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Tuesday, 19 June, 2001, 17:20 GMT 18:20 UK
Parenting: Have we got the balance right?
Two recently published surveys have confirmed the difficulties many working parents face in bringing up children today.
Research carried out by Top Sante magazine reveals that 93% of mothers who work full-time feel stressed as they try to cope with all the demands made on them, and that this stress is carried over to their families.
A separate survey commissioned by four charities says that fathers have a vital role to play in supporting the educational achievements and social stability of their children.
Are working parents damaging their children's development? Do fathers have a greater role to play? Or is the pull of traditional role models too strong? Will we ever get the balance right?
This debate is now closed. Read a selection of your comments below.
Janet Gladstone, UK
I disagree with Lisa, Wales when she says "would any sane individual trust the other enough to assume they will continue to do this (support them financially) for the next fifty years?" No one is asking a parent to leave the workforce completely. One parent (mother or father) should leave the workforce or at least work part-time for the first couple of years of a child's life. These years are too important to be left to a stranger. I don't know about the UK but in the USA with the cost of day care and the tax benefits for having a dependent spouse and child the amount that a second income contributes is so small it is often easier for one parent to give up working for a couple of years than many couples think.
Are working parents damaging their children's development? It all depends on the parents in question. There are many examples of working parents who have managed to raise children into successful professional adults. It is just a matter of finding a way to work round the schedule. I believe that children of working parents will grow up to be more mature if their parents share their working experiences. But of course, we should not end up complaining about our job woes as this will have an adverse effect on the child instead.
This topic is truly subjective. The balance that any family achieves varies from another family's. Whatever the case, it has to be worked between the couples to try to attain the balance for their families.
More attention has to be made of the fathers. As with all things the man is regularly forgotten. UK men working the longest hours in Europe still would like to be able to spend time with their kids but sadly men and their wishes are never on the agenda or given much notice.
The problem is that the government should be encouraging both partners to participate in parenting and bringing up their children and parents should accept that it is their duty. Not only are men forgotten about but more often than not, we see the government and parents themselves offloading their parenting duties onto others, such as teachers and government is increasingly legislating to take more and more of the responsibility for the upbringing of children away from the parents and onto others and society as a whole.
It appears to me that stress in the workplace has increased over the years and it would be silly to say that it cannot affect your home life. The other stressful part of life is that children's expectations are greater. They see their friends in designer clothes so they want the same. They want to go to all the after school clubs and so on. This means that less quality time is spent with their parents.
As usual no consideration of what the children themselves want. Ask them, go on, I dare you!
Working mothers are not helping their kids grow into well-adjusted adults with good values, particularly with kids being in day-care, which is usually not much more than a parking lot for children. The stresses of work, for mothers, increases the likelihood of physical, emotional or verbal abuse. The traditional role models worked fine for generations. I see no need to change it.
Karen Morgan, UK
Every child has different needs. Some thrive on attention, some thrive being given plenty of space.
It's the responsibility of each set of parents to identify what is best for their children, and do their best to provide it.
There are no simple solutions, other than TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN LIVES!
My mother worked every single day of my childhood and it broke her heart. Due to financial circumstances she had no choice. I believe if you can afford not to work, don't, your children's early years are too precious to miss.
Mark Gurney, UK
The key to survival is teamwork. Husband and wife should split the duties fairly while the kids are small. As children grow, they should be included in that team and be given jobs within their capabilities. Great opportunities for togetherness, communication and to teach them to be independent and ready for life's chores too. What difference does it make if you have to link it all to pocket money - it helps them to learn about financial control too!
Of course fathers have a greater role to play. Most discussions of this sort seem to assume that Mom is supposed to bear the greater burden for childcare. What rubbish. Men are just as capable childcare providers as women and should not shirk their responsibilities.
I am a secondary school teacher, with a 4-year-old daughter. My husband works in IT so we don't need the money I earn, although we use it for perks, such as giving our daughter the opportunity to go to private nursery. In my view it is essential to get the right balance. If I wasn't a teacher with long holidays I wouldn't work full time, but neither would I stay at home all day. I resent it when people say that when their kids were young they were lucky and didn't HAVE to work. Neither do I, I choose to.
A truly equal solution to the problems faced by working parents would be for employers to offer more part-time employment. Then each parent could work part-time and everyone would be happier.
When will women realise that they can't have it all? Life just doesn't work like that. You have a choice; you can have a family life or you can have a work life. One is not more important than the other except if you think it is. Men don't get this choice. Where's the six months paternity leave to equal what women get, where's the surveys into fathers' stress levels caused by working every possible hour to build a career and still having to be a husband/ father support system when you get home.
Who dies younger? Which sex has the highest suicide rate? Who is really stressed out?
Gaynor, New Zealand
When I have kids if my wife earned more than I did and we could survive on her salary I'd love to be able to drop out of the rat race and look after them full time. It's almost beyond doubt that kids do better when one of their parents looks after them full-time. Whether that parent is the mother (as is traditional) or the father (as is increasingly common) makes little difference. At the end of the day you can't have everything and you have to decide what's most important.
I believe that people have the right to choose what they do. However, I made the choice to give up a professional career in which I earned more than my husband, to have my daughter and bring her up. She is now ten, and I have never regretted the decision. I can truthfully say that there is NOTHING more fulfilling than doing a good job of being a Mum, and I know that my daughter has benefited from my being around whenever she needs me.
It all comes down to money. When childcare costs as much as a mortgage it simply becomes unmanageable for most families. Just as there is free nursery education, there should be free childcare for those who wish to return to work.
I really believe that women have made life more difficult for themselves - not only do we have to go out and work now but we are expected to mother children... now that women have gained the respect they demanded (well, in this country anyway) can't we just accept our role as nurturer and get back to what really is important and that is raising the people of the future - it all starts in the home. I am still only young and will probably start a family soon but I truly believe that kids should have someone at home and the perfect person for the role would be 'Mum' - what a pleasure compared to working 9-5.
My mother has always worked (she was a primary school teacher) and I felt proud of having a working mother, although she wasn't always in the best of moods with her three children. I never considered giving up my job to raise my son. True, it's tiring when children are still young and need day care, but parents are still young and full of pep during these ten years or so and then a non-working mother inevitably finds herself useless and deserted at the age of forty, when her children grow older. Sticking to one's job is worth the effort!
The biggest problem with the idea that a woman should stay home and take care of the kids is that it leaves her extremely vulnerable if there comes a time when her husband decides he no longer wishes to support her financially (or where he is no longer able to support her). By that stage, having potentially spent years out of the workplace, it will be extremely difficult to break into the market at a salary level to provide anything other than a most basic standard of living. I for one would not be prepared to be fully reliant on anyone else to provide for me and therefore the only solution must be a more balanced share of financial and childcare responsibilities.
The bottom line is that, if you go out to work full-time and try to raise children, one or the other is not being done properly. Many women have no choice if their family income is low, but many others do and it is this group where perhaps the father's role should come under most scrutiny as affluence makes many more options possible.
John Beadle, Ireland
Did we really need a survey to tell us what would appear to be basic common sense? When both parents were encouraged to work, the employer got two for the price of one, more men lost their jobs and ultimately the children paid the price.
Balance? What balance? We are living in a world where you could be sued in court for disciplining your unruly child. Bah! Humbug!
Robin Randall, UK
I get a bit tired of seeing this cast as a "women's" problem. If more men did their share of housework and parenting, the issue would not be so big. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are a lot of men out there who do, and some who would like to but can't because this country has the most ridiculous working hours. Phil is right - it should be teamwork. But the men's and women's work thing is as strong today as it ever was. Fathers, they're your kids too!
Who is putting about this idea that full-time mums are not required to use their brains, whereas people who work outside the home are being intellectually challenged? Most people are not rocket scientists - I trained as a chartered accountant and have been 'at home' for 3 years with my kids and I find it very insulting when parents say they would 'go crazy' if they couldn't go out to work. Life at home with kids is what you make it - a walk in the park, visiting friends and new places, teaching your kids new things.
Karl Peters, UK
Stress trickles down on children. Please remember that, Mom and Dad.
'Stress' is relative. 60 years ago 'stress' would have been the possibility of a large bomb falling on your head at any moment. I hardly think that being late for the child minder in the morning falls in the same category. Most of this 'stress' is self-induced.
Having both parents working is not always about 'our materialistic society.' I should imagine that for some families, two incomes means food, heat and a roof.
There are two beliefs ingrained into our psyche: first, that housework is "woman's work". This is a destructive belief, and it undermines women. The second is that men should go out to work. This is a very positive belief which allows children's needs to be met. Please, let us not throw the baby out with the bath water. Women cannot be expected to work full-time AND raise their family, which is what is expected of them, ironically, by today's "feminist" society.
John B, UK
I'm single and not a parent. It feels like my job is too much and I certainly couldn't handle any other responsibility on top of it. Parents who work must be really stressed out. One of the less tolerable features of our modern society is the assumption by the state, mortgage companies, estate agents and employers that both parents will go to work in order to put a roof over the family's head. This is reflected in the ratio of house prices to earnings. You need a double income just to have a home, and that's before you've fed and clothed any offspring.
As a father who leaves home at 4.30am to travel to work and often does not get home until after 7pm, I feel that I'm not giving my young daughter all the help and support that she needs. In my case I earn just enough for my wife to be able to stay at home, but the vast majority of people can't afford to do that. I think that the Government must decide just how important an issue this is and adjust their tax strategy accordingly.
John Ellis, UK
I always feel that the stress of long hours and a hectic lifestyle is exacerbated by a transport system that makes the journey home into a real fight every night. Hardly conducive to arriving home in a family mood.
My wife chose not to return to work in order to provide the best upbringing for our children (now 6 and 3) In her view, this life is no less stressful than being at work, and sometimes less so! It's certainly more boring, often less satisfying and the social status attached is considerably lower. She wants empathy and understanding rather than extra government money, though the opportunity cost of giving up work would leave many families below the breadline. Perhaps an extension of maternity pay to allow women to take a career break?
Only mothers are suffering are they?
Fathers Day is just around the corner, and came into being because an American lady, Sonora Smart Dodd, having been raised by her father, realised how much he had done for her, and that fathers should be given more recognition.
The day was officially recognised by President Lyndon Johnson.
I suggest that there are many more fathers out there who do carry their weight supporting their family properly, but they don't make the news.
It should be teamwork folks!
My mum stopped work for the years before I started school, which I firmly believe was an important factor in my subsequent development (I am now at Cambridge University). My Dad was able to arrange his schedule to allow him to take care of me on occasions when I was at home once Mum had restarted work. I realise that I am very lucky to have had such a childhood, and am definitely in the minority, but I think employers and the Government should do their best to allow more families to do the same.
Jane Ellis, England
Both myself and my wife work full-time. We have two children, aged 8 and 4 and we have just found out that we have another one on the way! My wife works 6am to 2pm Monday to Friday and it is very hard going for both of us. The thing is that we are used to two salaries coming in, so my wife feels that she is stuck. If she could give up work to become a full-time mum, she would resign today!
It's a shame that the problems faced by some parents are being expressed as a woman's problem.
However, a survey among readers of a women's health magazine is likely to be skewed because the sample is made exclusively of women interested in their health (note: no male parents).
Stress is not confined to parents. Those of us who get left to do the extra work and pay for the extra child-related benefits also feel stress. It's my choice not to have children but parents also choose too.
It is interesting that only mothers of
young children are mentioned. What
of other working carers? Caring for a
severely disabled parent/ sibling is as
stressful, whilst working full-time which
I have to do as there is only me to
support myself and disabled relative.
Emptying a commode is the same as
potty-emptying. It is harder to pick up
and comfort an adult who falls. The
carers of adults are usually much older
than those with young children. And
don't forget - the children will grow up
- our relatives can't grow new bodies.
Don't neglect us just because we don't
Elesa Artrey, England
It's simple. Think very carefully before you have children. If you think you will be unable to cope with the pressure of work and family, don't have children unless one of the parents can afford to stay off work. People should remember that children are a lifestyle choice and if you want something really badly you may have to make sacrifices for it.
No professional child minder, psychologist, care centre, kindergarten, crèche etc, can replace Mum. It's terribly un-PC; frightfully old fashioned, unexcitingly traditional, but nevertheless true.
Only women are suffering stress..that's good to hear. Men too are suffering the same balancing act of kids, home and work not to mention being the punchbag for their stressed out wives.
We live in a materialist society where few parents can provide what they and their children want (as opposed to need) on a single wage. Of course women get stressed out having to raise a family and work but to those people who advocate paying mothers to stay at home - where exactly will the money for this come from?
13 Jun 01 | UK
Working mothers 'stretched to limit'
12 Jun 01 | Education
Fathers help pupils achieve
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