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."

My sister went back to work when both her children were 6 weeks old. She was bereft when her son went to university a few years ago and bereft when her daughter started university in October. She has a very demanding professional career and an extremely busy social life but misses them like nothing else. My niece is skiing in the university ski team leaving from Heathrow today. My sister is driving to Heathrow to spend a couple of hours with her before she sets off. They both miss one another in spite of their full lives. Nothing sad about it.

Thank you Swedes2 - That is exactly my point. Of course it is normal to miss your children and want to be with them at least some of the time regardless of your working life.

Is there some rule somewhere that says women who have a job have to switch off their mothering emotions the minute they step into their business suits and shouldn't feel the emptiness in their homes if their children aren't there? Not sure I would want to follow that rule. Isn't that what men do - compartmentalise their lives so that one part doesn't interfere with the other? Why would I want to be like that? I am not a man.

She sounds mixed up in her reply, very hypocritical?

Agree with her being fucked up. One of the 'would hate to be stuck in a lift with' people.

I'm a sahm and love it, never get bored. Have hobbies, friends and a lovely family. I'm a single parent now on benefits, lot less money than when with ex but I'm much happier.

Didn't go to the air port because I work full time and have 4 other children and didn't want to. My older children are coming and going all over the place all the time and they know I don't have time to be there at air ports etc. The feelings point is interesting. I found it hard to leave a baby of 2 weeks to work at first but you get used to it. It's always hard to prise a toddler off your legs who is grabbing you and crying and won't go into nursery school or stay with its father or mother - most of us have had that whether we work or don't.

Once they were beyond that stage I did not feel sad when they went to university may be because there are so many more of them still at home. It will be 10 more years before the youngest 2 go. Perhaps when the very last one goes I might think end of an era but I am more likely to think - great - some peace and quiet.

I was getting more at the point of those whose chidlren are the only thing in their lives as their mothers made them their all and that's not healthy. It also makes the child think motherhood is a sacrificial thing rather than something you do plus work plus have a life. I laid down my life for you, I gave up XYZ.. horrendous things for any child to hear and a huge burden for them to bear.

May be I do compartmentalise more and perhaps that's why I rarely had any working parent or parental guilt but I do think I'm quite close to all the children.

After the morning I have had I wouldn't shed a tear if my two left home now. Christmas, shopping and small boys are a 'challenging' combination to say the least.

Good point about having other children at home. It would be interesting to know how you will feel when the last one eventually leaves and you are rattling around in a big house by yourself. Life has a way of taking us by surprise. You may find you hate it.

What makes you think though, that SAHM sacrifice more than working mothers? Put it in stark terms there is an opportunity cost involved in staying at home or going to work - you could be doing something different but sacrifice is a very emotive word to put to that cost, I think. Deciding to stay at home can be based on cold hard logic (cost of child care too high, job to poorly paid) and going back to work can be based on emotion (loving your job and getting a kick out of doing it). To me a sacrifice is made when you are forced to do something you don't want to. If we were short of money I would have to sacrifice staying at home with the children to go to work. Alternatively you would perhaps sacrifice your job to look after one of your children who had some particularly bad problem that required a lot of your time and help. But you don't regard working a sacrifice and I don't regard staying at home as such either.

I am not implying that you aren't close to your children, you know, but sometimes you do seem quite 'male' in your approach. I am not a particularly girly girl, I didn't even want to get married and have children for a very long time but as I say, life has a way of surprising you. However, despite being quite level headed, I don't think it is a weakness (or the result of being a SAHM) to get a bit teary at one of those milestones we all pass through.

Xenia, I think your post about the importance of a child having a range of loving and caring adults around them makes a huge amount of sense. As you say, no one is perfect. We all have flaws, we're all human, and for any one person to imagine that they can fulfil every need for anyone else is quite supremely arrogant! I adore my children, but I'm not, and shouldn't be, the be-all and end-all for them. Neither is my husband. Just as neither of us is the be-all and end-all for eachother - we are independent beings who happen to love each other and want to build a life together. The idea of a child needing 'checks and balances' is a very healthy one. Children learn through experiencing relationships which are based on honesty. Children need to know that they are loved unconditionally, but I think it's also very healthy that they see reality - that adults also get bored/irritated/anxious etc sometimes. That's how they learn that it's ok to feel those emotions. I'm always EXTREMELY wary of anyone who appears to have the 'perfect life' - it's usually a sign that there's serious issues there!!

I probably cry more than most people but I suspect when you get to year 23 or 24 of parenthood it's just a slightly different perspective.

I think a lot of stay at home mothers adopt a martryed attitude to it which does them no credit. They are home because they chose to be or couldn't get a good enough job to cover the cost of childcare.

Men and women are made up of male and female characteristics. Some girls are conditioned into an uber female type of thing which probably starts from having a mother at home, make up applied to little girls, assumption that girl's life high light is wedding, not much emphasis on girls' careers etc and that produces a certain type of girl who settles down and is a home maker. Other upbringings which are more liberal and parents work and girls achieve at school etc lead to different types of girls too and then there's biology too - I wanted babies from about 14 and hthe first at 22 because I love all that mother stuff (and love working). I'm lucky to have enthusiasm for both aspects and been able to keep that going in what is now almost a 25 year career span and period of motherhood.

The next 25 years will be brilliant too because the career has more time to be indulged, the money gets easier as children get off your hands and in my case as I'm single there is also the fun of the other side of things or even a new husband at some point if I decide it's worth it.

I doubt when children 4/5 leave I will be tearful because the house will probably be more than full of grandchildren by then or I'll be busy with another man. ALso having 5 children chances are one or other of them will live near.

You don't have to go to work for your child to have that range of adults around them. SAHM don't literally do that, stay at home. My DC see an awful lot of my parents and my brother who isn't married and so has the energy to give them attention that we as their parents don't always give them. They also have their teachers and their friends and our friends. Staying at home doesn't mean you live in a bubble.

My DC know the world isn't perfect and that they aren't the centre of the universe although they are quite rightly very important. Sometimes our needs as parents come first and sometimes we are bored or tired or anxious and they learn to make allowances.

Xenia, I just don't fit your pattern. I was never girly, never wanted to get married, never dreamed of white weddings and cute babies and yet I have chosen to stay at home. I haven't made big sacrifices to do it, I wanted to because I felt it was the right thing to do for our family. DH wanted it too and I do wonder if that is a reaction to the fact that his mother worked from the time he was a very small child, she wasn't (and isn't) great with small children, much as she loved them, and was never really interested in childish things. It clearly saddens him now that his parents don't really get down to the level of our children - we have talked about it and I don't think he would say he had the ideal childhood,although it wasn't awful.

Along with this attitude went the fact that he was packed off to boarding school at 8 because his dad was in the army and moved around a lot and he never really had a 'normal'home life after that. Now you are going to think he made me stay at home but he didn't.

You may think you are doing the best for your children and showing them worthy sterotypes but you can't predict how they are going to interpret them and view them in later life. That goes for everybody, whether you work or not.

Completely agree with Xenia about not going to the airport and not making a big deal about temporary separations.

I come from a family that has always travelled hugely (through the generations) and was very much brought up never to think that temporary separations - whether they are going to school for the morning or going travelling the other side of the planet for a few months - were sad. On the contrary, they were a lovely opportunity for whoever was going and whoever was not going was going to enjoy hearing all about it.

So - no wailing at airports or school or whatever for us . I do think that it's all a state of mind, whether you concentrate on the separation from family or the opportunity you are getting.

Another SAHM generalisation which isn't true then. We aren't all about to burst into tears the moment our children step outside the front door.

That said I see nothing wrong with missing your children and feeling happy for them for having adventures and shedding a little tear at the passing of time. I am sure, as others have said, that isn't restricted to SAHMs.

Niecie - I actually have discussed this issue with WOHMs who are quite upfront about the fact that they think they have more difficulty separating from their children than SAHMs.

A lawyer I know with three children, who never stopped working, told me how devastated she was when her eldest child, at 11, told his parents he would prefer to go on a school trip than on the annual family holiday (they coincided unavoidably). The mother lived for the annual summer holiday when she could devote herself to her children for four precious weeks... and her son wanted to forfeit two of them to be with his friends.

She was quite upfront about how much easier she thought it was for mothers who saw more of their children to let them go off and prefer their friends to their parents.

Basically, you get all sorts. But I will never be convinced that all SAHMs are clingy mothers with nothing to live for but their children and who fall apart when they leave.

You don't need to go to the airport to make a big deal out of a temporary separation and you don't necessarily make a big deal by going to the airport. A lift to the airport is just that as is being waved off or met or whatever. Personally, I think there is nothing nicer than someone taking the time to give you a lift to the airport and meeting you is even better!

Anna you won't be convinced of it because it isn't true. We SAHM are made of sterner stuff.

As I said earlier though, how many women are even SAHM by the time they have to make a major seperation from their children. Not very many. SAHM mothers crying because their children have left for university - I can't think of a single example amongst my friends of a mother who was in that position when we went off to university.

My youngest goes to school next September and I doubt I will be a SAHM for much longer after that. I can't stay at home all by myself indefinitely - DH won't let me for one thing and quite right too.

OK maybe I will get a bit contraversial here and suggest that maybe the WOHM are more tearful in your experience because they realise they have missed a lot of their children's childhoods by working and they won't ever be able to get that time back again.

Swedes - that was the point I was trying to make earlier. I don't see it as a good thing that you don't go to the airport to drop off or pick up. It is a nice thing to do and not a sign of weakness or lack of dedication to your job.

Go or don't go - just don't make it sound like a weakness if you do go.

most women are not even SAHM...

It doesn't do to miss the important little words out!

For some that air port trip is virtually the only thing they would be doing that day. With 4 other children and working full time it's just not possible for me. That's all.

There were a good few mothers of my daughter's friends who didn't work right up to their daughters being 18 by the way at her school. Lots of them. Particularly Jewish for some reason (although of course there are lots of very successful professional Jewish women) and the Indian ones too.

But you're right outside of the rareified world of suburban stepford wife outer London of private schools (and I see this area is on one of those lists in the Tel or Sunday Times today as prosperous or something) most women do return to work... unless they divorce in which case they argue they coudln't possibly sully their pretty little hands with work until their children are 18 and must live off male earnings for the duration.

I think we have somehow got a bit hung up on this airport thing for no good reason. The general point is separation can be hard for any kind of mother, not just the SAHM ones. Being a bit tearful does not make you a clingy mother nor does the lack of tears make you an uncaring mother.

If I have learnt one thing from MN is that it takes all sorts and it doesn't do to make too many generalisations.

I think the long term SAHM might be a London thing, or at least a wealthy suburb thing. I am sure you would find little pockets of similar families in any big town or city. Certainly 'ladies who lunch' a rarity round these parts.

I think if we had loads of money I might dedicate myself to good works and never sully my hands with paid employment again but we don't. Sometime I will have to make a contribution even if it means going to work as DH's indispensible right hand woman and helping him with his practice. Not my idea of fun but I can't think what else to do at the moment and at least it will keep his fee income in the family so to speak.

This crying at airports, depends on the mother as well. I am not one to cry at weddings, for the birth of any of my children. I probably won't cry at the airport, instead feel a sense of pride - that is just me.

The more important point is to get the balance right. A SAHM who lives through her children has not got it right. Neither has a WOHM who crams her children time into 4 weeks of holiday a year. It is incumbent on us to feel happy about what we do, whether SAHM or WOHM. If we feel that the children/work/outside interests balance has swung too much in one direction, then make changes to right the balance - and this differs over the years depending on the children's demands and stage of career etc.

Most people fall on the continuum between the 2 extremes that I cited above.

I am assuming we have a choice, of course, and I appreciate many do not for financial reasons or otherwise.

I for one do not necessarily agree that children need us more when they are young than when they are schoolage or uni-going. It depends on the child. Some babies don't care who looks after them but prefer more time with their parents to discuss issues, like friendships, falling behind on schoolwork etc when older.

blueshoes - I tend to believe that children need their parents to be available for them right through childhood - they just require very different things at different ages/stages.

Clearly as they get older you do not need to perform all practical tasks for them - they will make their own beds, take their own laundry to the laundry room, make themselves a simple supper and maybe even make you a cup of tea! But they need emotional support, guidance, advice etc which can be just as time consuming as having a much younger child.

Agree, Swedes/Anna. Because children need their parents in different ways throughout their lives, rather than more at one stage than another, it supports the argument that it is important to choose a childcare/work/interests balance that is sustainable long term, tweaking as you go along.

an awful lot of sense has been written in these last few posts

MN can be such a wise and invaluable source of support to those of us without much support elsewhere

keep posting girls!

In fact I would rephrase it 'an awful lot of cliches and stereotyping have been written in some of these posts'... if that is an example of highly brain-powered working mothers god help us!!!

Why is no one saying that the chit-chat of working mothers can be as boring as the next person is also beyond me.

could it be because those that think this way have long stopped visiting these threads which all they do is go on and on about the same old things.

you know, it remind me of primary school days when you could argue for hours whether your dad was stronger than your friend! booooring....

Obviously threads go on about the same old things. Style and beauty threads - bore me rotten, all they do is go on about style and beauty, parenting threads go on about parenting, health threads go on about health, potty training threads go on about potty training. And going back to work threads go on about going back to work. Is that so surprising?

People post where they find something of interest and ignore things that bore them.

If it doesn't interest you don't post on it.

niecie is not the topic of the thread that bored me nor most of the discussions. I should have been more specific maybe.
what bores me is the way some posters go about discussing the subject, just by cliches and stereotypes, still basing the all issue on the dicotomy of good and bad, without bringing nothing new to this not easy problem. still judging other women's choices without leaving scope for differences in situations. And this from the ones that profess to have not lost their brain in mindless children games or baby talk.
that is what bores me, not the topic which otherwise it is of great interest to me (hence me looking and particopating) as I am still trying to find a solution (if there is one) to this myself.