Julia Hartley-Brewer v Stella Creasy

Germanshepherdsmum

If it weren’t for the fact that my mother lived nearby and was delighted to have a grandchild to care for I wouldn’t have had a child. I knew I couldn’t afford not to work and I couldn’t have paid a stranger to bring up my child.

From the age of 5 Gsm your child was cared for during the school day by a paid professional who probably was a stranger to you until your child started school. Why was. that OK but early years professional care wrong?

If it weren’t for the fact that my mother lived nearby and was delighted to have a grandchild to care for I wouldn’t have had a child. I knew I couldn’t afford not to work and I couldn’t have paid a stranger to bring up my child.

Germanshepherdsmum

It depends on the cost to the children. Someone remarked earlier that the RF were brought up by nannies and what a dysfunctional lot they are. I knew another lawyer who had nannies and au pairs to look after her children whilst she furthered her career and when the hired help didn’t arrive one day sent her sick child to school. Turned out said child had pneumonia.

Is hired help worse than using your mother as daycare then?

Does it get looked down on?

Really, you should have just quit your job while your child was young.

Or is that only what todays mothers of young children should do?

volver

Do those things have to be exclusive?

Can a woman not have a fulfilling, successful career and well-balanced, healthy children?

That's what this is about, enabling access to the things that women need to make that happen. It could be creches at work, it could be flexible hours, it could be childcare vouchers, I don't know what.

So when people start having a go at Stella Creasey and saying that she's whinging, isn't she rich enough and all that, they are completely missing the point. JHB is completely missing the point, probably intentionally, so as to turn people against Ms Creasy and their families.

Apparently not.

Though I’ll have to make sure I tell some friends that they did it all wrong and their children only look well adjusted.

Germanshepherdsmum

Which comes back to my comment about considering whether you can afford a child.

Thankfully, I hadn't seen that. Definitely beyond the pale as far as I am concerned. There is nothing more to be said to people with views like that.

Great post coastpath
I feel fortunate to have benefitted from the nhs, decent education, never been hungry
I can’t imagine resenting paying tax to benefit the next generation
I’d pay more to subsidise early years, including child care. It’s an investment ?

There are dysfunctional families and inadequate parents at all levels of society Gsm I've seen mothers who are at home send an ill child into school. I've seen children cared for by loving and excellent nannies and carers who probably did a far better job than the child's parents. It's nothing to do with money, nannies, careers or anything else. There's no standard way of raising a child and some children love having a working mum while other wish there mum would do something. But involving two parents, making proper provision for child friendly work places, providing high quality child care and recognising that one of the most important things anyone male or female can do is raise a child to the best of their ability is vitality important. But it won't happen until women are fully equal and men are regarded as equally responsible.

Entirely up to the couple themselves to negotiate. In some cases the better decision is for the father to make career compromises, in others the mother.

Germanshepherdsmum

I frankly don’t understand why it’s unacceptable to so many here that if a woman has chosen to follow a career which doesn’t have family friendly hours she should expect to make some compromises for a few years if she has children, in order to give the children a stable upbringing. Unless of course she has a partner who is able and willing to make the compromises. Is it acceptable to follow your high flying career come what may and have your children brought up by nannies? Children aren’t toys to be enjoyed when it’s convenient in the busy life you have chosen, taking second place to your career. As I have said I have always worked full time through necessity but I compromised on what I did within my chosen career and where I worked. I don’t regret that and it did my career no long-term damage. You have a child, you, not your employer or the state, have responsibilities to that child.

Why only women? Don't fathers have any obligations? Should they be expected to make compromises and put their careers on hold?

Which comes back to my comment about considering whether you can afford a child.

Germanshepherdsmum

It’s still all about enabling women though, isn’t it?

No. For many women - probably most, putting food on the table and a roof over their heads needs to be met before anything else can be provided. Surely you can recognise that?

It depends on the cost to the children. Someone remarked earlier that the RF were brought up by nannies and what a dysfunctional lot they are. I knew another lawyer who had nannies and au pairs to look after her children whilst she furthered her career and when the hired help didn’t arrive one day sent her sick child to school. Turned out said child had pneumonia.

Germanshepherdsmum

I do remember that trisher. What disappoints me so much is that everyone here, and I assume we’re all women, seems to focus on the rights of women to have equality and fulfilling careers rather than on how that impacts the lives of their children.

But that shouuld equally apply to men now Gsm . Fathers are well able to care for children it's not the preserve of women any more. Of course there will always be men (and a few women) who put their careers first but committment to raising a child should be a joint operation and not the sole responsibility of the mother. If a woman's career has to be put on hold so should a man's.

Is that a bad thing?

It’s still all about enabling women though, isn’t it?

Do those things have to be exclusive?

Can a woman not have a fulfilling, successful career and well-balanced, healthy children?

That's what this is about, enabling access to the things that women need to make that happen. It could be creches at work, it could be flexible hours, it could be childcare vouchers, I don't know what.

So when people start having a go at Stella Creasey and saying that she's whinging, isn't she rich enough and all that, they are completely missing the point. JHB is completely missing the point, probably intentionally, so as to turn people against Ms Creasy and their families.

I do remember that trisher. What disappoints me so much is that everyone here, and I assume we’re all women, seems to focus on the rights of women to have equality and fulfilling careers rather than on how that impacts the lives of their children.

Great post Coastpath
Can I say as well that somehow women seem to have lost out on the whole deal.
I have posted about how I was sent to a full time day nursery when I was 3 because my mum was ill. I was there all day, dad dropped me off and collected me on his bike after work. But we also had all the time mum was ill and recuperating. a cleaner, paid for by the local authority, who did the heavy work mum couldn't. Dads of course weren't considered able. My grans were both working and one had a husband with TB so they didn't help. I'm always shocked that no one our age seems to remember that the Welfare state really was that, created and maintained to improve the health and welfare of everyone but especially those who needed it most. It's something we seem to have completely lost sight of in this acquisitive age.

Well said (again), Coastpath.

We are, I presume, mostly older women. We had all the benefits of the welfare state, free education, healthcare that was provided for us by the generations above us. I'm grateful to them for that.

We then, I presume, spent our youth fighting hard to gain equality and our working lives striving to succeed in a world where it was a given that men ruled the roost. We had access to more freedom and opportunity than any generation of women before us.

Now we have the chance to really stand up for and support the women coming after us and I can't understand why some seem to want to pull up the rope rather than hand down a ladder.

We have it in our power to make life easier and more equal for the next generations whether we meet those people or not. We should be banging on the door of power trying to make things better. If we don't do that then what is the point of us, society and humanity?

volver

You seem obsessed by taxes.

I really think that it's time that people let go of this outdated idea that taxation funds spending. Then we might be able to have a more reasoned view of how we wold like the country's money to be spent. And be less accepting of such ridiculous and harmful notions as 'austerity' and the need to 'balance' the nation's books.

You seem obsessed by taxes.

If people (not just women!) stop becoming parents, the existing age imbalance in society will get worse, and if young people take the selfish 'not at my expense' attitude, life will get pretty grim for older people.

Yes, these days having children is an individual choice, but it is not a choice for society as a whole. If people don't reproduce we will die out.

If workplaces refuse to compromise and make small changes that allow occasional flexibility, it will almost inevitably be women who are forced out of the workplace. That won't come down to 'putting the baby first' or 'making sacrifices for the good of your child' for many, though. It will mean a life on benefits, a much reduced pension, insecure housing and so on. Only those who can afford nannies will be able to work - helpful grannies are quite likely to be working themselves until they are too tired and worn out to step into the breach (notwithstanding the fact that a lot of women don't live round the corner from their mums these days).

We are not living in the 80s or before, when there was a real choice to stay at home (at others' expense!) and look after children. To suggest otherwise shows a total lack of awareness of life for the majority of young families in 2022.

When a man plants a tree he always expects to gain something from the tree in the form of fruits and shade. But when an old man plants a tree he knows well that he will not live see the plant grow up to bear fruits, or enjoy its shade, still he does it so that his future generation will be benefited by it.

I will be pushing up daisies long before 'these children' pay any taxes. It's my own child's generation who are paying for us. Is there a good reason why, before someone decides to have a child, they should not consider how they will pay for its upbringing?