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."

Don't think bfing had any effects on my breasts but I never did like my breasts anyway!

Well Xenia, it shouldn't happen; people shouldn't feel the need to resort to nastiness and personal insults on MN. You don't need that in order to say that you disagree with someone. Some of the posts do look awfully like jealousy, to me.

People draw the line in different places, and we are all hypocrites in one way or another. You are right, a good nanny is better than a bad parent, or one resentful at having to look after the child.

My own intinctive feeling is that a baby needs his mother. In an ideal world, all babies would be well-cared for by their mothers, who in turn would be well-supported by partners. It often doesn't work out like that, though, but it's been the ideal since the dawn of time. (Unless all dch brought up by a group of 'aunties' in the village - another way.)

Thestepfordchav - ok, we are all entitled to our own viewpoint, but surely you can see that in this day, comments like yours are fairly inflammatory.
'My own intinctive feeling is that a baby needs his mother. In an ideal world, all babies would be well-cared for by their mothers, who in turn would be well-supported by partners. It often doesn't work out like that, though, but it's been the ideal since the dawn of time'.
Sorry, but that's pretty insulting I feel to fathers everywhere. And in case you hadn't noticed, at 'the dawn of time'mothers would have been living in caves and and fathers would have been out hunting. These days, mothers actually have qualifications and careers!

I think the things that should make people jealous of others shouldn't be material things anyway and the problems everyone has whatever material things they have are much the same - deaths, divorce, illness etc.

I certainly believe babies need loving adults who care for them. They love continuity and certainty and regular routines, lots of love, breastmilk and cuddles. Many women and men can work full time as surgeons, bankers and the like however and provide those things for their babies. And most women of under 5s in the UK work and many because they think that is best (and they're right!).

Well, each to their own.

I do find Xenia's 'position' offensive, not to mention boring, repetitive, patronising, blinkered, old fashioned...
I could go on, but that would be a waste of time, as Xenia has yet to respond satisfactorily to any point I have ever raised on the matter or any question I have ever put to her.

Of course Xenia can go on stating her view on the topic. It's no skin of my nose. But I am entitled to disagree with her, and to be brutally honest in my disagreement.

This whole discussion is now boring.

Inthegutter - I don't think we need to discuss whether women should be educated/have careers. I also agree that many fathers do a fantastic job - my DH did with our dch. Just a pity they can't breast feed, then we really would have equality.

I just happen to not understand why some women have babies if they're not prepared to devote some time to bond with them & care for them when they're tiny. It's what maternity leave is for!!!

You could say the same for men and of course you do bond as a working mother. You have hours and hours of breastfeeding and love in the night and before and after work and at weekends. You could say why have children and ensure you don't earn enough money to give them a good life -the argument applies the other way too.

Xenia,and others like her, has to believe that a few hours love a week for her children is sufficient.

I work 4 days a week but I love my kids 24/7. I assume Xenia does too.

Agree chipmonkey! I didn't realise some weird law said you stop loving your children during the hours you're at work!! Does this apply to fathers too, or is yet again just the mothers who are fair game!
Stepford chav - going back to work doesnt mean you don't bond with your baby! And many of us breastfeed for years as well as work

It's just a conspiracy to keep women down and make them feel guilty but most of us rise above that because we know the truth.

when ruby is funny again,sorts out her barnetand her liberally applied slap maybe then we will listen to her incoherent ramblings til then she can drag her stupid sorry arse back to LaLa land

Totally agree anniemac. Just shows how low some people will stoop

Nothing spiteful about it. It was Xenia's terminology: " You have hours and hours of breastfeeding and love in the night and before and after work and at weekends" (implying this is sufficient). You would have to believe this is sufficient if that is what you in fact did, or else you would do something different.

I don't really have a strong view either way, not for other people. You can work or not work - do whatever is best for you. It doesn't make any difference to me. However, I am very interested in everyone's view on this matter - not just the views that bolster my choice. Very occasionally, when I am feeling fed up, Xenia's rants cross my mind and I wonder if I am really doing the right thing, staying at home to care for my small children. It is interesting that working mothers don't seem to harbour any doubt whatsoever about their being right.

Yes, it is sufficient for mother and child and housewives need to be told that so they don't live in a fool's paradise or have sacrificed their all for the domestic service of 24/7 childcare, clearing up, house cleaning. It's the only way that myth that keeps women down is perpetuated. They need to rise up and get out to work.

I don't agree with Swedes. |I think most working mothers are very very silly to harbour a lot of guilt. They have allowed themselves in a sense to be hypnotised or influenced by family, culture, the media or their friends into thinking they ought to be home. I have rarely felt that guilt in 23 years as a mother and I am very lucky. I probably have the guilt of the average working man which is certainly some guilt from time to time - usually when a nice routine is altered - next week I have to work away for 2 nights/3 days abroad and that is not ideal and most parents don't really like those trips away because the children's normal pattern is disrupted. It doesn't really harm the children but usually you wish you were in two places at once but that is very different from doubting the general choices you've made which I think a lot of working mothers but not fathers do suffer from. I wish they wouldn't.

I just sent an email to my 21 year old at university. The older children are very interested in my career and what I do, where I speak, where I go etc etc. Of course had I had a tiny family within about 4 years I suppose it would have been possible to some extent to keep a career going if I had taken more time out but it's much less likely and harder and then you suffer for 20 - 30 years of career after as the only job you can get is on the minimum wage as a teaching assistant or something. I feel like my lack of guilt has been a massive benefit.

'It is interesting that working mothers don't seem to harbour any doubt whatsoever about their being right.'
Not true - otherwise the debate wouldn't rage on would it? I think as Xenia says, we have been subjected to loads of influences, some very subtle, which mean that whatever a mother decides to do will leave her feeling residues of doubt in a way most fathers don't appear to.
eg: although she never voiced it, I just KNEW my own mother didn't really approve of me working when my kids were pre-school. And I'm sure this was mainly because she was of a generation where even if a woman was highly educated and intelligent, the expectation was to stay home. I'm sure SHE would have benefited from doing more with her life, and in turn this would have benefited myself and my siblings.

Xenia - "next week I have to work away for 2 nights/3 days abroad and that is not ideal and most parents don't really like those trips away because the children's normal pattern is disrupted".

But lots and lots of jobs involve that kind of travel. My partner's ex-wife has that kind of travel pattern for months on end. Actually, she loves it and doesn't harbour any guilt at all - but the children hate it and complain massively.

Anniemac - if, as you imply, most mothers on MN do not work through choice but through necessity (which I would tend to agree with), why is it so difficult for them to say so?

Yes, I see. And SAHMs have to listen to endless lectures about how they are lazy parasites who are providing an appalling role model to their children .

But it all usually really boils down to economics.

I am far too busy eating biscuits and watching Jeremy Kyle to lecture anyone.