Sir, There is only one issue for us working mothers: the cost of childcare (“Was it mystique or mistake?”, Comment, Feb 9). If it was not so prohibitive, more women would choose to pursue careers. The increased numbers of women in the workforce moving into senior roles would drive social change.
You raise the question: “Why in a time of plenty have we come to assume that looking after one’s own children is a perk of the rich?” Is it a time of plenty? The cost of full-time childcare in England has risen by 27 per cent over the past five years, average salaries for women are still 20 per cent lower than men’s and the average level of debt is higher than it has ever been.
The rich mother has always had the option to be a career woman or stay at home. The lower classes have less choice but have better support mechanisms (closer to extended family, shorter hours, access to cheaper childcare and benefits), while middle-class women’s choice about whether to work is mainly economic — cost of childcare and commuting versus her take home pay.
It is professional, middle- class women who are most likely to have the view that looking after their own children would be nice to do if they had enough cash. That is because when they work they are struggling to do it all: manage the household, manage a career where they are competing in a male-driven environment, keep hold of their husbands and raise their children. And is staying home to look after children a perk? What is so fulfilling about making the beds? If it was fun, more men would do it.
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JAN KIRKPATRICK
Kirkpatrick Executive Search & Selection
London EC3
Sir, Isn’t the solution to share equally what have previously been considered “traditional” gender roles? Only when men take time out of the workplace to care for children will the wage gap disappear.
“House husbands” are still treated unequally in law. In April 2002 Lord Justice Thorpe removed the children from the custody of the primary carer, who was male, because of his belief that there are “fundamental differences between men and women”.
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You highlight the fact that women can be “traded in for a younger model”, but all the divorces I’ve witnessed are caused by women “falling out of love” with their husbands. Women do file for divorce in 70 per cent of cases, after all. That’s not to say they’re responsible for relationship breakdowns, but it suggests that your assumption that men are ditching their wives left, right and centre is a bit far-fetched.
If women are to avoid burn-out from trying to do it all, then men have to do half of it. But what man will when he knows she may “fall out of love”, divorce him, take half the money, the home and the children and leave him struggling to get back into the workforce after a ten-year career break?
MALCOLM LOCHHEAD
New York
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Sir, The principal effect of “feminism” is (as Mr Blair says) “to get women back into the marketplace”, adding to the gross national product and the benefit of everybody. When I started work in 1953 my boss was a woman and at least two Whitehall departments were headed by women. They were not politically correct appointments, they were there on merit.
When I married my wife (a civil servant of not dissimilar grade to my own) in 1955 she gave up work. She could decide to do so because I could afford to keep both of us, two children, buy a house and a small car, and live a reasonably comfortable life. Thirty years later my son, on being asked whether his wife would continue working after they were married, replied that they could never afford to buy a house, let alone raise a family, on his salary alone. Of course not: as soon as double-income families became the norm, mortgage repayments became twice as easy and the prices of houses doubled. My wife had a choice whether to work: women of like status now have no such choice.
LESLIE STANDEN
standenl@aol.com