I’ve bee reading Three Shoes, One Sock & No Hairbrush over the last few weeks (intermittently!)
This bit makes me think about the nature of our society:
“By the time I got pregnant with my second child, I knew my days of full-time work were gone, if not for good, then at least for the next five years. I had down-shifted my expectations to accomodate the previously unimaginable reality of being a mother, of loving my children, of being needed by my children. I am resigned to working less than I’d like, earning less than I’d like, achieving less than I’d like and doing more housework than I’d like.”
The bit in the bold (my emphasis) is the “problem bit”. (I can understand the concept of someone doing too much housework than they’d like to do! :) However spending more time with your children should not mean you are achieving less in your own eyes or in the eyes of society. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be the case. Nurturing a child (or more usually, more than one child) through the first 5 years is an achievement it it’s own right. I find it quite sad that only wormen with jobs are recognised as “achievers”, even by authors of books about bringing up children.