Working mothers

I'm with Dot and Lily on this. I could never have imagined having to depend on a man for my housekeeping and pocket money. When my son was born, I didn't know that I would be a single mother three years later, so it's just as well I had stayed at work and been promoted, so I could just about afford childcare, because I didn't receive any maintenance.

There are other threads with people moaning about single mothers claiming benefits. Unfortunately, I did find myself in that situation, but not until much later when my children were teenagers. Would people prefer parents to stay at home and be destitute? I can't help thinking that children like Baby P would have been better in a nursery than with his mother - and he hasn't been the only one.

The other thing women need to think about is their pension, unless they want to have to live on Pension Credit. I get a tad irritated when some women moan about their pension when they didn't actually contribute much towards it.

I was very lucky - I had a husband who earned enough to enable me to stay at home with our two children until they were 6 and 3. However, as you all know,the mortgage rates suddenly rocketed in the 80's. If we were not to lose our home - and the friendships we had built up in the neighbourhood (both our families lived hundreds of miles away, and we never had any child care assistance of any kind we didn't pay for) - returning to a full time job was essential. I went back to my work as a local government officer - average pay for the time, and only 20 days off per year. There were no vouchers or subsidised creches then, and half my salary went towards the costs of childcare.But we were OK, and I have always thought it did my son in particular (the younger child) a lot of good. He loved his nursery;saw the point of working hard - and has grown up to respect male/female equality of opportunity - AND responsibility!
He also says he feels I have always been there for him - so ! don't think I can have neglected him too much! My daughter is a teacher - less of a juggling act in school holiday times - and because her husband is in a good job she can afford to work part-time while my GC is pre-school age.

I think people have to do what best works for them. But I also think nurseries and child care should be affordable and offer flexibility. It is good for families of all kinds that such choice should be available - and it is certainly good for our economy that the skills of trained and qualified women of all kinds - whether they be nurses, teachers, scientists, engineers or accountants etc. etc. should continue to be widely available.

Perhaps we should strip women of the right to vote at the same time. What sexist rubbish. I know quite a lot of people whose babies are left with Dad whilst Mum is a high flier. Most of the women I know don't have a choice but to work with today's high housing costs but let's make them choose not to have babies because of it. What archaic nonsense!

I obviously don't have a conscience, because I didn't feel guilty - just knackered! My children ended up pretty normal too. My weekends were spent doing housework, so I didn't have time for treats either. Being a teacher, I did have long holidays, but my children wanted to go to nursery to be with their friends. I had to pay for it during the holidays anyway, so I usually gave in and took them for half a day, unless I had something special planned. I think I suffered more than they did.

Firstly nurseries do vary but I think perhaps things have changed grannypiper over the years. The EU introduced standards which included all nurseries having an outside area where children could play. Funding of nurseries is interesting, when women were required for war work the government funded nurseries. They were free, opened from 8am to 6pm and in 1948 I attended one when my mother was ill. They closed down in the 1950s. I see no reason why nurseries shouldn't receive state support now and provide proper care. Why on earth is it OK to fund education at 4+ but not before?

I hope that the OP is some sort of wind up. The idea that only high-flyers will benefit from assistance with childcare costs is mistaken anyway. The real high flyers are fortunate in that they can afford the best in child care. It is in fact the middle-management people both male and female who struggle. And why is this only a woman's issue? Children have two parents and the cost of child care is born by both. Very expensive childcare impacts on the whole family. This idea that funding child care only benefits mothers is totally out dated. Women may give birth but caring for children should be shared.
Expensive childcare has also resulted in the army of GPs who take on caring for their GCs so that both parents can work.

I'm with you Rosina. What I find interesting is that parents who both work definitely seem to have a feeling of guilt over not being there, which results in children staying up too late at night to experience 'quality time' with parents when they would otherwise be in bed fast asleep. It also means weekend are full of treats and entertainment rather than just everyday life. I'm not criticising - I'm sure I would have done the same - but it is hard. A good friend (and top City lawyer) says she feels when her son really needed her was when he was a teenager and basically being brought up by his grandparents to whom he was very very close. Sadly they both died much too young and this has definitely affected him adversely. Had she not gone back to work she would never have achieved the position she now has - but it was at a cost. Too late now to re-think. It is not easy for anyone.

Vampirequeen, I worked because I saw how my mother was cheated by my father. He owned all the 'stuff' (house, cars etc.) and he made her go out to work to pay the bills, in other words, the ephemera. When they divorced she ended up with nothing and he had the house. I also saw that there was much inequality between what men and women could do in the world of work in the 1960's and 1970's and what they were paid.

I was, thus, determined to be financially independent and became a teacher where men and women were paid the same for the same work. When I had children I paid almost all of my salary towards childcare to keep my post open and I continued working full time.

I was lucky enough to be married to a more enlightened man than my mother married and all of our finances are in common. We put our salaries into a shared pot, paid bills out of our joint bank account and our savings are shared.

I also ensured that both my son and my daughter received an education of a high enough standard to make them financially independent.

It is now virtually impossible for a man on a normal salary to afford a house for his family on one income alone. Women have little choice but to work and they have to have childcare if they are to remain in jobs which are not just lowly paid or menial.

I agree that couples should think and budget carefully before they have children (my DH and I waited ten years before we could afford ours) but they need sympathy when they are stretched to the limit with the costs of child rearing and of having children cared for while working.

Two further points. Women are not soley responsible for children. Men have them too! And those children will grow up, pay taxes and fund our pensions.

Swanny - I think it is high time employers looked at providing nursery places for children of their staff. The cost of private childcare is dreadful - how many families manage it I don't know. In Liverpool in the 1930's lots of big manufacturing companies ran private nurseries for their staff, as you say it was cheaper than hiring and training people to replace women who left to have their families. I went back to work full time when my daughter was a year old, I was lucky in that I worked in a day nursery and she came along as part of my salary. I have provided many hours of childcare for my grandchildren, even changing my working hours (working 40 hours over 4 days instead of 5 at one stage) and my daughter agrees that if she had had to pay for this amount of childcare privately she would never have managed - my ex son in law refused to pay anything towards childcare costs even though he worked full time too. My daughter is now a single Mum with 3 children to raise - good thing she did juggle work and home as she is in full time work and not put in the position of having to claim benefits to survive.

Oh and at DGCs' nursery the children do have a nap, they have quiet time and (this I found incredible) they would sit quietly on a sofa at story time . Behaviour I could not have aspired to in the teenagers I used to teach.
The "best" start in life is such an emotive and subjective isssue, but where would society be if we didn't have women doctors, teachers, lawyers, business people, social workers etc etc etc And if the choice of intelligent educated women had to be between having a baby or having a career, what implications might that have about the intellectual capacity of the next generation
Takes you back to the old argument about the point of educating girls!

Because my first husband was a feckless waste of space, I had to work but feel that one parent should be at home with the kids at least pre-school. I was able to work from home for a time which was the ideal, but actually get cross that parents who would like to be at home when the kids are small no longer have that choice while having to pay a fortune for childcare. Would-be stay-at-home parents, whether dad or mum, should be encouraged to take that option.

I'm sorry but I dom't agree. I love my three children and four grandchildren(so far!) dearly but they are not who I am. I am a writer and that is how I think of myself first. A storyteller, a creator of fictions since I was a small girl. I worked throughout my children's early years, because of the constraints mentioned in the OP but I wouldn't have done differently if I could have afforded not to. I realise that this is not true of every mother and good luck to those who want to and can afford to stay home wiith their kids but there are some women who are ambitious in their careers and they may well pay more tax too.

grannypiper's post must strike fear and trembling into working mothers and grandmothers. However, all I can say is that this description bears no resemblance whatsoever to the lovely nursery my DGSs attended before they went to school and which DGD goes to 1 day a week. Loving , stimulating environment, a structured Early Years framework programme, variety, fresh air, plenty of individual attention and the opportunity to learn social skills.
Compare this to what (sadly) can also be the case - mum walking with the buggy, intent on her phone, mum meeting friends at Costa Coffee, child in the buggy Mum at the table, still intent on her phone while the baby/toddler eventually gives up on eye contact?
Parenting can be wonderful, but it is a skill to be learned and to dismiss nurseries as somewhere you wouldn't send the fleas off a cat to, absolutely makes me wonder what sort of daycare was being described.

Things got very heated on one occasion when discussing this subject with a friend who had a very well paid job, as did her husband. She said that if you had a child and then found childcare boring and unfulfilling you should have the choice of going back to work after a few months. My argument was that you had already made the choice when deciding to have a child, and once that happens it is not about you - the baby is what matters, and giving it a good loving start in life whether or not you still managed good holidays and a smart car. There is always time later to employ a nursery to care for a child but those first few years are vital, and very short. We all know that it is often boring, exhausting and trying to be trapped in the house with not much money, and to spend most of your waking hours with someone who doesn't speak English, but it soon changes, and farming a tiny baby out seems a bit harsh if you do not need to. No doubt there are people who have to work, as vampirequeen says, but how many of them really do 'have' to work in order to maintain the luxuries they want rather than spend a few years leading a different kind of life in order to give the baby a good start? I shall now await the bricks through my 'window'.!!

You are working if you look after someone else's kids but not if you look after your own. Time for a parent's wage and much more recognition of what doing it well entails.

Well, I'm glad my children didn't go to the nursery where you worked. Their nursery had a huge garden with play equipment and the children went out to play twice a day. There was also a covered terrace, where they worked/played if the weather was warm and sometimes they had picnics.

There were five separate rooms in the nursery plus a 'classroom' for the older ones, who worked one-to-one with a trained teacher. Each of the rooms for the children over two had a quiet area, where they could chill out.

I'm surprised you could work in daycare if you disapproved of it so much.

There are some great staff hard working caring staff out there and some not so. Staff arent the only reason i wouldnt use daycare, i really dont believe its the best enviroment for children.We have laws in this country regarding working hours for adults yet no laws on how long a child can be placed in daycare, some children are in one room for 12 hours a day add on travelling time ( for one child it was 2+hours each way) when do these children see their parents ? where does a daycare centre put a 4 year old who wants to sleep ? where does a 3 year old go when he wants to sit on the sofa quietly and suck his thumb ? the answer is they dont get to sleep or sit still when they need to.
We have a problem in this country with childrens vitamin D levels because the spend days on end stuck inside and being allowed outside play if the daycare centre staff decide they can be bothered.

I must have been lucky then, because the nursery my children attended was excellent. It wasn't cheap, but it was worth it. My children loved it and I had every confidence in the staff.

Having worked in daycare i can hoestly say i woudnt send the fleas off my cat into such places.Your child is just one of many in such a place, they may be cared for by staff who adore your child but may be looked after by someone who doesnt like your child. Parents moan about the cost of childcare but expect a high standard of staff paid a pittance, well if you pay peanuts you get monkeys ! For many years young girls who have been failing in schools have been channeled into childcare and even if concerns are raised about their ability or attitude they pass there childcare exams.

Well said Daphne , outdated sexist post.
It is and should be possible for all parents male/ female to have a career and a family if that is their wish.

What annoys me are places like DD's university which prides itself on equality and has referred to her as an example to women working in science and yet have made it as difficult as possible for her to go back to work after her second baby. They do have a nursery there but the fees are astronomical so she doesn't use it.

I don't know whether OP setbout to be deliberately provocative but come on, this is the 21st century and women are filling jobs at all levels from the highest professional positions to the most humble. If we argue that women with children should not be in the workplace, we grind to a halt and if we say only woman who do not have a career should have babies, that is horrifying for all sorts of reasons leading to the ultimate conclusion of some sort of Brave New World where two types of women choose between a career like drones in the hive or a family.
I simply cannot accept the denigration of working women as "cleaners, shop workers etc etc", implying that only male jobs have any validity as careers to aspire to andgirls should not aim higher than "little jobs". This sort of sexist argument died in the 1950's and I cannot credit that anybody could pay it even lip service in 2016

Also agree with SueDonim and Tizliz.

I agree with Lillie. Most working mothers these days are not doing manual jobs. They are teachers, nurses, office workers, lawyesr, GPs, sales managers, etc etc. Women have come a long way in the workplace over the last few decades.

What you wrote is interesting, Swanny. I, too, remember a time when companies realised the loss to their skilled workplace of women not returning to work after childbirth. The high street banks were particularly vulnerable and were at the forefront of providing subsidised nurseries and flexible working. Nowadays, they've cut so many jobs that I don't suppose it matters so much to them.

My children had excellent childcare, but not from me. I had two six month maternity breaks.

I agree with vampirequeen,[to my surprise]
Having children is a choice today,it's a very important option and comes with great responsibility.So if the parents are not prepared to be that responsible and provide the innocent child with the care it deserves,then they have made the wrong decision.
I too exclude certain people who find themselves in situations they didn't ask for.

I am surprised but delighted at the share of child care that my son does. I think men want to be involved therefore the subject should be about working parents.