Mother is a verb, not a noun. Proverb

Dear Diary,

A mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.  
Emily Dickinson

Artist Marie Witte

This is a continuation from my previous post.

Now Cherie Blair is getting her oar in and has criticised women who give up their career when they have children, labelling them unambitious and suggesting the decision impacts negatively on their kids.

I often meet people who say they could never have a dog because they work all day and it ‘wouldn’t be fair on the dog’.  How ironical that many of today’s parents are quite happy to leave their children every day with strangers.  These children will never have the one to one relationship and social life which is vital for proper development.  I would also think that these parents will come to regret this decision later in life once their children have flown the nest, which happens all too quickly.  Childhood is precious and child rearing is probably the most important job in the world.

I visited one of these nurseries once, when I was a student nurse. Parents ‘dropped off’ their children every day and some of them were quite young babies.  Some of them would be there for twelve hours. It reminded me of a dungeon, underground and windowless, I couldn’t believe it – I wouldn’t have left my dog there all day for one day let alone for the duration of a good part of her growing up life.

Many schools now have breakfast clubs which is really sad, they may have been set up for the right reasons but what sort of message is it sending out?  And surely many working parents will also use them just to lengthen the time spent away from their children. And now David Cameron wants to lengthen the hours of the schools’ babysitting service even more (see previous post). Perhaps I am cynical but the phrase social engineering keeps coming to mind, 

I know some folk have to work because, for whatever reason, they are really struggling income wise but I believe that the majority of parents who farm out their children are just plain greedy.  I escaped to Wales from the south east of England back in the nineties and even at that time the sole aim of a lot of people was to get an even bigger house and to do so they were taking on huge mortgages; their desire was to outdo their neighbours in every way and to acquire more and more materialistically. What many take for granted now I did without (and still do) but I worked as a mother full-time and stayed home with my children -  and they were the happiest days of my life.

As for ambition, my only ambition was then and is now for my children (and now my grandchildren) to be happy.

If I am old fashioned I take it as a compliment.

Bye for now,

Go mbeannai Dia duit,

Cait.