Very sad...

[Fuschia]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6732389.ece

"The idea that women are not aiming high enough is outdated. As one terrible tragedy showed this week, balance is all"

[hpsaucey]

I saw this as well and cried! I've been there - with a prolonged spell of pre/post depression after baby number one. Luckily I eventually got some help. I know how easy it is NOT to get help - somehow you just don't think about it as you're too busy feeling you are going mad and trying to hold it all together at the same time - so can empathise with this poor mother.

I'd beg anyone who thinks they may be at all depressed/down before or after having their baby to talk to someone. Hopefully it will 'just' be baby blues and disappear quite quickly but good to have it checked out so you can keep an eye on it and your loved ones can give you support and some TLC! There's so much help out there that tragedies like the one in the Times article can hopefully often be avoided.

[Mellors]

Interesting indeed, and very true. I often feel guilty about trying to combine being a good mummy and holding down a job as a City lawyer (albeit 3 days a week post children, although the relaity is a full weeks worth of hours for 3 days pay). I worry about whether I am damaging my children by working, or damaging my career by working only part time.

When I was little ( in the 70s) I was always told I could do whatever I wanted career-wise if I worked hard enough. This was by my mother who had never had a career. I assume thats why she missed about the bit about how ruddy impossible it would be to try and do it and have two small children though (and she still has no sympathy for me lol).

Us mothers can never win, it seems!

[Mellors]

I can also recommend seeing a sympathetic doctor and getting antidepressants or other help if you feel its all out of control. "Mummies Little Helpers" were a godsend/lifeline to me when things were at their worst. Poor woman.

[R&A]

I'm about to become a first time mum and i work full time in the city as an investment manager.

I am the main bread winner by some margin, and this 'covers the mortgage' but not much else.

why is it that the men don't step up and help? Or do they and the woman don't let them help?

I just don't get it.

I don't understand why these woman seem to end up doing EVERYTHING

At 5 months pregnant i'm very scared and losing sleep over this very issue

I feel like i have chosen this path of career-self distruction and sometimes feel stupid for doing it 'too early' at 31yrs...

My sister (a pathologist) is at breaking point after her third child.

for her 2008 christmas present from her husband (who is incredibly very hands on) she asked that he 'take care of all the house bills'... As her christmas present???

[Mellors]

In my case I was silly enough to marry somebody who also works as a City lawyer. Only working 60 hours a week would be a miracle for him.....

There is definitely something inbuilt that makes us want to do everything for the children though even though the chaps could do it, maybe its that "mothering instinct" thing. I have to bite my tongue to stop myself telling him how to do it (my way) or stepping in and taking over.

The only thing I have tried to do is get as much help as we can afford as we have no family to help - a nanny, cleaner, and bon3yard off here who delivered meals when baby 2 was newborn. A network of good mummy friends is priceless as well.

Its tough, no doubt about it.

[Polmoche]

>

> why is it that the men don't step up and help? Or

> do they and the woman don't let them help?

> I just don't get it.

> I don't understand why these woman seem to end up

> doing EVERYTHING

>

> At 5 months pregnant i'm very scared and losing

> sleep over this very issue

> I feel like i have chosen this path of career-self

> distruction and sometimes feel stupid for doing it

> 'too early' at 31yrs...

Better discuss this now before the baby comes, bc you won't have time to properly discuss once s/he arrives!

[The Nappy Lady]

As many of you know I am really not a career woman, and I do appreciate that how I feel isn't the case for all women, but seriously I am not convinced that our so called emancipation is as good thing as it first appears. Of course the world had to change, but not everything it has brought is good....house prices could never have got so high if only one half of a couple was earning money, there would be twice as many jobs out there, and we wouldn't be under the huge pressure we now are to try to be a breadwinner, a mother, run a home etc. etc. Having said all that, if I was chained to the kitchen sink, without the freedom to choose, I'm sure I'd be the first one to by trying to burn my bra. Call my a hypocrite if you wish, I put my hand up to it.

I often lie in bed thinking about all I have to do and it is like Tetris blocks coming down one after the other, I keep clearing 1 or 2 rows at the bottom, but they keep on falling down and piling up on top. It is often a case of clinging on by my finger tips..the only good thing is that having a 5 year old I do know that in 3 or 4 years time it is going to get a lot easier, and when both are at school I'll be able to get back out there and start earning more money again.

It is strangely comforting to know I'm not alone in feeling this pressure. I always wanted to be at home with children, I never realised that with that would come a constant worry about money, and that is hard.

R&A I do feel for you...I was never the main breadwinner, and that really must be so scary. All I can say is that things do always seem to work out one way or another so don't lose hope. Will you get decent maternity leave? If you can have the first 9 to 12 months at home with baby before going back to work I think that is really important.

Molly

x

[hpsaucey]

Second Molly's suggestion about taking as much maternity leave as you can afford to. It's not just for your child's benefit but for your physical and mental health as well. You don't get too many chances to do this. DON'T be /feel pressured into going back earlier/more than you really want to (again speaking from experience and from that of many friends). Also agree about things somehow always working out, although sometimes I do wonder how!

[Moos]

The Nappy Lady Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> As many of you know I am really not a career

> woman, and I do appreciate that how I feel isn't

> the case for all women..

You're darned right it isn't.

Were you really suggesting that with women not working not so many men would be unemployed?

That kind of comment from an intelligent woman makes me want to go back to bed and hide.

[The Nappy Lady]

I know Moos, I did follow it up by saying I'd be the first to stomp my feet if I couldn't have the choice to work. I was really just trying to say that change often brings both good and bad.

Now men and women both work we have got used to living off 2 incomes, and that has had all kind of repurcussions.

No offence intended, I was just looking at it from a numbers point of view and not putting any greater thought into it (which I should have done). That's what you get for posting in haste between doing 10 other jobs.

Molly

[The Nappy Lady]

Moos Wrote:

> That kind of comment from an intelligent woman

> makes me want to go back to bed and hide.

But thanks for implying I am an intelligent womean :)) I think in reality my brain vacated the premises long ago.

[Moos]

Molly, I know what you mean about posting in haste, I've done it before many times!

I do agree the changes in the role of women (and the corresponding changes for men too) have brought downsides as well as upsides, it is inevitable that change brings turbulence and disadvantage for some which one hopes is outweighed by advantages for many. I just don't believe that 'the numbers' point to working women being responsible for inflation in house prices, and unemployment. If you can prove me wrong, then I would be genuinely interested to hear it.

To me, being able to work and be a mother feels more like a huge privilege than a chore, though chore it sometimes is too. I know lots of women who would love to be able to work and earn outside the home, and lots of other women who would love to be mothers. I also appreciate that this is the privilege of the professional woman, and that a woman who works several horrible jobs to bring home enough money just to feed her kids is not at all in the same position. But I truly feel that when you can find balance, usually with the help of a partner, then it really is a great position to be in.

Aaanyway. Better get back to what I'm actually being paid to do, ahem.

[The Nappy Lady]

Fair points.

What I should have originally posted was simply that the woman's right to choose, in some cases is not a choice at all. I know loads of women who HAVE to go back to work after having babies...there is no choice in the matter at all, and that makes me sad.

[antijen]

I also know many women nappy lady who have had no incentive to go back to work, women who have went back and ended off having to leave due to getting into debt, and many who still recieve benefits whilst working. I worry about the amount of men over the last couple of years who have killed themselves and there children, I do not have the numbers, and realise this is a different scenario but none the less very worrying. I do not believe this terrible thing thats happened, is only related to a career, yes in this case maybe, but whether you are working or not, people, as has been said many times before on this forum, feel entrapped by standards they find impossible to live by.

[The Nappy Lady]

Too true antijen. I was thinking about that poor lawyer lady whose story started this thread earlier as I cleaned my floors whilst baby was napping, and thinking how awful it was. I guess we will never truly know what led her to do what she did. Poor woman.

[sanity girl]

I was just musing this morning about how much I would like to work part-time so I could spend more time with my 2 year old daughter who thankfully is mostly looked after by her grandparents. I currently work full time, admittedly pretty good hours, 9-5 and only a 20 minute walk to work. However, unless I had a very rich partner (I don't, he earns less than me), there is no way that I could afford it. Then I think back to my parents' sitatuion when I was a toddler - they had two young children, my dad was studying part-time so my mum was the main bread-winner (teaching at a poly, so not fantastically well paid), and they were still able to buy a four bedroom house in woodwarde road! Can you imagine that happening now? I think the majority of working mums don't have the luxury of aiming for balance - the cost of living and especially property prices and rent force them to work when they might not otherwise.

[Jessie]

I don't think you can over estimate the importance good employers can make to the working mother. The week I've had and the battle I have on my hands with my bosses makes me really wish I had more choices than this! How I long for a sympathetic boss. I can see how the stress of working and mothering can have a major impact on a woman's psychological well-being.

[hpsaucey]

Well said Jessie. Hope next week is better!!!

[Pugwash]

Having always been a working mum - went back to work after baby No 1 6 weeks after birth, but was lucky to have a relative recently retired who loved having my daughter full time.

Baby number 2 was 13 years later, went back to work 5 months after birth but was prepared to take upto a year off but managed to get a place in my workplace nursery in Westminster. When she was about a year old, changed to a different work place nursery in Peckham - I started work later so dropped her off on my way to work ( Westminster then Tower Hamlets), hubby collected as he finished an hour earlier than me.

I too was the main breadwinner, hubby has a disability and could be off sick for several months, plus a mortgage.

My girls are now 23 and 36 and I am still the main breadwinner with a mortgage. My employers offer flexible working, working from home, compressed hours and job sharing and we have staff working between 8 am - 6 pm on flexible start times.

It would be worth looking at the possibility of any of the above ideas of working, parents have the right to request a variation in their working hours if they have young children and employers must consider their request seriously and put in writing if they refuse such request.

[plimsoul]

maybe i should have asked about feminism on this thread rather than starting the new one. i find it interesting that we are in general (women and mothers this is) left responsible for the household, the family decisions (in the main) and finally have to work too. i thought the idea of feminism was to allow women to chose, whereas i'm not convinced that choice exists at all.

i thought that maybe with the recession more opportunities to job share and work part time would present themselves and in turn help fight against the work place which is rarely helpful towards motherhood. but so far i have read or heard nothing that makes me believe that as women we are still expected to fit in around everyone else.

[Polmoche]

Having a choice and having a work/life balance is all a myth. There is no such thing. It's all compromise at the end of the day, and some are better than others, worse than others, things you're forced into because of circumstances. If you ask most men, I bet they would say they have NO CHOICE either, ie. they are forced to go to work to earn money for their families, and that goes for the ones that don't earn as much for their wives too. Back to the original thread though, what is so depressing about this story is how much this woman has been "blamed" for her "ambition." It's not enough to think that post-partum depression is enough of a killer in its own right, no she was being greedy thinking she could have three children plus a well-paid job. And as for the response about women working helping drive up house prices, where does one even start???

[mumum]

I don?t understand this article. Is it saying that the girls of today and future?s women should choose different careers, like being a stewardess instead of being a lawyer, so they can have less work pressure, not kill themselves and be better mothers? Are the girls performing too well at school and too clued up for their own good? I am not sure if I am in a timewarp from the 50?s here or what. The logic surely is that if the boys are so clueless, why not teach the boys a lesson about the responsibilities of parenthood and a bit of basic hoovering then? From a young age, please! That will put everything back on track and hopefully in the future women in the UK won?t feel so stressed out. Parenting is both mom and dads job! I am a working mom and the whole debate about SAHM moms and working moms in this country has undermined my confidence so much and given me so much stress in itself about being a bad mom, and bad worker, and an unfeminine scruffy potato who never has a shower, and it makes me wonder why no man has to endure all this? When a woman becomes a mother, a man becomes a Dad surely. After much thought and taking a long break with my child, I don?t necessarily think it is the answer for her that I totally give up work and sacrifice my visions. You can't just take someone?s dream away, including mothers, they are still valid humans with ideas in their heads.

Visiting Scandinavia, I am ashamed of how backward the UK seems. In Scandinavian countries, people leave work around 4. The men too. If you work later than that, you have to be paid overtime, so a lateworking person seems wastefull and would be very unpopular with the boss. People just manage their time at work much better, and as a working mom, I know for sure, you can do the same amount of work in 4 shortish days as in 5 long days. In Sweden f.ex., you get one year full paid maternity leave, that you can use at any point while the child is growing up, plus the dad gets several months only allocated for him (his choice if he wants to take it). After that you pay about 100? a month for full time childcare, and you can use as little or much of it as you want(in a clean lovely nursery with lovely outdoor space). There is no debate whatsoever about if mom should work or not. All women go back to work, admittedly a lot of them change their careers to work less hours, but they still get to benefit from having a life outside their house and earning an income. And the man benefits from not having to carry the responsibility of feeding his family solely on his shoulders, and can spend more time with the kids too. Children need their Dad around too. I can add that the Scandinavian countries are doing well in the recession with very low unemployment rates at least in Denmark.

So instead of critizising each others ambitions whatever they are, to work or stay at home, it would be much better first of all to critizise the appaling working conditions in the UK for both men and women, with kids or not. It is also important to respect different people?s life choices, as in if someone can afford and chooses not to work, regardless if that person is a mother or not, that is totally understandable!

[millie42]

I agree with pretty much all of the above and think we can learn many lessons from the danish model.

Men should recognise the importance of and work involved in caring for our children but it is really up to us to instil this appreciation through how we treat our partners and young sons! If we are lucky this may have been done by their mothers!

I have many friends who moan about the lack of help that they get from their parents and yet they pretty much wait on them and treat them like demi-gods.

Please don't think I am criticising the role of the traditional mother in our society. My mum stayed at home with us and was extreemly happy doing it and I have friends who love being SAHM and their family roles work really well for them.

If we make it clear that parenting is a role requiring both parents pulling their weight (and I don't mean the man simply bringing in the money) womens roles would be much easier.

Howver if we want men to pull their weight more, they can and will and its up to us to ensure they do.After all we all know they are pretty simple souls (albeit with a tendency towards laziness).

Apologies for the feminist rant.

M

[Fuschia]

My partner is extremely domesticated (just as well, with two babies) and works for a family friendly employer, as do I. Yet I find when a child is ill, I do feel that it's me they want and I should be the one to take taime off! It does get easier to share the load as they get older, but it's hard with babies and toddlers...