http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/01/babies-dont-suffer-working-mothers
Well stone me! What really matters is giving attention to Baby’s needs. Don’t worry working mums, just take a deep breath when you get home and pat attention to your kiddies! At last we know for sure that not treating your kids like rot after a hard day’s thieving, boozing and drugs is not the problem and that locking your kids crying in a room or letting them wander the streets in nappies is wrong! Decent people who give a damn produce decent offspring.
We could never guess at such amazing results could we, standing behind the buggy-brigade dole blodgers, trying to get stamps in the Post Office and seeing their joyless kids, squawking away getting no attention.
Why are we not researching trying to save the poor sods in the druggie-buggies?
Allcoppedout's Blog 
“Why are we not researching trying to save the poor sods in the druggie-buggies?”
Because we know what it would cost – in both money, and in the abandonment of the agenda we’ve been pushing for the last 40 years?
All true…
Indeed all true – the vastly expensive evaluation of Sure Start being a case in point.
The key factor in the research article is GOOD childcare, usually only affordable by women in well paid jobs, or those who have a relative who helps to raise the child in the mother’s absence. Babies need and want their mums.
You clearly know very little about babies! They CRY.
That is what they do, often. Either because they are hungry, and a mother can’t really feed a child whilst waiting to get stamps from the Post Office, before going home. Could she? When babies cry, they are exercising and developing their lung capacity!
But you can always count on the interfering nosy busy bodies to pass comment, because a baby IS crying, as if to imply that the mother isn’t looking after the baby.
Babies CRY when they have a tooth coming through, and can keep its parents awake at night regularly for over TWO YEARS, whilst getting teeth through. No amount of love, confort, care, nappy changes, food and drink will stop a baby crying sometimes. Babies CRY for attention because they perhaps don’t want to be in a buggy whilst their mother does the food shopping! You try holding down a job whilst raising an energy and time demanding baby who disturbs YOUR SLEEP night after night, for years on end!
Are you seriously expecting all mothers to be superwomen, who raise perfect little robots who never cry? Get real.
One aspect of a baby’s well being and development the newspaper article didn’t cover, was its emotional development and well being. Babies, by their very nature NEED their mothers close by, especially for the first few years of their lives. Although many mothers do like to work part time to avoid “four wall itis and brain rot”.
It is LOVE that makes the difference to how a child turns out as an adult, and the love of the mother is vital, special and cannot be substituted by someone who is paid to babysit and give the child “attention”.
The whole concept of “working mothers” has de-valued the important role a mother plays in raising a baby into a child, teenager and healthy adult. It’s not an easy job.
Why some people assume that they have the right to pass judgement on a mother, just because her baby is crying in public, indicates a narrow mind and intolerance of others.
There is no way that the government and its agencies can ensure that ALL children have “perfect lives”. Ludicrous.
One size DOES NOT “fit all”.
You should remember that one size does not fit all in some of your reactions Mrs.Magoo. You miss the point here altogether – though what you say is nearly all true.
Again, with all due respect to you, I have not missed the point at all, and what I stated was ALL true.
The article in your link is a “salve” for the mothers who go back to work when their babies are only a few months old. They tend to feel guilt about doing that, and their kids do suffer, and do not do so well in schools, nor socially and re behaviour as they grow up. That is true.
The Mail also did an article on this issue, but put it better than the guardian. A great deal of research has been done over decades, that has confirmed the importance of the role of mothers in the well being and development of children. Babies and children deprived of close contact with their mothers, because they are too busy working to earn money, do less well than the children of stay at home mothers.
You made an objection about mums with crying babies in buggies, and that they were on benefits. I can understand that some people may object to young unmarried mums having the kids in the first place, and they often judge them quite harshly. The poor [females]have always been the object of scorn and contempt. Some of it may be deserved, but I have always felt that a “live and let live” attitude works best, and also “there but for the grace of God”…… Rather compassion and tolerance for those less fortunate than ourselves, than harsh words and treatment. Those mums with crying kids in buggies, in the post office, may be very good mothers who love and care for their babies. Who is anyone to judge them just because a baby is crying in its buggy? That’s the point.
I begrudge more the bankers who exploit their customers and who make vast profits and bonus’s than I do the single mums who receive a breadline allowance to keep them and their child alive. Those kids will be the workers of the future, if they are given a reasonable start in life. Mothers with babies need help and support.
You do miss the point entirely – again. There is a joylessness amongst these kids and the problem is we are still not getting help where it is needed. It’s not about a few kids crying as kids do. The facts are frightening with a large proportion of kids not getting what they need ‘in family’. What you are saying is nice stuff, but it’s often used as an excuse to evade the real problems of neglect.
There is unhappiness within a great many children ACO, often from well off two parent families, who are too busy making money and keeping their homes looking perfect, that they do not know how to, or often don’t have the time to give their kids all the love and attention they quite clearly need. That too is emotional “neglect”.
I have come across a number of dysfunctional kids from what those in the government systems would regard, in their tick box manner, to be “good” families/parents.
Tears from one in particular, who used to play with my kids, and cause chaos and damage in my home, and with a bad attitude that my own kids picked up from the “friend”.
That child was looked after mostly by a grandmother from being a baby, because the mother went back to work very quickly after the birth, and worked nights. That child would have rather had the mother’s time and full attention, than the higher standard of living the working mother provided. The irony was, that the mother considered herself to be a better person than myself, and some sort of “expert” on children, never having fully raised her own, sole child! I raised three, alone.
Some kids from poorer homes may well be unhappy at times, but that IS life. It is the human condition and no amount of research into what may appear as “neglect”, is going to change every child’s life into one of perection. Some are just born with a negative attitude and will never be satisfied, no matter how much love and attention they get.
There are increasing numbers of so called “feminists” and working mums, who thought that they could “have it all”. The nice home, all the trappings and trimmings, the cars, the foreign holidays, the designer clothes etc, oh yes and the perfect kids…..only to find out that they are not superwoman, and that something ALWAYS suffers.
That normally turns out to be the quality of time and attention given to their children, and/or their husbands.
Well off, working parents can, without realising the fact, neglect the emotional needs of their kids, whilst looking down their noses at mums who do not go out to work. [In addition to raising their kids.] The “neglect” of kids in poorer families can also be emotional, as well as physical neglect, because the parent has become ground down by poverty and struggle. A tough life can actually be character building you know – sink or swim.
Life isn’t perfect, so what exactly is the point you assume I have failed to grasp? Other than perhaps your attempts to have a pop at mothers, or myself personally!
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