Time for Parenting...

...because raising children is a full-time job

January 2002 Newsletter

Editorial; From the chair; New members write; Financial report; AGM; What the papers say; Emotional development; What does the committee do?; Poem; Your letters

What The Papers Say

News broke in the Financial Times that Chancellor Gordon Brown's encouragement of new mothers to retain links with their workplace with a view to returning to work had suffered a setback - and very close to home. Sarah Brown, wife of Gordon Brown, who is expecting a baby in February, is to abandon her high-flying PR career to raise their child. She has resigned as both a director and employee of Hosbawm Macaulay Communications to prepare her maternity arrangements. Her plan, we were later told, is to take three months maternity leave, and then return to work part-time. This is in contrast to Cherie Blair who was back fighting cases in court within three months of Leo's birth.

'Superwomen' like Cherie Blair and Victoria Beckham, who appear to be able effortlessly to combine career and motherhood, were revealed in a recent survey by marketing agency Publicis to be widely resented by ordinary working mothers, who felt they were only able to succeed because they had plenty of money. More than half the 1,000 mothers surveyed identified themselves as 'undervalued', 'over criticised' and 'tired'. They said key concerns were lack of time and the safety of their children. Most working mothers said they were exhausted, stressed out, and guilty about not spending enough time with their children.

A wry piece by Jane Shilling in The Times described the outrage displayed in a Woman's Hour interview by Martha Kearney of foreign news journalists Marie Colvin and Orla Guerin that anyone should dare to criticise fellow journalist Yvonne Ridley for risking her life in Afghanistan when she was the single parent of a 9 year old daughter. (Fortunately she was subsequently released from captivity.) The interviewees were not willing to acknowledge though, the importance of the mother, and, in Shilling's words, " the huge difference, when it comes to making difficult moral decisions about responsibility and self-sacrifice, between a parent and a non-parent, and a huge difference again between a single parent and a two-parent family." As Shilling comments, "In our society we have somehow contrived to sentimentalise the condition of childhood, while simultaneously idealising the individual's right to fulfilment, far beyond the point at which the two can be reconciled. The horrid fact, apparently unspeakable on Woman's Hour, is that having a child is incompatible with certain kinds of personal fulfilment."

Oliver James, a past FTM speaker, wrote a piece following the death of his mother for The Observer. Lydia James wrote Britain's first ever parenting column in The Observer in the 1960s. Many of her comments sound astonishingly contemporary. She was writing in 1960 about the lack of confidence of new mothers who have been educated to play many parts and often feel at a loss with a new baby, facing a task for which they feel unprepared, and as she says, "which has nothing to do with being clever and a lot to do with devotion and patience". Another remark reveals much insight into what was coming: "There is a new ethic creeping up that only measurable virtues such as wealth or position are estimable. People are liable to use this standard even against their better judgement. In this situation, something has to give, and… it can't be the children."

A news item released in early December revealed that 'Safari Boy', the young offender sent on an 88 day African safari in 1993 has been jailed for four years. Now aged 24, attempts to rehabilitate him and turn him into a decent citizen are estimated to have so far cost more than £1 million; the latest sentence means that the bill for his rehabilitation will continue to increase by at least £26,000 for each year he is in prison. With figures like this, quite apart from the waste of a young man's life, it is astonishing that the Government does not as a matter of urgency decide to spend more on prevention instead of cure. From ante-natal stage, through birth and the vital early years, we know beyond doubt that a baby securely attached to the mother, who is herself given good support, lays good foundations for life; that married parents are statistically far more likely to stay together and provide a secure environment for raising children. We know that the baby's first relationship with its primary carer, whether loving and safe, or for some reason inadequate, provides a blueprint for all its future relationships. Yet we do so little to ensure that the optimum basic necessities are in place for every child born.

Researchers have confirmed what women have believed for years: behind every happy man there is a devoted wife or girlfriend. In a study of 10,000 middle-aged workers they found that men whose girlfriends or spouses stayed home were less depressed. The London University study revealed that when women returned to work, depression rates in men increased. "We discovered that stay-at-home partners were perceived as particularly beneficial in taking responsibility for the family, developing ties with neighbours and making friends," said Professor Stephen Stansfield.

Mothers returning to full-time work soon after having a baby are much more likely to end up divorced than mothers who stay at home or who work part-time, according to a study published by the Economic and Social Research Council. Not surprisingly, researchers found that the strain of coping with full-time work meant that more than a quarter of mothers with careers had their marriages break up within 11 years.

Reported in the Guardian on 12 December, the author of the survey, Professor Susan MacRae of Oxford Brookes University, said that the mothers who were least likely to experience divorce were those who worked part-time. Interestingly, Professor MacRae also pointed out that most women are still unwilling to combine full-time work with motherhood - only 10% of the 1500 mothers in her survey actually stayed in full-time work. Figures on maternal employment are often deceptive, according to Professor MacRae - most mothers still opt for part-time work and/or periods of full-time motherhood.

- Sarah Douglas-Pennant with Jill Kirby