Stay-at-home mums among society’s unsung heroes

Thank you, Janet Albrechtsen, for sharing your family’s experience. I was saddened to read Diane Smith-Gander’s comments, which I believe have no place in society today (“Nothing false about my choice to be a stay-at-home mum”, 2-3/3).

To further read that a government discussion paper characterises a group of women who “bear the burden of care” (and if this does in fact relate to mothers who care for their children) simply reinforces the government’s disregard for individual family choices.

If we value women’s choices, we must respect their diversity. Mothers and fathers have the inherent right to make choices relating to their children’s formative years that best meet their family’s needs.

Government has no place in deciding what is best for families and people of influence should be more circumspect in publicly advocating their personal views.

Lisa Gelsomino, Paddington, Qld

Janet Albrechtsen is spot-on in recognising the innate value of mothers staying at home and raising their children. My dear mum raised all nine of us; only finding, at 54 years of age and having been widowed for two years, that the government required her to “retrain” to get a job in order to retain her widow’s pension. It was the late 1960s and “women’s lib” was stirring around the world. Mum did the retraining and got a job. She never complained, despite the hard times. She is a true superwoman.

My mum would’ve applauded Janet’s piece and her decision to stay home. When mothers and motherhood are denigrated, society suffers – the stark evidence is in front of us right now.

Mary Hill, Sunbury, Vic

My wife and I decided she would be a stay-at-home mother. Even though I offered at one stage to be a stay-at-home father, my wife said “no way, go and get a job”.

In our case, my wife entered the (part-time) workforce when our two girls were finishing high school and our family greatly benefited from her stay-at-home role during all those years.

In our case, another change was that I left a corporate career path in the interest of our family. In my mid-30s I had reached my career objective of being chief executive of a medium-size manufacturing business in Adelaide, and was considering my next move up the corporate ladder in Sydney or Melbourne. This was in the mid-1980s.

Although I really enjoyed my role and my work, I realised that the 70 to 80 hours per week did not allow time for a (good) family life with two daughters. I left industry to become an entry-level academic with a much-reduced income that meant that we had to change our lifestyle and expectations.

Our car was second-hand, we shopped at the end of market trading hours, we had camping holidays, and our home was very small and modest, with second-hand furniture. Eventually we were able to build a larger home as owner-builders, and that took two years before we could move into a partly finished dwelling.

Another thing that made a very big difference was managing our family mealtimes in a way that our attention was focused on getting our young children to talk. This took some time and effort to work well.

But it was really valuable in that my wife and I learned all about our children’s experiences, ideas, concerns and relationships, and we were able to introduce, as appropriate, our own comments and suggestions.

In fact, this approach worked so well that it became a conditioned reflex for our children to start talking the moment our meal started, and we had many times when my wife and I would say almost nothing. The long-term benefit is that we have wonderfully open and loving relations and communications with our grown-up daughters.

These conversational mealtimes are a practical activity that most families could do.

Peter Balan, St Peters, SA

Apart from Janet Albrechtsen’s excellent points made in The Weekend Australian, there is also the contribution stay-at-home mums made to voluntary and charity work.

There was also more opportunity to engage with neighbours; even chatting over the fence or swapping recipes had their place in building community. Society was arguably the richer.

Roseanne Schneider, Toowoomba, Qld