Wendy Tuohy: Stop shaming Jacinda Ardern over baby plans
SCOLDING New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for her plans to be a working mother is not just out of touch with reality — it is cruel, writes Wendy Tuohy.
Wendy Tuohy
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THE only time I am willing to tolerate “women are their own worst enemies” is when it comes to smug mothers who are well-off and secure enough to be able to quit work for their babies while lecturing other mothers about daring to work.
They have no business sticking their nose into the decisions other couples make about how their family will operate — yet some continue to push the faces of working mothers into the mud.
They lecture from on high, pouring kerosene on the guilt they feel working mothers should wear like a cloak.
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They make them feel like they are always failing at something and want women who work to feel less than “good” mothers — one of the dirtier insults you can sling at a woman with kids.
On top of this they clearly do not believe stay-at-home fathers can parent adequately, so they are equal opportunity shamers.
A case in point was a column at the weekend by mother of nine, Angela Shanahan, tipping a bucket on the dynamic young New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and inviting judgment on her as a future mother.
Ardern is pregnant with her first child, has said she will take six weeks off work and then her partner, Clarke Gayford, will be the primary carer.
Shanahan treads a well-worn religious conservative path when she questions Ardern’s commitment to what ‘should’ be a “full-time baby job” as well as work outside the home.
She attacks Ardern’s “blithe confidence that after six weeks her partner will take over as full-time caregiver”.
“Well, good luck with that one, too, because the father is not the mother and there is such a thing as maternal bonding, which is a basic post-partum physical need for mothers and infants.
“This woman needs at least six months off, not six weeks.”
Weirdly, she makes the assumption Jacinda Ardern will wish to breastfeed because breastfeeding is something greenie lefties do.
That a person’s political leanings would determine their nursing choice or otherwise is so barmy, let’s just leave that one there.
Shanahan’s scolding of mothers who return to work is not just out of touch with reality, it is cruel to suggest to the millions of women who have no other choice that this makes them inferior parents.
Rather than hector women about the decisions they make with their partners about caring for babies, why not hector governments about better supporting struggling families with accessible, quality, affordable child care. Many families limit the number of children they feel they can even afford to have due to the lack of it.
Not everyone has the bucks to provide the luxury of a full time parent at home at all. A bunch of recent studies support childcare as a developmental positive for young children, particularly those without siblings.
The move towards more men staying home with young children is fast gaining pace, especially among families who prefer not to use childcare and in which the woman is the better earner.
Fathers absolutely can provide just as good care of babies as mothers can, to suggest otherwise insults the multitude in the new, younger, generation of dads who are doing so full time or part time.
Noting the rising levels of anxiety among Australian teens, there’s also a strong case to be made that kids in the higher levels of school need a parent at home keeping a very hands-on and managed routine going, and supporting them with the stress of upper years, even more than kids in preschool or primary school may.
Unless you are rich, then difficult — but common — choices about how to balance parenthood with earning an income are not limited to the first year of a child’s life (in which, let’s face it, while it is lovely if you can be there, the baby is asleep a heck of a lot of the time).
Women with a profile and a passion for ensuring all children get the best quality life they can would do better to throw their booming voices behind other women than to belittle and deflate them, especially as they start the arduous adventure of motherhood.
wendy.tuohy@news.com.au or on Facebook or Twitter @wtuohy
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