Full-time mothers have the edge on those who work
In Plato’s Republic, written around 375BC, Socrates suggests that the women of the élite ruling class, called the Guardians, should not waste their time looking after small children, but rather work for the state. “We must pick suitable women to share the life and duties of Guardian with men,” says Socrates. In this way, the state will get the best value from its citizens.
The élite children will be looked after in state nurseries. State officers will take the better Guardian children to a nursery “and put them in charge of nurses living in a separate part of the city… [the mothers] will hand over all the sitting up at night and hard work to nurses and attendants.” Plato’s idea of a feminist republic is similar to the view put by a friend of mine, an intelligent mother-of-one, who works while her two-year-old is in nurseries.
She feels it is her moral duty not to waste her time looking after her own children, because as a university-educated woman, her energies are better spent serving the state or the economy. Child care should be entrusted to those who enjoy the company of toddlers.
From the view of employment figures, two will be employed where none was before: the mother in her Civil Service or business career, and the professional carer looking after her child. I guess this is what lies behind Gordon Brown’s promotion of the “hard-working family”.
One difference is that Plato was against the family and against private property. The Guardians live like monks and nuns, with no possessions and separated by gender. They are allowed to indulge occasionally in a weekend of non-stop procreation, to create the next generation of Guardians, but for the most part, they toil selflessly for the common good.
The other difference, though, shows the potential danger of the élitist programme. Plato’s Republic can look decidedly Nazi-like. It has a programme of eugenics. Says Socrates, chillingly: “The children of the inferior Guardians, and any defective offspring of the others, will be quietly and secretly disposed of.” The aim is to create a “real pedigree herd”, which is just what Himmler and Hitler were up to. In 1939, Operation T4 set up killing centres for babies and children with mental or physical defects.
Now, squaring up against the working mothers, we have the full-time mum brigade, many of whom are also highly educated. They say that babies need their mothers and also that nursery assistants are often stupid and badly-trained and are turning our kids into Vicky Pollards. They will take as their philosophical guide Rousseau, who in Emile argued that all mothers should look after their children when small.
I suppose I am slightly more on the side of the full-time mothers, but that’s because I would like to see both parents working less hard and spending more time sitting at home near their children. But the working-mother model has worrying ethical implications, too.
I believe that it doesn’t really matter what you do, whether you stay at home, go to work, work part-time, join the circus, live in a tepee with six other families or earn millions from hedge funds and employ round-the-clock nannies. What really matters, as the Fun Boy Three and Bananarama wisely put it back in the Eighties, is not what you do but the way that you do it. I would far rather be brought up by a non-resentful, fun-loving working mother than by a resentful stay-at-home one.
I think that the idle parent has to think beyond any ideology, and concentrate on creating their own system and enjoying their life.
If you are satisfied with the way you have organised your life, then your children will benefit. The point of idleness is not so much the simple indulgence of laziness, although there is nothing wrong with that, but rather the insistence on our freedom to arrange things as we please, without interference from busybodies.
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I have just given up my full-time job in the City to stay at home and live a less stressful life looking after my two boys. I think going to work is over-rated – the ‘rat race’ may give you extra money to spend, but in the end I have found that fun time is more important than the latest games, toys, etc. Am happily doing nothing right now!!
Gave up well paid IT job & career for a career as a full time mother. I see me looking after the home & children as my current job; where I worked like a self employed person who has to fully manage their time & resources. I set my yearly goals & targets for each year to run the house, go on training courses, research & read all relevant topics around being a mother & home maker. To keep me out from paid work I have greatly reduced spending while still giving a good quality of life….I have greatly enjoyed being a stay @ home mother & have learnt a lot. The time spent with my children I feel will really make a long lasting difference to their life. … I am now looking forward to returning to paid work when youngest starts school. I will be self employed with own business. ….. If you can afford to I would greatly recommend you stay @ home especially when they are babies, toddlers & pre school. If you have a good community where you life then this is easier. If you are isolated where you life then this is not so good.
I work from home as a childminder with my husband, looking after our own 11 month old son and 8 other children. We don’t earn very much but living thrifty is a great challenge and the satisfaction and joy of spending all day together with our little boy are absolutely worth the sacrifices. Not only do we have support and help from each other 24 hours a day, but it’s so wonderful for us to be able to raise his son rather than doing a traditional 9-5. I rarely saw my father growing up, as he left for work before we were up and came home when we were in bed and I think that already it shows how our son is benefitting from having his dad around full time.
In comparison, some of the children we look after are literally ‘dumped’ on our doorstep each morning and begrudgingly picked up after work. Some parents would happily palm them off to us at weekends if we allowed them. Some have no financial reason to work full time and could afford to take their children’s preschool years off work to bring them up themselves, but instead we do that job. For that reason we strive to provide these kids with a loving and fun and IDLE upbringing while they are in our care, and home enough of our ideals rub off on them to make a difference…
I agree with you that the way yo do things is far more important than whát you do, but sometimes this is not so easy. Especially with babies. They need their mothers body and milk.
Babysitters can’t replace this.