Mother Guilt got a workout this week, thanks largely to acclaimed children’s book author Mem Fox.
Ms Fox struck at the hearts of all working mums (and dads) when she said that putting children in child care was a form of child abuse.
‘’I know you want a child, and you have every right to want a child, but does the child want you if you are going to put it in child care at six weeks? I don’t think the child wants you, to tell the honest truth,’’ she said.
She surmised that in the future, we would look back on this era of outsourced nurturing and ‘’wonder how we allowed that child abuse to happen’’.
Oh dear. What unfortunate comments for someone of Ms Fox’s renown to make.
The very mothers who have cradled their children in their laps and lovingly read Mem Fox’s books to them (Possum Magic and Koala Lou among them) have now had their parenting choices questioned by her.
Ms Fox may well believe what she said. And few would disagree with the principle – you can’t beat a mother’s love.
But Ms Fox needs to recognise that she is a generation removed from the mothers of today and things are not the same as they used to be. For her to cast aspersions from afar is unfair.
Sure, some mothers work because they want to. Others work because they have to.
For her to dump on either group is unhelpful.
To be fair to Ms Fox, her comments were misconstrued by many who heard or read them.
Her essential argument was that putting babies into full time care from as young as six weeks was not in their best interests.
In Australia, about 20,000 babies under the age of one are in full-time care at any given time. Few would argue that that is not the optimum circumstance for a baby, particularly very young babies.
In an ideal world, mothers would be in a position, both financially and emotionally, to stay home with her children until they were of a pre-school age at least.
But when have we ever lived in an ideal world?
I suspect if you did a poll of Ballarat’s working mothers and asked them whether they would rather stay home and look after their children full time, most would say yes.
The reality is, though, they’ve chosen to make a financial contribution to their family’s well-being and are managing to balance that with the traditional role nurturing. They deserve credit for that.
Likewise, those who choose to sacrifice career and financial gain to stay at home with their children deserve similar credit.
Both groups are making equal, but different, contributions to society.
Those who are quick to criticise or judge mothers who put their children in full-time care would be better to focus their efforts on getting governments to make it easier for families to juggle parenting and work responsibilities.
Just this week, laws came into effect which compel employers to consider alternative work arrangements for employees with parenting or carer responsibilities.
It is one example of how far we have come in the past 25 years or so.
But we still have a long way to go.
So to all the mums out there – whether you are in paid work or not (because full-time parenting is work, too) – I say hang in there.
Being a mum is a tough gig – rewarding, but tough. Let Mem Fox and others have their viewpoints, but in the end only you are the best judge of what works best for you and your children.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff