i'll get flamed but why are stay home mothers so smug?

[wombleprincess]

this is not a thread about the pros and cons of working/not working, i just wonder if anyone finds that stay at home mothers are really smug about the choice they've made? or is it just my experience? cant they just live and let live? I dont judge them, but they seem to be very judgemental about working mothers.

anyway, a friday topic for anyone at work trying to get through the day perhaps!!

I agree with your point about bonding xenia. I think it's a mischievous myth that's put about - of course it is perfectly possible for mothers to bond (and bf) their babies as well as work. Just as working fathers can bond with their children. And as you say, where there are other issues which get in the way of bonding (eg traumatic birth, PND) it can happen to SAHMs anyway!

But this is turning into ridiculous one-up-womanship. 'I took business calls and looked after a one and three year old and breastfed and bonded'. That's you, Xenia. And I admire you for it. But lots of women cannot or do not want to live like that!

You only need to look at some of the postnatal threads to see that your one size fits all approach (and if it doesn't fit then it's because you're inadequate) is a bit cruel. You want all women to feel compelled to return to full time work as soon as possible after they've had a baby, in the name of equality. In your world, no woman is allowed to say 'sod gender relations, I want to be the my child's primary carer whilst they're little'. Sounds a bit like a communist dictatorship to me.

Xenia - what is offensive about your post that has attracted opprobrium is your assumption of your own superiority. Not that you are a working mum.

There is nothing wrong with being a working mum.

I resent the assumption that because I don't bring money into the household, that I am an inferior partner in this family. The common denominator in a family is time, not money. My dh works 12 hour days, 18 sometimes. Which means that I do too, and I'm 'on call' for the rest. He earns good money, I earn nothing. But his time at work is for the family, and so is mine.

If I went back to work, it still wouldnt be appropriate to expect me to contribute 50% of the money coming in. But I would still be putting in the TIME to the family unit, cooking/cleaning/washing/ironing.

actually the few 'supermums' who insisted on being back in the office very soon after birth were a bit, well sort of pitied in my field.
The general assumption was always that either they were so incompetent that they had failed to delegate and arrange contingency cover.Or so insecure that they couldn'r bear everyone to find out the weren't terribly needed. Or that they were such dorks they didn't know how to take a break.
In fairness we were also all a bit at any dad who came straight into work and didn't take at least a few days.
So we were equaly oppertunity in out judgements.
Have to add - not saying that applies to Xenia or any others here at all. And I know that is not the scenario being described. Just used to ammuse me.

The women in question were usually my peers and always seemed to believe it made them look professional but mostly it seemed to do the oppsite..

That was eight years ago. Perhaps it is different now. I guess fewer woman at that level put us under more pressure back then?

I just find it quite dull just caring 24/7 whatever the age and whether it's a man, a child, a teenager, a baby or even my elderly parents who in the last 5 years have both been very seriously ill and then died at home. The care all those people in my life whom I've loved has been excellent and the compromise of a father working full time or a mother working full time but ensuring those they care for are well cared for works best for most people.

What is offensive is views that a mother musn't work or Palin is wrong because she returned to work quicklly or has a large family. Kennedy went back to work quickly, had a very large family (and time for many women on the side) and Blair had 4 children including 1 at number 10 and works and yet you don't get criticism of them because there isn't the same political desire to keep women at home and chained to sinks economically dependent on male earnings.

As for who is inferior etc we are all equal in the eyes of the law and God. I would never suggest otherwise. Some people are prettier than others however and some are cleverer and some nicer, some more successful at work. Whether the fact you're nicer or look good or stay slim or have an IQ over 150 or whatever means you're superior is not for anyone to say but certainly our society and culture(s) tends to value certain things and determine that X is superior to Y. Mr J superior to Mr K because he earns £300k and K earns £20k or Ms Jones superior because she looks good and is good at sex and is fit or even that she earns a lot or ABC superior to XYZ because they have an IQ over 150 or whatever it might be. People apply those judgments all the time, even apply them in deciding which partner to pick.

I do not think anyone on this thread are saying that mothers should not work outside the home. What we are saying is that it is WRONG to assume that ALL mothers can, should or should want to return to work, full-time, as soon as possible after having a baby. That is YOUR manifesto, Xenia and that is what certain posters object to.

xenia,

i admire your drive, energy, and ability to combine a successful career with a family (lots of women are doing that) and of course you can bond with your baby, have a great relationship with your children, etc etc, and still work full time. but have you ever felt you've missed out on anything?

no one on their death bed ever wished they'd spent more time at the office.

ps.

i agree with you that doing any job 24/7 can be boring, (even looking after you're own children) it's trying to get a good balance.

Tbh, it makes no difference whether I agree with Xenia 100% all the time........ I still can not earn enough to pay for the childcare. (I have more than one child).

I wish when mumsnet's own Messiah would 'get down with the masses' and reaslise that not everybody has her choices.

But you have a choice to earn more surely. Plenty of mothers in theri 40s + set up businesses, work very veyr hard, find a niche do very well. Surely it's within most people if they work hard enough and think smart enough to do that or like me to work really hard a school in their teens and forgo sex and boys and pick a well paid career.

ooh, ruby, wouldn't that be against the "ethics" of the Games? I mean, using physicla performance enhancers?

Xenia, You have quite a low emotional intelligence. You really can't put yourself into my shoes at all. And I am not unusual. I am quite representitive of SAHMs I imagine. So, until you can take the scales off your eyes, what you say is just words, theory, ideology...

I didn't sleep with anybody 'til after I left school, I could get a job, but it wouldn't be an extremely well paid job. Not every field is well paid. I can't just walk into Morgan STanley and announce I'd like a job as a wheeler deeler. It doesn't work like that.

When choosing my path, I followed my heart not MONEY. Money is not my God. I've no regrets. I just find it astonishing that you can be so one-dimensional and judgemental, thinking as though everybody in the World had to be cut from the same cloth.

Anyway, perhaps unsurprisingly, I don't have capital to start a business, and I don't think I could risk borrowing money to get a business off the ground.

oh of course, Ruby, but even so, you would expect them to be "clean" owls. If you think that a large European eagle owl can take a small deer, I reckon 6 could carry a small camelid (a llama might only take 4?)

Xenia

I think we were both on a thread where it was established that only the top 10% of people (both genders) earn over £40k.

To earn over £40k you would have to have a moderately (but not highly) successful career.

Only if you did earn over £40k would it even begin to make any financial sense to employ a nanny.

So only 10% of women can do as you did. It seems unfair to castigate others who can't ever have your earning power, or maybe don't even want your earning power.

Also, not all women want what men have ie a f/t paid job. Men and women are capable of the same but we are different too. Just because it suits the economy for both parents to be earners doesn't mean it suits the individual family. Often a family can be more self sufficient by one caring/one working or both working p/t. Why bring in outsiders if you don't need to? Why is f/t work so great for everyone? Who decide on 40 hrs a week as the magic number which gives fulfillment? Why is serving the needs of an employer better than/equal to serving your families needs? Why sell your time if you don't have to? Why not keep it for yourself? (if you want to) We are all dependent economically anyway..on someone, employer, husband, economy, state etc.

The complete inability to see things from any perspective but your own is a failing. Sorry, but it is.

I wonder sometimes if paid work is hugely over hyped (making us feel it is our whole identity etc), otherwise they couldn't get anyone to do it? People can be happy and have an identity (as they have historically and in other cultures today) without paid work.