Q&A: Parenting guru Robin Barker

Robin Barker’s 1994 book Baby Love is still the bible for many parents. She talks to Helen Trinca about the ongoing dilemmas for working parents.

Author Robin Barker.

Robin Barker’s book Baby Love has sold more than 400,000 copies since it was first published in 1994. Last updated in 2013, it’s still the bible for many parents. Barker was a paediatric nurse and midwife but stopped work when she had two children. When her youngest was six she retrained as early childhood worker, but eventually got a job as a child and family nurse working in the community. Her book, like several others she has written, grew out of that experience.

You wrote your book 23 years ago to take the stress out of parenting. How do you think parents are faring these days?

For many parents it is extremely stressful. It shouldn’t be when we now have far more help available and far more information. A percentage of middle-class blokes do more than once was the case. We are more affluent, even though we have more debt, and there’s better equipment, yet the stress levels seem very high. A significant number of middle-class parents are stressed raising children and perhaps not enjoying them as much as they could.

Is that because women go to work?

When I had my kids in the 1970s, most women didn’t go back to work until their children were at school, or if they did it would be to a part- time job. On the other hand, we didn’t love being at home. There’s a dilemma there that’s not solved. Staying home with toddlers and babies – many of us did that with gritted teeth.

What’s the answer?

I don’t think there’s an answer. Children need a parent, usually the mother but not necessarily. In those first three years they really need a lot of attention, and to try to combine that with a full-on career, something has to not work. Men can have a career and a family unquestioned, whereas for women there’s still this thing about it. Women get more stressed about childcare and more stressed about when the children get sick, more stressed about feeling they’re not doing either job properly. Men don’t seem to have that problem. (But) no one talks about the children. Everyone assumes childcare is okay for young children. There’s a lot of stuff about women’s careers and I don’t want to dismiss that. My career was hugely important to me, but I was lucky because I hit on a career where older women are valued and I could make my way from my 40s to become quite successful. A lot of careers don’t allow women to do that.

What do you think the internet is doing to stress levels?

There’s been an explosion of research into those early years – behaviour, breastfeeding, nutrition… research gets trotted out endlessly, and it often gets misreported. We have far more diversity (of opinion) of what’s best for baby among health professionals. When I had my kids the word “parenting” didn’t exist; people had children and looked after them. Now there are all these parenting categories – helicopter parenting, attachment parenting, detachment parenting, night-time parenting… And the stress is enormous because we don’t have many children and we want the best for them.

What do you think about companies providing childcare in the building?

Totally, absolutely. If you had childcare where you work, that would make the most enormous difference. If anyone asked me I would always say, try not to go back to work for the first year if you can. Childcare is a terrible strain on toddlers; they just want to be with their mother. Sad fact. They don’t socialise well, so they’re all day with other toddlers who want to bite them and bash them, and they get sick – they pick up everything that’s going. Their stage of development isn’t good for group care, it just isn’t. Three years of age is reasonable to go to childcare, but whenever I say that it’s incredibly unpopular, because then you are accused of making mothers feel guilty. I do understand there are people who don’t have any alternative.

‘Childcare for the under-threes is all about the adult’s interest.’

The one thing I’ve never done is predict dire outcomes from childcare because it’s not about the outcome. If a child is in a good home with good parents, I don’t think childcare is going to cause something negative. It’s more their quality of life at that time of their life. Childcare for the under-threes is all about the adult’s interest. There’s a lot of stuff out there that says it’s good for them because they learn to socialise, however in a good home they learn all that. Childcare has advantages for children who come from really deprived homes where they’re not getting that, but for the normal middle-class toddler in a good home, it has no advantages. One or two days a week, sure, but the poor little things who are there for five days a week, I don’t think it’s great. There’ll be letters coming in saying “my children went to day care, they’re fine”, because it taps into that mother guilt thing and it’s not something we like to hear. But these are the things women are having to try to sort out in their heads.

What needs to be done rather than building more childcare centres?

Well maternity leave is huge; the assurance that your career is not going to suffer; understanding about sick children. Toddlers get sick all the time. It’s awful if your child is sick and you’ve got a pressing thing at work. Baby is sick and what are you going to do? And during those young years that happens a lot, but even with older children that happens. And often in a workplace when there are other staff there who are single or don’t have children, they often get furious because someone might just up and leave them with work to do. Somehow that all needs sorting in a way that’s equitable. And having childcare on the premises would make a huge difference.

Robin Barker’s book has become a bible for parents.

What did you try to do in your book?

I gave them common sense, plus I tried not to put stuff in that’s going to scare the wits out of mothers – like if you let your baby cry for five minutes it’s going to grow up and commit suicide. There’s a lot going on now about babies’ brains and it’s taken up with gusto by middle-class women, who are very conscientious parents. The people who should be worried about all of that never read these books.

You don’t really have an ideological position.

I don’t, apart from be nice and calm and patient – and turn your phone off. I’ve looked in depth at a lot of the research people claim supports all sorts of positions, and it’s dodgy. You can find one thing that says something and you can find the complete opposite.

What’s your key advice to a working mother?

The first thing is delay going back to work for as long as you can. The second is if you are going back to work, sit down with your partner and come to some really organised way [of doing it], a roster. Plan everything, work out who’s doing what so that it’s an equal share, so someone gets to sleep in and it’s not the same person getting up at night, someone goes to the park while the other has a break. It is not shared 50/50 – there’s quite a bit of research to show this. And be prepared for your toddler to be sick a lot and think what you do about that. And having told you all these things to make you feel guilty, try not to feel guilty. A stable home and lots of love and attention – they’re the things that matter.

Robin Barker is the author of Baby Love, Pan Macmillan, $35, and Close To Home, Xoum, $24.99