What my daughter thinks about having a working mum: a breakfast interview
Posted by Kate on Jun 21, 2012
A couple of days ago, Cherie Blair made a speech to a group of high-flying international business women in favour of board room quotas in which she recommended that women should be self-sufficient workers rather than stay-at-home mums. It’s been widely reported and discussed. Here’s one take on it.
Yesterday evening, I was one of two people commenting on the old working mums v. stay at home mums question on Channel 5 News. The piece was triggered by Cherie Blair’s comments and the reaction to them. The other woman speaking was Charlotte Vere, founder of Women On. In a four-minute slot, feeling nervous (and with no media training!), I found that it was pretty impossible to say anything meaningful. Essentially, the boringly non-extreme view that I rather inarticulately tried to express is that women should be free to choose whether to work, to stay at home, or (and we’ve written about this in this blog post) do a mix of the two. Their choices shouldn’t be criticised, or, particularly, celebrated. Women are different from one another, and children are different from one another too.
I might get round to a longer blog post about my own views and experiences, but my 11 year-old daughter and I were taking about the broadcast (which she didn’t see: she was outside playing with friends) later last night. I was asked on the programme because I’d won Mumpreneur’s Inspirational Business Mum of the Year award, and she has entrepreneurial aspirations of her own. I asked her to write a blog post, but she said she’d rather I wrote down what she said in answer to questions. So here’s a transcription of what she said over breakfast this morning.
K: What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of having a mum who works full time?
C: I’d say that the advantages are that I am more reliant on myself and I have the more relaxed parent (dad) around more. And it means that the family has more money so that we can live where we live and we don’t have to worry too much about money. It gives me an image of hard work that shows that if you are hard-working you’ll do better than if you’re not.
The disadvantages are that sometimes when I was younger I did want to see you more. And now you seem happy where you are, but even though I was young, I could still tell that you weren’t as happy at work before as you are now. Other mums spent lots of time at school, but I didn’t ever really want that. A disadvantage of having a hard-working mum is that occasionally when you come back from work you are tired or in a bit of a temper.
K: Right now, you’re quite interested in the idea of setting up a business of your own when you are an adult. What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a mum who’s the boss of a business she’s started up?
C: The things make me want to go into business myself are watching The Apprentice; hearing things about really successful business people and companies like Bill Gates or Apple; and watching you make your own business. If you watch The Apprentice, it gives children who watch it the impression that you can start a business in about ten weeks and you’ll have £250,000 of investment. Since I’ve only really heard about Apple in the past two years, I used to think that it had become a success as soon as it was started up. What children don’t hear about is the struggles the business went through. I know now that Apple could have gone bust unless Bill Gates saved them with his investment.
The advantage and disadvantage of having a mum who’s a business person is seeing how hard it is to grow a business. It’s an advantage because it gives me an insight into how to start a business if that’s what I still want to do when I’m older. So for example I remember when you were trying to get the investment and you decided to choose people who you really trusted and who you knew well instead of other people you hadn’t worked with and didn’t know so well even though you could maybe have got more money. I see the way you have to negotiate with other businesses, like when you and another company are bidding for a book and negotiating with an agent, as well as seeing you choosing between companies when you were choosing who to sell rights to. So I see what it’s really like. The disadvantage is that after watching The Apprentice and hearing about really successful businesses, watching your business makes me sort of crash down to earth, because the reality is that it’s not fast, and it isn’t glamorous and you don’t get rich quick. But the bottom line is I’d rather be happy than have lots of money.
K: Cherie Blair said that she talks to young women who say they’d like to marry a rich man, rather than having a job or a career. What do you think about that?
C: I think that I’d rather be the one in a family to provide the bulk of the family earnings because it would make me feel secure knowing that if anything did happen to me and my partner, I’d still be able to support my kids and let them and myself live the life that we are used to knowing. If I had enough money, I’d probably have to get childcare, because I’d like to marry someone I am suited to and I wouldn’t be suited to somebody lazy: I would like to marry someone who worked too. I wouldn’t want to sit at home not working because I would get too bored and I wouldn’t want to marry someone who wanted to sit at home either. But I would also like to marry somebody who would share the responsibilities of bringing up children.
Recently, I was discussing marriage with one of my friends and she said that she’d like to marry someone rich and she hoped she loved him too. And it’s similar to what I said earlier when I said that I’d rather be happy than have lots of money: I’d rather love somebody even if they had no money than be with a person I didn’t love even if he was rich.
K: When you think about being a grown-up, what do you think your life might be like?
C: Right now, when I look at what I want my future to be, I think that I want to find a way to combine running my own business and successfully bringing up a child or children. I haven’t been completely brought up yet, but when I am older I think I will think that I have been brought up successfully, so that’s what makes me think that combining running a business and bringing up a family is possible.
Comments (13)
That’s a lovely interview. What a thoughtful person your daughter is! In fairness, re disadvantages of having a working Mum, I think I should tell your daughter that stay at homes Mums can be tired and in bad tempers too! Days at home can be as frustrating as days at the office, and I’m sure I have been as bad tempered to my children as any ‘working’ Mum.
I do find that if p/t work outside the home, or my writing at home is going well, then I feel much happier for the rest of the time, and that though looking after 4 children born in just over 3 years was completely engaging on all fronts whilst they were little, as they have got older I find I need more ‘other work’ for myself to do as well.
I think it’s important for those of us who have mainly been at home to be able to have some other areas of interest as children get older, as if you only get your self -worth from looking after your children, wonderful as they are – there must be a temptation to sabotage their eventual independence if you don’t have another ‘string to your bow’. I don’t want to fear them becoming independent of me, as that’s not good for them or me. All Mums need to feel they have another identity apart from childcare, or they will fear disappearing when their children leave home!
So, to sum up – a wonderful interview with an obviously well adjusted and thoughtful daughter of a goes out to work Mum, appreciated by a stay-at-home one! Just shows women have more in common than some debates would imply…
Anne Booth Thursday June 21, 2012 #
How interesting !!
As starting a new business on my own, I often wonder how my kids feel about having a working mum…
Thanks a lot for sharing this interview ! It proves that you did a great job as a mother :)
-Vanessa.
Vanessa Kaplan Thursday June 21, 2012 #
Hi,
Great post, lovely interview.
This is a subject that is tender for me. I’m a stay-at-home mum. This was not my choice but was imposed on me. I was intending on returning to work, but my first child’s health issues meant I had to stay at home to care for her. Then when number two came along it was me with health and mobility problems, so that meant more delays returning to work.
I am however grateful to have had the time with my children, but I was NEVER idle. I worked for charities, managed a house build and wrote a book (which was honorary mentioned in Undiscovered Voices). However if anyone asked what I do and I say I’m a stay-at-home mum, people pigeon hole me and walk away!
I think what type of mum/parent you are is down to circumstances, choice and what works for your family, and therefore should be respected.
Sally Poyton Thursday June 21, 2012 #
Thanks, Sally, Vanessa and Anne, for commenting.
Sally, your comment felt really relevant, and I had prepared something to say about the fact that you’ve often no idea what your child’s requirements will be before you have that child. I know women who have had children with complex needs that have meant that they have had to completely reassess their lives and their plans. But I am afraid that I didn’t get to say it.
It was, though, as it happens, in the context of saying that, for those of us who are lucky enough to have healthy children without special needs, the intensive part of our job as a parent is done within, for most of us, about two decades, and, if we’re women privileged to live in the West, we have a life expectancy of 80+ years. That means that 30 to 40 years of our lives will be after our (healthy and without special needs) children have, if we’ve been successful parents, left home. Women who choose to take time out can re-engage with the world of work at lots of different points, but I do know women who find themselves lacking in skills and confidence having taken a lot of time out with children, and I know women who have come back slightly sooner than they might have chosen to in order not to lose the momentum of their career.
Kate Wilson Thursday June 21, 2012 #
Great interview, glad I found this article view twitter. I’m a work from home mum & I just hope you pointed out to your daughter that any parent who stays home with their kids is certainly not sitting around & being bored (or boring, as that statement makes it sound).
All hail the well-balanced view, in 11yr olds and at every age!
Molly Thursday June 21, 2012 #
Hello, Molly. Thanks for commenting. I didn’t actually say anything to C. about her comments at the time. I wanted this to be her comments in her voice, rather than a discussion. I certainly don’t think that looking after children, or combining working at home an looking after children means you’re bored or boring. I have to acknowledge that there’s every chance that my own decisions to work full time have impacted on her opinions: she hasn’t been close to someone who’s made that choice. I must say, though, I felt relieved that, at this age, at least, she doesn’t perceive the choices I’ve made as being ones she’d absolutely avoid!
Kate Wilson Thursday June 21, 2012 #
Hi Molly, I’m Kate’s daughter. When I said that I wouldn’t like to sit at home all day, that was my personal preference, I fully respect and understand that some woman prefer to work at home and others prefer to work in a corporate environment. And I also realise that working from home or looking after children can be just as challenging as running a business.
C. Wilson Thursday June 21, 2012 #
Thanks Kate and your daughter for this post. I am a working mum (also in publishing) with two daughters. It has prompted a discussion this evening with my 9 year old as I have recently been thinking about what my girls think of me working and what impact it might have on their future choices. I grew up with a stay at home mother and I often worry about how my children might be feeling and hadn’t spent much timing thinking about the positive aspects of having a working mother.
I realise that you didn’t imply this in your blog, but for many mothers including me there is no choice either to stay at home or to work. Financially for many of us working is necessary and so I feel very lucky to have found a career that I also find incredibly satisfying.
Thanks again. PS We love Olivia’s First Term and Olivia Flies High
Harriet Bayly Thursday June 21, 2012 #
I’m Kate’s other daughter (I'm 13) – and I’m uncertain as to why this isn’t an issue being debated regarding fathers. There is a huge discrepancy between maternity (6+ months) and paternity leave (6 weeks), when fathers are equally capable of caring for children, and might prevent gender stereotyping and wariness of male authority figures in later life if it was more widely publicised as being ‘socially acceptable’ for the father to stay at home. I’ve seen studies of primates which have been falsely used to insinuate the role of females as mothers hardwired only to devote themselves to their children, but in a constantly-changing society it doesn’t make sense to accept these as gospel. Obviously, I’m not suggesting that it’s detrimental to the child’s development and the development of the mother/child relationship if the mother stays at home: that’s completely dependent on the individual family dynamic, and I can completely see the benefits of that arrangement. But I do think fathers should be considered as parts of the equation, and not just the shadowy figure who gives a peck on the cheek to his child every evening!
F. Wilson Thursday June 21, 2012 #
Others have pointed out how intelligent and articulate C. is, and I don’t want to gild the lily but I have to admit I find both of the girls startlingly mature and balanced. Many people in their twenties can’t boast of this sense of maturity and clarity of vision.
“when I am older I think I will think that I have been brought up successfully”
I think so too. :)
Imola Unger Thursday June 21, 2012 #
“and I’m uncertain as to why this isn’t an issue being debated regarding fathers”
Absolutely the whole framing of this debate, putting the onus on mothers to justify their decisions, seems very one-sided. The ideal scenario would be to have a mix of both depending on the child’s age, their requirements, and the availability of work. Different situations will suit different families, and as Kate says children are not all the same (thankfully), but whatever the solution in place it shouldn’t be down to one side to have to ‘defend’ what they are doing.
philip jones Monday June 25, 2012 #
I saw this quote from Dr Madeline Levine, author of a new book, Teach Your Children Well, which I thought might be relevant to this conversation:
She says that, by giving up your own life to devote it exclusively to your children, you are sending them a dangerous message:
“Yes, by all means go and watch some of the football games your child plays. But if you give up your interests and profession to watch all of them – or spend every evening double-checking their homework rather than going out with your friends or your spouse, what are you teaching your children?You’re saying that the moon and stars revolve around them and that you have no life as an adult.”
Kate Tuesday August 7, 2012 #
Great interview. It’s very difficult in this day and age from Mothers, children and whole families to earn and balance family life. It’s tough at the moment and there is not much help out there for families.
Blog by Andrew Reynolds Thursday August 16, 2012 #