Sorry, Laura Perrin, but a stay-at-home mum IS a luxury. Most families can't afford it. #Newsnight
— Frances Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) October 1, 2013
The ensuing twitterstorm lasted for a day and a half and was extremely bruising. Insults and misunderstandings were rife. I was accused of feeling "guilty" about my "decision to work", and told I should "change my lifestyle" - move house, take up knitting and grow my own, apparently - in order to stay at home with my children. I ended up blocking someone who has been a follower for over two years. And I feel really sad about that - but I couldn't take all the "mumguilt" she was throwing at me. Not that she was the only one by any means.
Many people took particular exception to my use of the term "luxury". The Free Dictionary defines a "luxury" thus:
1. Something inessential but conducive to pleasure and comfort.
2. Something expensive or hard to obtain.
3. Sumptuous living or surroundings: lives in luxury.
To me, a free decision by a well-off mother to stay at home with her children is consistent with the first two of these definitions. A parent staying at home with children full-time is not generally considered to be essential to their wellbeing or development, though it may enhance family life and it certainly fits better with the archaic way in which schools operate. And the financial and personal sacrifices that stay-at-home parents make can indeed be considerable.
But many people ignored the first two definitions of "luxury" and focused on the third, throwing sob stories at me about families "scrimping and saving" so mum could stay at home. Because these people were much poorer than they would be if both parents worked, apparently that meant their decision that one of them would be a full-time unpaid child carer was "not a luxury". Indeed this was Laura Perrins' argument. But it's nonsensical. They chose to invest in an expensive luxury, namely full-time child care: clearly their household income took a beating as a consequence, so they are not "living in luxury", but that doesn't mean the childcare itself isn't a luxury. Nor does the fact that looking after children full-time is a difficult job make it any less a luxury.
I should emphasise that my comments about full-time child caring being a "luxury" apply only to those families where a parent can freely choose whether or not to work. Most families have no such choice. In many families, two incomes are necessary to pay very high housing costs. And conversely, in other families, the cost of child care makes it uneconomic for both parents to work. The CHOICE for a mother (or father) to stay at home with children is only available to well-off couples like the Perrinses. Everyone else's decisions - including mine - are dictated by economic circumstances.
It seems to me that whether women (or men) who have freely chosen to stay at home with children deserve state support, as Perrins suggests, depends on whether having a parent at home full time is essential for children's well-being and development. That is exactly the argument put forward by the organisation that Perrins represents, Mothers At Home Matter - and it is potentially dynamite. A whole generation of women has grown up expecting to work while their children are young, because of the damage done not only to their household incomes but - more importantly - to their career prospects if they stop work to look after children. But if having a parent at home full time is essential to a child's well-being and development, then working mothers are seriously neglecting their children. In which case, the clock urgently needs to be turned back to a more "traditional" model in which mothers of young children do not work outside the home, and families with children must receive state support so that they do not end up living in poverty when mothers who currently work give it up.
Personally I don't buy this argument. And fortunately, research is on my side. There is zero evidence that children are damaged by being looked after by professional carers so both parents can work. On the contrary, there is some evidence that the diversity of care is good for them, improving their confidence and broadening their experience - and that is certainly consistent with my own experience. I was a child of a traditional family with a stay-at-home mother: but my children are far more self-assured, confident, responsible and resilient than I was at their ages. I believe that it was the diversity of the care they received throughout their childhood that has made them so.
Admittedly, my childcare arrangements did get very tenuous, and eventually I changed my job and adjusted my working patterns so they fitted better with the needs of my children. I didn't want to be the sort of parent who relies entirely on professional carers and rarely sees their children. There was enough of the "traditional " in me for me to want to have the time to do "mumsy" things such as picking them up from school, baking birthday cakes for them, taking them to after-school activities and playing games with them. But I'm not convinced that my children needed this as much as I did. Both of them wanted me to spend more time with them, of course, but I don't think they suffered because my time with them was limited.
Having said that, there is no doubt that a parent working long hours amounts to absence as far as the children are concerned. Actually "traditional" families are the worst for this: the flip side to the stay-at-home mum is the dad who is only at home at the weekend, if he isn't on a business trip or playing golf. I would oppose any support for single-income families that encouraged such polarisation in family life. If families freely choose to organise their lives in such a way, let them: but don't support it through the tax system.
Turning back the clock to a more traditional model is simply not going to happen in most families, for which I am exceedingly thankful: no doubt there will be some families for whom it is a model that works, but far more families welcome the fact that these days women with children are able to remain in the workforce. And the economy needs mothers to remain in the workforce, too. The loss of skilled women from the workforce in their childbearing years is a serious problem, given the extent of skills shortages that employers say they face. Laura Perrins complains that single-income families are being discriminated against because the economy needs women in the workforce. Good. Let the discrimination continue.
However, most working parents experience high levels of stress, especially if they are working very long hours. This applies irrespective of the family model: high stress levels are as characteristic of single-income families as they are of dual-income. Too many relationships don't survive the combination of financial pressure, the demands of work and the needs of children. So in my view, working patterns for both women AND MEN need to adjust so that children have more contact with their working parents and parents have more time together. Somehow, we have to find a model of work that supports family life and relationships without forcing women (and some men) either to take jobs that don't fully use their skills or leave the workforce completely. And I think this means that it is traditional MALE working patterns that need to change. Is it impossible to foresee a future in which it is normal for both women and men to work part-time while their children are young, sharing the care of their children and making appropriate but not extensive use of professional child carers? For me, this is a model that is far more deserving of state support than a traditional model with one parent not working and the other one working far too much. Children need time with BOTH their parents.
Related reading:
Working mothers "do no harm to children's behaviour" - BBC
At-home mothers should stay out of childcare debate - The Observer
At last, working mothers can ditch the guilt - Polly Toynbee, The Guardian
The betrayal of single-income families - Laura Perrins, Conservative Home
Where were you on 9/11? - Coppola Comment
