Working mums paranoia
Will being a working mum [of course, working dads never enter the equation] damage your child? As yet another piece of research comes out, this time in working mums' favour, I am left cold. Will we look back on this era in another 20 to 40 years and wonder why we were so worried? Is it just a transition phase? Surely, surely, there are so many things that have the potential to damage a child when they are growing up? Parenting is such a complex business and each individual child reacts differently to different circumstances.
When I think back on my own childhood, the fact my mother worked when I was very young [but not when I was in primary school] seemed to me at the time and subsequently to have had very little impact. Much greater was the fact that my parents split up, my stepfather left, we moved house many, many times with all the related issues that brings. Some children react better than others to these things. What makes a child react better is highly complex and depends on circumstances, relationships [whether with parents, siblings, extended family, friends, teachers or others] and all manner of other things. It seems to me impossible to make any kind of blanket ruling on what "damages" a child. And, in the end, what might seem damaging can have its plus points. I certainly feel now that my upbringing has made for stronger ties, for instance, with my mum and brother and a greater appreciation of the people who count.
Moreover, I know stay-at-home mums who feel tense and depressed because they feel they have put all their eggs in one basket - motherhood - and are not enjoying it as much as the adverts or other mums seem to imply they should [I tire of the amount of mums who bang on about how "rewarding" being at home is. Maybe for them it is indeed all apple pie mumdom, but I doubt very much that they too do not have some moments of wanting to run away from the whole domestic thing as I do, usually around 6.30pm]. Surely this depression impacts on their kids? On the other hand, many working mums also feel a "failure" because they are overstretched. It very much depends on how you are as a person and that depends on a huge panoply of things, including how you yourself were parented and what your expectations are for yourself as a parent. Being a parent is one long personal therapy session...
On top of this is are practicalities such as the type of childcare you choose, how your child adapts to different types of childcare, the relationship between your child and the child carer and so forth. All in all, the whole parenting thing is so full of potential problems that it seems highly suspect that we focus so much attention on any one thing. Hopefully, as the numbers of women working rises we will move on from this paranoia about working and parenting and focus more on how to avoid making mums feel like failures whatever choice they make for whatever reasons they might make it.
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