Will Messrs Reeves and Raynor Still Be Around This Time Next Year?

Allira

What comes across quite clearly is that some women do not plan their lives carefully enough and make poor choices.

In what way do they make poor choices?

Or maybe all women should just own the choices they make. There isn’t a right or wrong, but choices, whether conscious or not, are what determine how we and our families function.

What comes across quite clearly is that some women do not plan their lives carefully enough and make poor choices.

I don’t know what you mean, sorry. I haven’t said that? What worked for my family, worked for my family and I feel lucky because that suited us. I didn’t comment about anybody else.

I am referring to your own posts.

You’re putting words in my mouth again. We are the product of our parents, and the vast majority of families make their choices work for themselves, don’t they, whatever their circumstances.

Weren't children whose mothers stayed at home to care for them were lucky too?

Obviously not then.

madalene

The point was Casdon, that the only choice for some people was to stay at home with their children, or to have no children!
Perhaps you think that’s okay, but many didn’t, so opted for the difficult position of staying at home because there was no childcare. Not free childcare like is offered today, none!

I find your response rather callous to be honest.

You’d have to ask my children if I’m callous madelene, I know they would say I’m not though. I’m the product of a clear sighted mother, who had four children herself but who wasn’t prepared to accept that full time motherhood was her destiny, we were brought up to be ambitious and to understand we had choices. I think we were very lucky.

You’re deliberately misunderstanding me, I don’t know why.

I'm not.

We can make choices but the choices you describe sound calculated and meticulously planned and quite cold.

Life just isn't like that for most people, believe it or not.
Especially the remark about spacing between children.

Oreo

Casdon

Why is an astonishing remark to say gap between children’s age is a choice Allira, when it is? It’s commonplace for couples to space out their children so they can afford nursery fees!

😂and even more common to suddenly find you’re expecting.

😂
Not to some on here, it wasn't in the long-term plan.

I heard of a woman who decided she wanted to divorce her husband and she sent him a message saying:
"You are not on my agenda for next year".
She is a high-powered career woman, no children.

She has made great contributions to society and is obviously a very organised planner.

Would that we were all so single-minded, perhaps society would be so much better.

Allira

Obviously you planned your life out meticulously, even down to when you could conceive.

No miscarriages, no problems, no thought of what other people might go through.

Choosing a husband who works 9 - 5 and is home every night.

Perhaps you never realised that not everyone's lives are like that. Just astonishing.

You’re deliberately misunderstanding me, I don’t know why. I’m not saying I was the perfect planner, I’m saying I made choices - and although you obviously think it was the system, not your own free will, so did you. I’m not criticising you or anybody else for your choices, just saying that you did make them.

There may have been a nursery or two but in the main there were no nurseries.

Casdon

Why is an astonishing remark to say gap between children’s age is a choice Allira, when it is? It’s commonplace for couples to space out their children so they can afford nursery fees!

😂and even more common to suddenly find you’re expecting.

Depends where you lived at the time surely? If you lived in a village then finding an all day nursery and managing to get there maybe by public transport could have been impossible.
Many SAHP like myself went without on a regular basis of any treats or hols or clothes in order to be with my kids all the time until they were older and at school.My choice yes and the right one for the kids and the whole family but it wasn’t done cos we were rolling in it, far from it.

Obviously you planned your life out meticulously, even down to when you could conceive.

No miscarriages, no problems, no thought of what other people might go through.

Choosing a husband who works 9 - 5 and is home every night.

Perhaps you never realised that not everyone's lives are like that. Just astonishing.

Why is an astonishing remark to say gap between children’s age is a choice Allira, when it is? It’s commonplace for couples to space out their children so they can afford nursery fees!

What part of the points I made about choice do you disagree with Allira, it was just a list of the choices every woman makes?
Childcare has never been non existent. Some women have always worked outside the home. There was less available, but progressively since the Second World War organised childcare increased. What caused it to increase was demand. Certainly by the time my brother was born in the mid 1960s nurseries were available and childminders were in regular use - my brother went.

gap between children’s ages
Good grief!! That certainly is a most astonishing remark!
😯

nanna8

We barely have cheques here anymore either, I was using pay cheque as a figure of speech. Actually, my husband was paid directly into the bank.

Although in the late 70s, people did have cheque books and write cheques.

I find your response rather callous to be honest.

It's quite breathtaking!

Perhaps some people live perfectly planned lives.
It sounds rather robotic.

It’s always been almost all down to choice in the end. Choice about career path, choice about marriage. Choice about having children. Choice about where you live. Choice about husband and your jobs fitting around childcare. Choice about use of childminders, access to nurseries, family members who help look after children, gap between children’s ages. We all make our beds.

😂

What's love got to do, got to do with it?

I should have interviewed DH in more depth before I said I will.

The point was Casdon, that the only choice for some people was to stay at home with their children, or to have no children!
Perhaps you think that’s okay, but many didn’t, so opted for the difficult position of staying at home because there was no childcare. Not free childcare like is offered today, none!

I find your response rather callous to be honest.

It’s always been almost all down to choice in the end
I disagree with that; as madalene points out, childcare was non-existent, life was not at all like it is now. There was no choice.

I just find the idea that SAHM were funded by the state puzzling. They are made out to be lazy women, leeching on society and not pulling their weight for the overall good.
It seems to be a recurring theme on every political thread thread and of course, posters should be entitled to offer a different viewpoint without being condemned.

I think the thing which angers some posters is that, for some time, the rôle of SAHMs was thought to be valuable by successive governments so they were, after 1978 (but *not before then*) credited with NI contributions so that the years they needed to claim some SP in the future was reduced.
They were not paid to sit at home (sic).

Now, of course, it is much easier for mothers to return to work because of the availability of nurseries and because the Government helps by providing vouchers to help pay nursery fees.

No different - swings and roundabouts, except that the nursery vouchers are worth far more than a few years' worth of NI credits.

However, those who run nurseries were in the news, worried about the increase in employers' NI contributions and in the new National Minimum Wage (3 x times the current inflation rate) and wonder if they can keep going.

They don’t have cheques here anymore. Wonder how Starmer would cope with that ? Silly man, silly comment.

madalene

I stayed at home when my children were young. It was nothing to do with being in the lucky position of being able to afford to stay at home, there was no nursery care available, none. My parents and parents in law lived 240 miles away and we had no family living nearby at all. Play school, as it was called then, lasted three hours in the morning and children went two or three mornings a week during term time only. We had so little money. Every month was a struggle, waiting for the next pay cheque. My husband took a second job, in the evening. I still couldn’t afford to buy my babies their winter coats, they had them as birthday, or Christmas presents from our parents.
Apparently this was a privileged position because we were able to afford for me to stay at home. What planet are some people on?

I think we were one of those families that Starmer says don’t have any savings and couldn’t afford to write a cheque!

It’s always been almost all down to choice in the end. Choice about career path, choice about marriage. Choice about having children. Choice about where you live. Choice about husband and your jobs fitting around childcare. Choice about use of childminders, access to nurseries, family members who help look after children, gap between children’s ages. We all make our beds.