees her brothers getting attention because they cling, or play XBox, or whatever, she sees that that behaviour is rewarded with attention too - so she copies it. That is self-assertion.

Jealousy would be when a child is cross at a perceived (or real) injustice vis-à-vis a sibling.

Anna8888 · 14/12/2007 13:53

Niecie - I wrote about clingy versus cuddly further down the thread as well...

Original poster
Judy1234 · 15/12/2007 00:09

None of us know the child so we can't say. Nothing is ever perfect for anyone. It's one reason children are best off having a few loved adults in their lives not just one mother because really all of us are flawed and it's nice for a child to have checks and balances and other points of view. If we get it wrong they've a father or nanny or granny to moan to or in my case the older adult siblings.

You can sometimes see a difference between children of stay at home mothers where the child is the centre of the mother's universe and only purpose to her life and those like mine who know and always have known there are lots of things I enjoy doing in my life such as my career and other interests and they are a loved part of my life but not all of it. I didn't cry when they went to university like some of their friends mothers did. I didn't wait at the air port in the summer when daughter 2 got back from Central America, in tears because of the 6 week separation - these clingy stay at home mothers can make too much of their children being their lives, perhaps because they see life as stages - career stage - uber sucess there; then stop that and be the best full time mother on the planet until the children go to unversity don't work etc. Not a good model.

OP posts:
Niecie · 15/12/2007 02:46

But really how many women do actually stay home from birth until their children go to university? Virtually none I would have thought. That is a very old fashioned idea. Something my grandparents might have done but not most women since I would have thought.

Just when I think you might be mellowing Xenia, you go all hard line again. Couldn't you not have gone to the airport because you were happy to see your daughter rather than being worried about being seen as clingy.
Do no working women miss their children when they go to university, even if they only see them for an hour an evening? I know my mother had a quick weep when I left for university and she was a working mother as were 99% of my friends' mothers. There is no shame in enjoying your children and missing them even if you know they have moved on to the next stage of their lives and are happy about it. Seeing your children develop is moving even if they aren't the centre of your universe and you are looking forward to the freedom their departure affords.

Why is everybody in denial that they have any weakness? Xenia you seem to be denying being in anyway bothered about your children's comings and goings and Anna, you seem to be in denial that your daughter has any normal and perfectly acceptable jealousy of her siblings and the attention they get. No I don't know any of you and all I can do it take what you say and put my own interpretation on it but that is what it seems like to me.

Why deny feelings? What does it achieve? I am not saying you need to let them all hang out but really, you both sound very buttoned up and trying to hard to put up a perfect front but why waste your energy?

Sorry I am slightly exasperated but that is as much to do with it being the middle of the night and not having finished my essay yet as it is to do with this thread! .