This article from the BBC is quite interesting “Support for working mums falls“.
This is a subject that interests me no end and I must say that I have no issues with working mums, what I do have an issue with is both parents working leaving their kids with a child minder or nanny.
I think it is important that children know that one of the parents is at home and able to look after them, it gives them a safety blanket and a feeling of comfort and love. I think it is an irrelevance if it is Mum or Dad but one of them should be one of them.
I am in a very lucky situation as my wife is on the same view and before we had children while “planning” our family we decided that she would stay at home until the kids where old enough and then she could decide what she wanted to do.
Now our kids are getting a little older not and the dependantcy that they once had is beginning to go as they test their wings and my wife has decided that she wants to become a councillor and for the last two years she has been going to collage to get her qualification, she has 2 more years to be and then she will be into the work place.
This has worked out very well for us but we are lucky as my job is able to cover what we spend but we do not have 2 - 3 holidays a year, new cars etc etc. Our kids are very polite and well behaved, they work hard at school and know that Mum is around if she is needed. they do not have everything in the shops and they never have, this is not an issue to them they are aware that money is something that has the be worked for and that you can have the new TV only after you have saved for it. Even at their young age they are aware that credit is a bad thing and that they have boundaries, they are also aware that when the step outside of the boundaries their actions will being on consequences.
This “success” is not because we are wonderful parents or anything special but we looked at how things have been done over years, looked to out childhoods when the Mum’s at work was beginning and decided that it was not for us and a more traditional was was not only better in our situation but suited us.
This government was hell bent on making our approach the wrong one when they came into power and they pushed every Mum to work it is nice to see that this approach is being questioned, after all in the last 10 years there has been a breakdown in our society and I think that this policy of Mum’s out to work at all costs has contributed to it, as has the devaluation of the role of mother (regardless of how it is filled).
My wife has had a wonderful time being a full part of her children growing up and she will have the career that she wants and I am sure that she will have success in it, but there is a season to all things perhaps that is something that is worth remembering.
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