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Grandmothers are concerned that their daughters are facing too many pressures when they become mothers, according to research. 
Professor Rachel Thomson, co-director of The Making of Modern Motherhood report, said motherhood between the 1950s and 1970s was “taken for granted” and women “just got on with it”. 
She found that grandmothers were concerned that their daughters were facing too many pressures which turned mothering into a competition and made them feel unconfident about their ability to be good parents. 
They felt that the pressure to stimulate their children through extra-curricular activities, to be up to date with research on parenting and health and to balance work and life made children very demanding and mothers’ lives very intensive. 
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Employers back flexible working 
Some 86% of employers offer flexible working to staff, according to a survey by the Institute of Directors and disability insurer Unum. 
Some 76% of employers who offered flexible working offered it to all staff, the research - due to be published later in the year - found. Some 73% of directors also worked flexibly and a large 93% of employers said they would offer flexible working regardless of legislation in this area. 
The research did, however, highlight some barriers to flexible working, including lack of trust by managers and lack of knowledge at board level of how flexible working works. 
A separate poll by the National Association of Pension Funds found that women rated flexible working as the top benefit offered by companies, above pensions. 
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US parents encouraged to bring babies to work 
American parents are increasingly being encouraged by their employers to bring their newborn babies into work. 
The trend has arisen due to restrictions on maternity leave. The babies are usually allowed to stay in the office until they start crawling and parents are expected to sign waivers so the employer is not held responsible for anything that happens to the baby in the office. 
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Doctor warns of too many women in the professionA doctor’s leader warned of a crisis in medicine because too many women are coming into the profession. 
Dr Brian McKinstry, a senior research fellow at Edinburgh University, said women were more likely to work flexible hours and having an imbalance of them in the medical profession could result in lack of continuity of care for patients, fewer surgeons [whose jobs are not deemed as family friendly as others in the medical profession], less research being carried out and earlier retirement for doctors. 
Writing in the British Medical Journal, he said: "This unequal distribution means some specialities feel the implications of part-time working and maternity leave, such as lack of continuity of care and resource use, disproportionately.” 
Dr McKinstry said part of the problem was that women were still expected to be the primary carers in the home. Other doctors argued that the influx of women doctors showed the need for the profession to think more creatively about managing flexible working. 
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