How Children Feel About Working Moms

Emma Howard: Now many moms agonize whether they should go back to work after having a child or whether they should stay home and look after the child themselves. What about the Children is a charity that would like to see mother staying at home with their children for at least the first three years of their lives. Sally Beck from What joins us. Hello! Sally Beck: Hello! Emma Howard: You brought Riana with you your daughter. Hello Riana! Sally Beck: He wants to tell me a little cuttle. Emma Howard: A little cuttle and Riana has got some of her favorite books with her I know. Tell me first of all what is What About Children is about? Sally Beck: What is about looking the emotional needs of the not to three. So everything we look at we look at from the baby and the child’s perspective and current research and in fact research dating back to the 60s shows that children do better when they get to stay with their mom for longer. Emma Howard: I think lots of mothers feel that -- don’t they. They like to stay with their children but there were so many reasons where they have to or they need to, sometimes when they want to return to work. It is hard for a mother anyway bringing about that balance. What is it that you can offer to them in making their decision what would you say to moms? Sally Beck: Well, I mean all the research shows that 80% of moms would rather be at home which is what we thought, 20% of women ardent feminist in the 60s and 70s pave the way for women going back into work which is fantastic. But, it wasn’t that the children weren’t thought about the time and it was thought that if you have a child with a childminder it was fine. Maybe fine for a small number of children but on masses not doing kids any good. So what we would like to see and what women should be demanding now because so many say they want to do it. They should be absolutely demanding that the government make it possible for them to stay at home during those crucial years. Emma Howard: And we are talking about the first three years. Sally Beck: We are talking about the first three years because once your child gets to three, they start nursery school and they probably won’t go fulltime, but they will start nursery school for mornings. By the time they are raising five, they are at school and that’s it, you have lost them to the system. Emma Howard: Yes, like Riana just goes to reception clubs. Sally Beck: Riana goes to reception clubs. Emma Howard: We have lost her to the system. Sally Beck: I have. So I have gone from having 8 hours a week to do any sort of work to 27 hours a week. So it is quite a massive jump and when you do have that tiny amount of time and you have got to bring that money in, it is extremely stressful and the last thing you need when you’re a new mom or your parent is more stress on top of that. Emma Howard: But is stressful anyway back on your parents, doesn’t it? What would you like to see the government do exactly? We are talking about now having a year of way where your employment rights aren’t affected. Presumably you want that to stretch to three then as first three years are crucial to your charity. Sally Beck: Yes, I mean in France -- we would like to see the plain field leveled. In France if you need child care and you want to go back to work it is there, if you want to stay at home the government will pay you 150 pounds a week for each child for three years now which makes it perfectly possible. It is really possible then go give up work for most moms if you have got that amount of money coming in and we don’t have that which I think is a big mistake because our children are suffering. Emma Howard: When you say they are suffering you particularly feel they are suffering in nurseries don’t you, rather than being looked after at home. It is the children who are taken out of the home and placed in to a nursery for the day where mothers are at work. That’s where you have most of the problem with, doesn’t it? Sally Beck: I mean babies demonstrate that they really need one to one care, they are not good in group situations and what a baby dance for the first sort of year of life, for first six months to year of life is drinking in all your expressions, everything that is going on around, everything you are doing, when you are doing washing up, they drink all in that and they are just looking, they are like little sponges and imagine putting them there into a nursery situation where they have got changing faces all the time and that’s very confusing. Emma Howard: Although I would say Sally for most babies they are at home with their moms for the first six months. I mean most women tend to get back to work if they go back to work at the six month point. Sally Beck: And that’s quite a dangerous point because at 7 to 8 months, babies wakeup to such a degree they suddenly find the world quite frightening and you will find with a 7 or 8 month old baby who would previously be happy to be handed around. They certainly won’t want to go to other people and you will get a lot of screaming and a lot of crying around that point. Emma Howard: So, it is that when that attachment kind of links together them with the mom, if you leave the room they get terribly unhappy on that stage. Sally Beck: Absolutely, I mean you start to realize the importance, how important you are to them and some moms interpret that as the baby being clingy and that you have to get pass that stage as soon as possible. But by the time they are sort of two and a half, they have naturally got passed that stage and you have given them the confidence that they need in order to do it themselves. Emma Howard: Terrifying listening for all those women, all those thousands of women who have to go back to work. They can’t pay the mortgage on just their partner’s salary. For lots of people there isn’t any choice, so listening to what you are saying is incredibly depressing. Sally Beck: It is terrible. Emma Howard: It is terrible. Do you think there is no choice, then it is really that black and white? Sally Beck: I do, I mean I do think and I have all the research backs up, even down to how the brain develops, gray section of brains doesn’t develop if the brain doesn’t get the right nurturing. So even the scientist are on board with this now and all the studies seem to show that children do better all around when they are brought up by their moms at home. I mean there is obviously exceptions to that where mom is incredibly violent or -- Emma Howard: Yes, you do once you remove the child from an unsafe situation. Sally Beck: Absolutely, but most of us are just longing to do the child care ourselves and we would like to be able to -- the argument that is going to be really bad for you in the workplace if you take time, I mean it really makes me irritated because who says to a man when they start a job, you are never going to leave us are you? Of course they are, why can’t employers just look at that time that you take out as time that you might have been spending with another company but actually you are going to come back to them? Emma Howard: And you are going to come back a better employee to them. Sally Beck: You will, I think every single politician should do a course in toddlers. Emma Howard: I couldn’t agree with you more. It is still very unfair; I mean that’s something that hasn’t reached equilibrium between man and woman yet. But, we are concentrating on the women today because it is the women you are targeting your message at, stay at home with your children for at least the first three years. It is very tough to have, but the science you say backs it up well and why is it that it is better for them to have their moms? Talk to me more about this idea or detachment and secure attachment. Sally Beck: Well the two recent studies, one done at Cambridge, one by -- the ones they brought this whole thing to the fold again and what happens when a baby is attaching to you securely, you are giving -- you will work the baby’s first touch. Baby learns everything it needs to know about you, you teach everything you can and then it goes to spread and it is like the pebble effect, it goes to spread it net a bit wider and wider and take in more relationships and what you are doing is you are building a more confident child and you can get bravado children, a lot of children who have been in fulltime daycare nursery, what you see is a lot of bravado and they appear to be more confident. But if you talk to teachers they will tell you that the kids who have been at home are much easier to engage. They are almost like social butterflies that children who have been in full time daycare sort of flitting from person to person, but with no real roots. So that’s the main problem. Now it can get to in rare cases, it can get very severe so it impedes your ability to form relationships. Now none of us are going to get a job, if we can’t any relationships, none of us are going to be able to make it in the real world if we can’t form relationships. If you become a loner, that’s quite a serious problem for you. Emma Howard: And yet the mother wants to have a job and wants to make it in the world as well so it is a balance between the child’s need and the mother’s need has been for many years, women have been working. What kind of practical advice can you offer to a woman who feels they absolutely have to go back to work? Where do you stand on the issue of part-time work for instance? Sally Beck: I wish they qualified these studies a lot because what we are talking about is wrap around children’s care. We are talking about children who are in daycare for 40 hours a week and some times longer. Emma Howard: It is quite extreme then. Sally Beck: Ideal for baby, it doesn’t mean to say you can’t ever leave your baby with anybody else, of course you can. Emma Howard: So that would be good for them at all. Sally Beck: Well, no absolutely. I will give you an example, when Riana was five months we were going to a weeding and I wanted to go to the hair dresser and just as I walked out the door she started crying and I handed her to her dad and I thought we have sorted out. When I came back an hour later she was still crying and she was piercing face. He handed her to me and she stopped immediately. Now what I should have done before I left was to settle her properly with her dad, so that when I walked out the door she was happy and she wouldn’t have cried at that time, but I thought she would be fine with that and she wasn’t. Five months later you don’t get that problem at all. So that kind of puts in perspective and from the work perspective if you think well I have got a 40 year working life you can have a 20 year career, you could have 10 years off. You could have 10 years part-time and you would still have made a major contribution. You would have made a big enough contribution to get your full pension, that’s for sure. Emma Howard: But all the times on the job you have and the career progression and how it is seen by your boss and etcetera -- Sally Beck: And I know in some careers, some NatWest for example are fantastic. They give women seven years maternity leave, it is not paid, but they say you can have or they used to, they say you can have your job after seven years. If you are in Tally or in advertising or one of the media they hate you. I mean I work for somebody -- TV Company who thought old woman with baby should be shoved. I mean he was so violently against working mother, it was quite scary. Emma Howard: But I am not sure that you have helped that situation by removing yourself completely from the workplace. It is quite hard one to win, isn’t it? Sally Beck: It is, but why can’t we look at that like, well have got somebody to replace her, it is not like she has moved anywhere else; we are all going to be seeing her again. I don’t understand the reluctance to that, when there is not that reluctance when you employ a man who you know is not going to be there for ten years. Emma Howard: I think that thinking is that a man wouldn’t have any distractions and that’s where it is unfair, isn’t it? Because certainly a good father will hopefully would be as distracted by what’s going on at home as a good mother in terms of being up at night and being tired and all of those things employees is not often fair. The difficulty here for women listening to you and I am sure you are going to be quite depressed by that thinking I have got to stay at home with my child for three years, but I will loose up my confidence. It is often about the fact that when you are home even for six months and go back to work, you will torn, don’t you between leaving your baby something you don’t want to do and also feeling that someone maybe have stepped into your shoes at work, it is just feeling less interested about going back in and not having the confidence you have before you have the baby. So there is an awful thing going on for, isn’t that? Sally Beck: Yeah, I mean but don’t you think – I mean being a mom and seeing my children develop into happy sociable individuals who are part of the community has given me a confidence in another area and I wonder why we need to be defined only by work. Emma Howard: I often think it is the first baby though, don’t use Sally that really throws all of those questions up. I think you are absolutely right, especially if you have more children and I think Riana is your third child. Sally Beck: Second. Emma Howard: She is your second child, so you get more confident and you can often answer those question for yourself, but and certainly lots of women watching the baby channel who would be having their first child or just had their first child and it is a really difficult time, how long do I stay at home, am I going to go cold turkey? Sally Beck: There is no leading at all. There is -- Emma Howard: Riana is very attached to her mommy, how lovely you are. Sally Beck: You are tending to be a baby. There is this -- you have to go cold turkey, there is no leading, there is no period before you stop and have your baby that someone shows you the ropes in the baby world. So suddenly you have left behind all your friends, you have left behind your purpose for getting up and here on when you go to baby you know -- you don’t know this person at all, this little stranger who is very time consuming and demanding and a lot of moms can get very isolated and I would like to see that at rest. Emma Howard: And how would you like to see stress, move to your practical solutions. Sally Beck: Well, the NCT goes someway to addressing it by starting -- you join your _ group to learn about breast feeding and -- Emma Howard: And to me are the women in the same position? Sally Beck: To me all the women are in the same position and hopefully you stay in touch with those women after you have had your baby. Emma Howard: Yes and that bond can be incredibly supportive context. Sally Beck: So I would like to see more things we would like to start groups for women, play groups for women to take their babies and all stuff so that you don’t get isolated. I would like to encourage women to make friends with other moms, get them around with you are doing the house works, so there is two of you there and the time when you go to house when you have got to do the house work just so there is not so grim, rushing back to the crying baby, calming him down and thinking, I have got to get the washing done and -- Emma Howard: But I think there are lots of women who want an isolation and who still face this terrible dilemma about when do they go back to work and they need to get back to work, like often they want to have another life away from the baby not a big one, but just that part-time question, what would you say to women who have already done it who are watching the baby channel who are already back at work? Would you ask them to reconsider is that what you are saying? Sally Beck: Well I mean I can’t people what to do, I mean you know in your heart some -- I listened to a women on a radio phone on the other day supping virtually because her child was in childcare and she realized her child wasn’t happy. But she has to go to work because she couldn’t afford. I have spoken to so many women that are in that situation and some women who are actually paying to be in work is costing them more in child care than their salary because they don’t want to loose their foot on that latter. Now we have got no control over that, only government -- Emma Howard: And you have sympathy with that, don’t you? Sally Beck: Absolutely and I don’t want people to listen to me and think oh she is preaching at us. All I am saying this is what the evidence shows and there needs to be a change and a groundswell of women demanding that change would be fantastic. Emma Howard: Alright, so you are really saying to women to summon up, thing about the first three years of your child’s life and if you can try and stay at home with him because they will benefit hugely. Sally Beck: And insurance companies come up with an insurance policy that means that women can stay at home to take a better call and have a look at it like that and you won’t be doing a JK Rowling, I don’t think, sitting there writing a novel which is what everyone thinks they might do it. Emma Howard: You are so busy, whether you have got time for that. I am sure she has to have childcare in order to do right. But it is very interesting to think about and I do know there are lots of women who need to go back to work on some level because they say it will make them better mothers. And I do know quite a few women like that and so their child will benefit. So it is at the end of the day still about balance, isn’t it? Sally Beck: Yes. Emma Howard: But you know you are saying, look at it and consider it. Sally Beck: And also some part-time work is fine. When it is the 40 hour week and if you are coming home I tried it for five weeks going back to work fulltime. I was getting home at 7, picking the kids up there were 3 and 6 at the time, massive tantrum when I pick them up. Emma Howard: Yes, they were young children, you were working fulltime, you stretch yourself both ways. Sally Beck: Absolutely, but the time I got them home, it was time to put them into bed. When we got in the morning we had to just get ready and out and when do you see them. It is like asking your children I think to have an affair with someone else. Emma Howard: Yeah Sally it is really tough and I don’t think it is just going to stop soon. It is a question we will ask ourselves and I know that you have reached a balance for yourself; really interesting to talk to you about this subject. Sally Beck: Thanks. Emma Howard: Thank you very much indeed.