13th November, 2012
Dear Cherie,
No doubt you've had a lot of letters regarding your concerns about yummy mummies wanting to stay at home to put all their best efforts into raising their children instead of working. I'd like to add another to your pile as thought it may shed some light on the whole debate.
Your comments that all women should strive for both a career and motherhood so that their children will be able to in your words 'actually live without me' are to be commended. I think you have completely got it right. You have avoided probably the hardest job in the whole world. Staying at home and being a mother is clearly not all it's cracked out to be and I think it's commendable you're telling mothers to go and work.
Why would any sane woman want to hang out with other mothers they hardly know with a group of dirty toddlers discussing nappies, nipple soreness, cake recipes and piles?
During my career as a mother and working mother on part time contracts I would like to comment on both. My contract work was the easiest by far. I would go back anytime in a blink. I can read on the way to work. I don't have anyone asking me questions, don't have any mundane jobs to do like mainly clearing up dirty washing, clearing up dirty plates, cooking vast amounts of food on a regular basis, shopping for more food and changing dirty beds. To be going to work and being able to have a coffee in peace, have adult conversation, stretch my brain and actually remember I have a university degree and to be paid for it. Well it's a no brainer isn't it.
If you are part of the yummy mummy brigade there is an enormous amount of pressure on you to look good and have a good looking well behaved baby. I encountered the yummy mummy experience in Chiswick when I joined the rather exclusive ante-natal group Christine Hill http://www.christine-hill-associates.com/ based in a very quiet and smart road in Chiswick. You see I'd missed out on all the NCT ante-natal classes in the area so thought I'd better join one much to the dismay of my poor husband as it was at vast expense!
To say the group wasn't snobby would be the understatement of the year. I walked in to prada handbags and polished nails. Slick blow drys and Jimmy Choo shoes. Oh dear I knew it was a mistake. I am clearly not one of these. But regardless I carried on going each week hearing about each and every one of their paediatricians. Did they have their own? yes. Were they private? yes. Was the New York apartment conversion going well? yes... I had no idea how it all worked as I was going to a local GP in Chiswick who didn't even spot my darling Joel was breech. Now that was why my pregnancy was so uncomfortable. The lady running the group was very traditional and didn't agree with eco nappies saying disposables were better for the planet in the long run and that we were to answer no phone calls when the baby is born as we are to rest. Some things were useful but to be honest the £480 it cost to enrol for 8 sessions just wasn't worth it. My husband's previous PA had a similar experience to me and also felt slightly out of place with the yummy mummy brigade she encountered.
I was invited to a few of the yummy mummy's houses and brought along little Joel who gave me heart palpatations every time I visited these immaculate places as he usually wasn't doing the usual gurgles of the other babies but usually was upset, in pain and hence I was usually quite stressed. He certainly wasn't following the Gina Ford book Contented Little Baby Book to a tee like the others were. Oh the pressure. I found it so isolating and even though I tried to invite them to my house in Poet's Corner in Acton (Chickton to some), they weren't too impressed with the postcode I'm sure and spoke of exclusive parties I wasn't being invited to. So Cherie I can see why you're so disheartened with this type of yummy mummy as they clearly were enjoying their husbands' bank accounts and shopping without a care in the world oh and bringing up their children. I would not want to be classed in this category and soon found a lovely NCT post-natal group in Chiswick who were much more normal and mixed with some working and some staying at home.
But Cherie when a mother isn't in the yummy mummy brigade like the ones you mentioned but the mums like me who try and juggle it all. You make is sound easy. Please don't make us feel guilty. We need to be paid enough to be able to work and as you're a wealthy barrister you'd be able to afford the childcare that goes along with it. Otherwise we are covering the cost of the childcare and nothing more. For some mothers this is enough to give them the satisfaction of being a working mother and I can see their point. I also know one mother of a child with autism who works full time and wouldn't have it any other way for her sanity's sake. I understand this more than any mother.
It's tough being a full time mother especially when there's a disabled child to look after. I work one day a week and it's like a break for me as I am concentrating on a job which is nothing to do with my family life and I love it! Hats off to you for supporting mothers setting up firms in third world countries. But if you took a closer look at mothers in this country you would see it's not as straighforward as just going to work with childcare costs to cover.
Quite frankly why can't yummy mummies stay at home and be mothers to their children? Live and let live is what I say and surely the child will benefit from seeing their mothers even if they do spend most of their time with the filipina nanny!
I hope that we can meet to have a chat about this and how you can help normal women like me who do not fit into the super yummy mummy brigade but average mother with qualifications trying to start up. Perhaps you could help me set a firm up nearer home? I've got some great ideas I'd like to run by you.
Yours sincerely,
Alice Gordon-Clark
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