Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Have it all? Do it all, more like

Another day, another childcare survey that may upset many mothers. "The first evidence of an end to the 'have-it-all' generation of women emerges today," reports The Times, with unmistakable glee in Nurseries feel pinch as mothers stay home.

You can almost hear the unspoken agenda:  "Greedy cows, thinking they can be mums and have paid jobs. This'll show 'em."

The so-called "evidence" of the end to greedy 'have-it-alls' is that almost a quarter of UK nursery places are vacant, as women take up their "right to request" part-time work after having a child.

According to the paper, one reason for the vacancies is that more women are staying at home longer to look after their children themselves, instead of putting them into nursery.

It says another reason is a government report warning that putting children in full-time nursery care can make them anti-social and anxious.

In fact, the real reason so many nursery places are empty has nothing to do with women seeing the light and repenting of their bad mothering. It’s a matter of simple maths. Available nursery places have nearly doubled since 2002, from 424,900 to 725,115, with demand overanticipated.

You could also argue that what the statistics actually tell us is that women don't aspire to "have it all" and never did. Empty nursery places could mean thoughtful employment legislation with more flexible working hours and longer maternity leave is beginning to take effect.

Now we've got the chance to stay at home longer, that's what many of us are doing. Only 7% of children in daycare are now under a year old. Women have, rightly, got better financial support in staying at home to look after their kids, and that's what many of us are choosing to do. We didn't go to work to "have it all”, we did it because our families needed the income.

To go by that phrase "have-it-all", you'd think a bunch of empty-headed fun-seekers in Ibiza had got their come-uppance. Anybody who's actually combined looking after a small child and working knows the lifestyle is far from hedonistic, it's demanding and unforgiving.

As a part-timer, which many working mothers are, you're on the margins, with less responsibility and poorer promotion prospects. Senior part-time jobs are like gold dust in many industries.

Of course, someone screwing up the estimates for nursery place numbers doesn’t make quite such a good story and The Times dwells instead on that government report into the evils of nursery care.

The paper says: "A government evaluation of nurseries found that toddlers spending more than seven hours a day in daycare were more likely to be bossy, tease other children, stamp their feet and get anxious when toys and refreshments were handed round." Hello? Have the authors ever been around small children? Has anyone ever met a toddler who didn’t fit that description?

The worst-behaved child I've ever met spent his first four years glued to the side of his overly doting mother, who honestly couldn't see that he (and she) needed help. This little terror never set foot in a nursery.

Relatives and friends used to avoid this little boy, they were so scared of him. Now he's at school and learning the hard way how to interact with others, with frequent detentions and threats of expulsion. It's a lesson he might have learnt sooner and more easily at nursery, among other people.

Funnily enough, newspapers don’t focus on that side of the story, possibly because it doesn’t have the “feel-bad” factor all mothering stories seem to need.

'Have-it-all' generation, indeed. 'Do-it-all', more like.

Posted 01 May 2007 10:42

Nursery Work

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