Julia Hartley-Brewer v Stella Creasy

We all pay for schooling. We all pay for a health service. We all pay for old age pensions.

Having the better off pay for things that the worse off can't afford, but which benefit society in the long run, is how we do things in a civilised society.

And things move on and the reactionaries who've "done their bit" complain about it when others try to make society better.

As has been pointed out before, I had no babies. I'd like to stop paying for education, please, if you have a child you should take the responsibility of educating it. Does it need vaccinations? Nothing to do with me, buy your own.

Germanshepherdsmum why the taxpayer should put more resources into bringing up other people's children?

Because it's these children who pay our pensions (or stop our pension funds from going belly-up) and generally keep the economy running for our benefit as well as everyone else's.

Of course I wouldn't want to abolish maternity leave trisher but I do think it's become too long a period. Having a child is a personal thing, a personal decision to be taken after considering how the child will fit into your life and how you will pay for its upbringing. I will put my tin hat on and ask why the taxpayer should put more resources into bringing up other people's children? You may consider that that is society progressing. Why start at 2 years? Why not make free nursery care available from the moment maternity leave ends? Just not at my expense please, I've done my bit.

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.

Please Gsm could you send this to any member of the RF, or indeed any rich family where nanny minding the children is the norm.
Would you like to turn the clock back completely and abolish maternity leave as well? Why have free nursery care at 4 but not at 2? Perhaps if you could focus on the wider issue, of the way things evolve ,and the services we provide to enable society to progress and change, instead of dwelling on the personal, you could look at things more objectively.

trisher, work place crèches which the employer has decided, not been compelled by law, to provide are an excellent idea provided children don’t end up virtually living in them 24/7. However I would not be happy for the taxpayer to have to fund the extension of the existing facilities in the HoC, where the users are better paid than most.

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.

Germanshepherdsmum

I think trisher is one of those NCT people - you VILL feed ze baby yourself.

Actually I'm one of those-"Sterilizing what an awful faff./I'm bound to do it badly and poison the baby/my hygiene standards are a sluts" people.
I was actually trying to support your choice Gsm sad that you had to take it the wrong way.

The archaic and patriarchal system that meant Stella Creasey had to take her baby to the Hof C still exists. It would be perfectly possible to have work place creches where mothers could breastfeed. As for the time a baby would take up feeding and changing, how many workers wander off to the loo, outside for a smoke, off for a drink a few times during the day? Caring for a baby would probably take the same time and could be done with a flexible break time meaning everyone's hours were calculated by the time they spent at their desks and not when they entered and left the building (but we all know that won't happen because it might show how little some men do)
Incidently some of the big IT firms have workplace nurseries because they know the graduate couples they need want these things.

I don't condemn Stella Creasy or any other working mother, needs must, my own mother returned to work when we were junior school age and I can remember us being latch key kids, not sure that would be legal now, but no after school clubs then. However, survive we did!

I would however reiterate what I stated up thread, the offices where I worked would never have countenanced babies and children being brought into work on a regular basis, why would they? It is a place of business after all and there are colleagues to take into consideration. From recollections, if children appeared in the office on the odd occasion, they tended very much to be children of the bosses rather than the rest of the staff, not usually babies, children and then only in exceptional or unforeseen circumstances.

I don't make any judgement about women who have children and return to work, equally I say the same about those who are stay at home mothers. I made a conscious decision to have children in my early thirties I'd been at work since late teens, I wanted to stay at home with them in their early years. I don't agree that children slot into your lives, I rather think it's the other way round, my days revolved around them and their needs, having boys it soon dawned on me from early years that spending as much time on outdoor pursuits when the weather allowed it was beneficial for them. How that would have slotted into a working day, even if in between times they sat quietly in the office drawing and colouring, someone tell me? Little boys are a revelation they spend much of their time fighting imaginary forces and spontaneously combusting, very, very, loudly! Not conducive to an atmosphere where one is having to spend time on the phone to clients I might suggest. Of course they could be quiet at times reading and colouring and often did us proud when we took them out to say Pizza Express with a word of warning "behave or we won't come again" but that was occasional, expecting pre school children to spend long periods of time on a daily basis pursuing cerebral activities in a quiet corner to fit in with my working life, even if I could have brought them along with me, and that only happened rarely when I returned to work for my husband and they were early school age. Prior to that I would suggest, some children need to expend energy, spending an entire day/s in an office, if childcare isn't available, would not be conducive to the child's wants and needs and the rigmarole of feeding, changing and settling a young baby took ages from what I remember, to free up that window of getting anything done before the whole process had to be repeated and with an older sibling's demands as well, impossible!

Presumably that should say

No one is ‘bleating on’. The debate is around ridiculous ancient working practices in the HoC.

Oresimbably there were men involved in most cases. I wonder what thought they gave to the practicalities. And of course the womans role to care for babies even when she's a grandma.

You shouldn’t bring a baby to work, unless you have one that doesn't just need nappies to order and takes ten minutes to feed. It’s a place if work, you not doing any and distractions due to a baby crying, puts so much pressure on other staff. Use holiday leave, maternity leave until your child can go in a crèche unless you’ve a willing grandma. We all have a choice to make, the priority is that you look after your child, put career on hold for a while, what’s more important?Businesses particularly small ones, struggling at present could fold up and others lose their jobs.
These women that bleat on, did they not give any thought to the practicalities? Did they think their babies would be like a doll, silent until played with or fed.

Chardy

Germanshepherdsmum

I think trisher is one of those NCT people - you VILL feed ze baby yourself.

Offensive on several levels, Germanshepherdmum and frankly beneath you.

Those Scandi countries have more progressive, family friendly approach to early years. Subsidised, high quality child care and a later start to formal education.
As trisher posted earlier, the suggestion that taxes shouldn’t be used to support that approach was used towards any changes that benefit the workforce. 12 hour shifts in the mills and mines, children up chimneys, all seen as essential until people like Stella Creasy and others campaigned

I’ll ignore the veiled offensive xenophobia and say , if we are really looking at it from the babies’ perspective , that most newborns would be happier in a sling next to mum with mum’s milk on tap than separated from mum with a plastic bottle. But of course alternative arrangements are possible as some of you supermums are boasting. I don't think espousing such achievements are doing the cause of women any good.

Germanshepherdsmum

I think trisher is one of those NCT people - you VILL feed ze baby yourself.

Offensive on several levels, Germanshepherdmum and frankly beneath you.

I didn't breastfeed my babies either. There were very good reasons for not doing so, and although I do't want to go into them here, I can assure anyone who thinks that it is her business that they had nothing whatsoever to do with archaic and patriarchal systems.

Germanshepherdsmum

Try doing that when it involves phone calls or video conferencing at US times Doodledog and you’re commuting, not wfh. Email is the easy bit. I fear you’re theorising rather than speaking from experience of the sort of work I’m talking about. You absolutely can’t do it and give proper care for a baby. The baby doesn’t ask to be born and shouldn’t have to suffer for the sake of its mother’s ambitions.

I'm theorising about the sort of work you did, yes; but no more than you are theorising about being an MP. We can all only talk from our own experience, and mine shows that I was perfectly able to work from home over 20 years ago. From that I can extrapolate that something like a vote does not require attendance in a particular place at a particular time. There are ways to ensure that people can participate without being there.

Nobody has said that babies asked to be born - that doesn't even make sense - but the idea that mothers doing their job results in babies suffering is a strange way to look at things. In the example we are discussing, a baby would suffer if neither of its parents were able to find emergency care at the dead of night because their employers were making unreasonable demands. It would be very simple to either postpone the vote until the next day, or to allow remote access. Lockdown has completely disproved the notion that all employees need to be onsite at all times. In some cases they do, but that's when the employer needs to step up and be flexible.

Zealots is the right word.

Be warned:

GLUTEN does go through in breast milk despite what the zealots at the NCT may try to tell you.
I wish I'd known.

Oh good. Nazi jokes. How timely.

I think trisher is one of those NCT people - you VILL feed ze baby yourself.

Germanshepherdsmum

And if one isn’t able to breast feed? Why do you assume it was my decision?

That's just an excuse, apparently!!

Our babies were deprived.
I was deprived, my DB were deprived, but we survived.

And if one isn’t able to breast feed? Why do you assume it was my decision?

Germanshepherdsmum

How on earth did my son survive, having only ever been bottle fed?

My DC1 might have become iller and iller had I not changed her to formula milk.

Germanshepherdsmum

How on earth did my son survive, having only ever been bottle fed?

That was your decision Gsm but breastfeeding is not only the best for baby it can be easier as well. Expecting someone to feed their baby a certain way to fit in with archaic and patriarchal systems is wrong, it doesn't matter if the expectation is bottle feeding, expressing or any other method. The choice is the mothers and every effort should be made to provide her with the support she needs to carry out her choice.