This blog has never been one that had a lot of regulars that debate and socialize in the article comments threads. The responses are sporadic, and I think I get a lot more "Anonymous" posts than your average Manosphere blog. I am fully aware that the full range of topics I write about can be eclectic and many times "off the beaten path," and that's fine. This blog is really nothing more than an outlet for the things I don't really get to discuss in real life within my social peer group and family. It was only two months ago that I even discovered that Blogger had begun to offer traffic stats and such back in 2009...but looking at them confirmed what I have always suspected - I have far more readers than one would guess just based on the comments.
What amuses me though, is that I never know when a piece I write is going to get a lot of comments or not. Sometimes I write something that I expect will generate a lot of comments, and it only gets only 1 or 2 responses...and other times I write something I expect to get little response and the opposite happens.
My last post, Explaining Opportunity Costs to Career Women
was one such surprise. The most amusing thing about it was the response by the person who's offhand comment over at OneSTDV's inspired the post in the first place.
I wasn't really out to 'get after' her...but that her comment that "she had it all" is one for which I've heard many a career woman exclaim. A lot of women fool themselves into believing that they did in fact "achieve it all." The only real point I was making is that 'having it all' is physically and temporally impossible.
As that prolific poster Anonymous wrote:
What kind of math puts more than 24 hours in a day?
What kind of math allows you to be in two places at once (home and work)?
What kind of math will convince your kids that they're better off spending 8 hours a day with a stranger rather than their mother?
I guess such basic mathematical logic was to hard to comprehend for a successful career woman like jz.
She actually commented and confirmed precisely the point I was making, but still failed to get it. Just as I suspected, she had a Nanny perform the Mommy role for her.
For 12 years my 3 kids were cared for in our home by the same woman. She is a physician's wife whose own children had grown.
No matter how well qualified she was, she was still hired to do the things you did not have the time for while you were busy with your challenging work making all that stunning income.
Her nurturing of them included intangibles that I could not have provided,
You could have. You just chose to pay someone else to do so for you.
including occasional same age playmates (her nephews), an exceptionally playful nature, new games, and she even took them on a mini-vacation. Each day she came, we spent time talking about how the day went. As a young mother myself, I valued her advice.
Do you really think that the amount of time and effort you put into your career, had it been applied to raising your children, you really believe you could not have provided them with games, mini-vacations and same age playmates?
The years progressed, she had grandchildren, and my own daughters babysat for her grandchildren. My kids were home for Christmas and they met to reminisce with her.
She was a great nanny who grew close with your children to the point that they treat each other like family. It is great that you were able to provide this sort of influence for your children....but it is THE POINT you keep missing. This is precisely why YOU did not "HAVE IT ALL." Your nanny had all of the things that I refer to when I say you could not have had it all. That is the opportunity costs you paid to focus on your career and paying another woman to raise and nurture your children for you.
Even in my part time years, I was paid beyond my wildest expectations. Contrary to happy platitudes, money does buy happiness.
I guess you missed the point of my headstone graphic on the last post?
It buys global adventure travel, choice of schools, choice of recreation, and choice of neighborhoods.
Of course, no one can deny the advantages wealth provides. But the human relationship of nurturing and parenting your own offspring? You wouldn't know, because you outsourced it. Perhaps that bought YOU happiness, as your children "flourished" under the nurturing of the hired help...so now you have the perfect status symbols to brag about when condescendingly telling the lowly proles how you in fact "have it all!"
No family energy is wasted on financial anguish.
I'd bet when your children were little, they had another sort of anguish to deal with. I'd bet my last dollar that at one point or another, your kids asked their nanny why Mommy is hardly around.
The OP knee-jerked on materialism, which is just trivial thinking.
My perspective on materialism is anything but a knee-jerk response, and it is certainly not trivial. What is trivial thinking is that by attaining career success to afford a luxury-filled lifestyle, is that you "had it all."
You didn't. You had material success, but you did not have maternal success. You paid someone else to do that for you.
By staying in the game, I can now stockpile money for grandchildren that I hope to have someday, and I can contribute to political causes.
JZ, those are important things to work for. Someone has to earn and provide for the family. I am NOT criticizing you out of some notion that you are a bad Mom for having a career and earning lots of money. We all have to do what we have to do to put food in our bellies, roofs over our heads and clothes on our backs. That you were a financial success is obviously a great source of pride...as it should be.
The only point I'm taking pains to point out to you is that despite your claims, you DID NOT HAVE IT ALL. I am only insisting on the truth here. You had a lot...but you missed out on a lot of things that you paid somebody else to experience for you while you were out dealing with the challenging work making your stunning income.
You've internalized the lies of our modern world - that financial and career success is the be all-end all measurement for success. Deep down, some part of you has to realize that your kids are bonded with and closer to their nanny than they are to you.
Which is precisely what I mean by you did NOT "have it all."
Now I can earn for another 15 years; SAHMs experience the opportunity cost of staying out of the market.
And career women experience the opportunity cost of staying out of the home and paying someone else to make it a home for you.
So, I'll reiterate that some women can have it all.
Only if you define "ALL" in terms of materialism.
You state that my dismissal of materialism as the measure of success was trivial.
I find it incredibly sad that you trivialize the most meaningful aspect of having and raising children...actually spending substantial and meaningful time with them as they grow. I'm sure you had many a moment that you had a moment of realization buried within yourself, covered up and hidden with rationalizations and justifications...moments in which you noticed the bond your children had with their nanny instead of you. Who did they run to for comfort when they got hurt as children? I bet there was multiple occasions in which they ran right past you (if you were even there...) to the comforting arms of their nanny.
This is my final comment here, because this is a blog that I do not respect.
I'm sure I'll manage to carry on...but I thank you for proving my point for me despite missing it for yourself.
39 comments:
You are hitting them out of the park lately.
She doesn't really miss all those events with her children, just getting a report from nanny is enough. Just having children is good enough, and being able to check off things on her checklist for them means they are turning out just awesome! Happy hugs all around! Prototypical boomer mom. Her family is only an extention of her materialist narcissist self.
Just wait till her children move away and never call her, and save their heartfelt affectionate memories for nanny.
As my mother taught her children:
"There is no such thing as making quality time, quality time happens out of nowhere in the middle of quantity time. You must have quantity before quality will ever happen."
Didn't you hear? Children are merely an obstacle to be gotten around until it's "convenient" to spend time with them, or even better, a trap that prevents us from feeling "fulfilled."
Thank goodness we can pay other people to take these little burdens off our hands so we can do more important things, like watch TV or go shopping!
/sarcasm
As an aside, I realize I'm being maybe a tad harsh. Plenty of women work because they feel or actually have to just to survive... but some people think that cable, internet, two cars, regular eating out, gym memberships and an over-sized house is requisite for "survival." I disagree vehemently.
Do you really think that the amount of time and effort you put into your career, had it been applied to raising your children, you really believe you could not have provided them with games, mini-vacations and same age playmates?
Keoni, I'm going to have to disagree with you about this. Lots of women are hopeless child carers. The strangest type of woman I see in my practice is the woman who doesn't want to work (i.e have a career and yet is hopeless looking after the kids) And yes, some of these women can be made into better carers with education and training but a lot of them are temperamentally unsuited to the job. Sometimes its not due to the selfishness of a woman, sometimes its just that she is a naturally poor carer.
I think the ability to child nurture is a gift. I think that the error that most conservatives make is in assuming all women innately posses this gift.
SP - Perhaps you are right...perhaps she is perfectly unsuited for it and hiring a nanny was the best thing for her family.
The main point overall still stands: she did not "have it all." That's the standard, feminist meme preached to our 21st century women...that a woman can dedicated career woman and still have the same fulfillment of the SAHM role too.
All I was telling jz is that she did the provider role (and quite well by her claims), but she did not fulfill the homemaker role...her hired Nanny did that.
That is not "having it all." That's just having the "provider role."
@Keoni.
hat is not "having it all." That's just having the "provider role."
You've got no disagreement with me there.
You seem to be completely focused on mothers and have forgotten the fathers? Why aren't there more stay-at-home dads? Are moms better parents than dads? Are dads little more than the family's ATM machine? Are dads little more than a "figurehead" parent? Do dads have little or no interest in spending more time with their children?
I think women have greater social needs than the average man, which includes a strong need for social status. This means the typical nuclear family arrangement is too lonely and low status for many women and she will get depressed.
I think a lot women work just to have people to talk to, even if the bulk of their day is mindless paper shuffling / data entry. Tending kids is not enough. A fat paycheck is just icing on the cake.
The U.S. leads the world in anti-depressant prescriptions and lonely auto / suburban culture. I don't think that's a coincidence. If we look at who is gulping down the anti-depressants, its probably not men / husbands.
Andrew,
Most women will not be the sole provider. A man views a non-working woman as, well, the way things are. A woman views a non-working man as dead weight and with rare exceptions, very unattractive (not, of course, talking about the losers so many women go gaga over) This makes it exceedingly difficult for the man to be the one staying home.
That being said, I am doing my best to get to a place where I can stay home with my boy because I recognize how important these early years are. I know Keoni feels much the same way as he recently stated that he cut back on hours to spend more time with his child.
I have far more readers than one would guess just based on the comments.
Well, of course you do. This is a great blog.
As for the woman who left that silly comment: I have come to see that feminists make a habit of missing the point. Sometimes it's an honest lack of understanding, and other times they have told themselves what they need to in order to live with the choices they make and the resulting impact on the children.
In actuality, I think our culture has no idea of the differences between wants and needs.
I alway read this blog, but rarely comment here. The amount of comments does not reflect the influence of Keoni in the world.
Andrew,
You seem to be completely focused on mothers and have forgotten the fathers? Why aren't there more stay-at-home dads? Are moms better parents than dads? Are dads little more than the family's ATM machine? Are dads little more than a "figurehead" parent? Do dads have little or no interest in spending more time with their children?
Thank you so much for pointing this out!
In conversations like these, fathers tend to be forgotten. With all the talk about career mothers not being there for their children, not being present, lack of quality time, and not knowing them, I'm left wondering if when it comes to fathers, is it not as important to be as present in their kids' lives.
The "mon-o-sphere" constantly harp on how fathers are important in the lives of kids, but there's barely any mention the above drawbacks of being career dads, although I know for sure that quality time with and the presence of fathers are important.
That was supposed to be "man-o-sphere".
The point some of you keep missing when trying to focus on "what about the father's" is that most Fathers who work all the time to support their family do not claim to "HAVE IT ALL" and are 'Super Career Man AND Dedicated Father.' Most career Men understand that by working to support the family, they are sacrificing the time spent with the kids to pay for their food, clothing and housing. They don't claim to be doing both the provider and nurturer to the children...which is the B.S. that career women such as j.z. loudly proclaim as proof that they are a superior "modern" woman who HAS IT ALL.
I agree - women can't have it all, men can't have it all.
If you choose to become super successful in your career you can't always be there for your kids.
Maybe if you built a very successful company in your 20s, and phased into a part-time advisory role upon parenthood (while still earning big profits), you could claim to have it all. Or perhaps reached the pinnacle of success as an athlete in your 20s and then became a full-time parent. In any case, these situations are exceedingly rare.
And yes, men should also consider parenting more and working less.
If you're arguing for "traditional" men-work-women-stay-home lifestyles, fine. But I should point out that such arrangements aren't really traditional. In most cultures throughout history, women worked as much as men (excepting privileged upper class people). It has almost always been necessary for both spouses to work to make it in life. What has changed since the industrial revolution is that most work takes place outside of the home - or some other environment where children could be present (and even involved in the work - a great opportunity to teach). Modern families face a lot of difficult trade offs in raising their families. I don't necessarily disagree with your central point. But women such as your target aren't the only ones involved in this - men have to make the same choices.
If you're arguing for "traditional" men-work-women-stay-home lifestyles, fine.
I'm not arguing "FOR" anything here other than recognition of the truth regarding opportunity costs. I'm not saying women should or shouldn't work...only that when a person makes a choice on what to do with their life and how they structure their family, they need to be truthful about the opportunity costs, whatever choice they make.
NO one can "have it all." But that doesn't stop career womynz like jz from claiming they do. My point is not to prove jz wrong...but to get OTHER people that read this to think about what "Having it all" really means.
Well shit!
In that case I'll just skip marriage altogether, have my child with a surrogate mother who needs the money and hire a nanny to care for him/her.
And in my copious free time I'll (at least try to) get my sexual needs met with a nice skank or two who no one else will marry either.
If it really is that simple then maybe *I'm* the one who can have it all, ha!
"The "man-o-sphere" constantly harp on how fathers are important in the lives of kids, but there's barely any mention the above drawbacks of being career dads, although I know for sure that quality time with and the presence of fathers are important."
When would they do that pray tell? Earning a living isn't cheap, you must know this by now. Which career are you asking about Renee? Do you mean 60-80 hour work weeks, is that the sort of issue in terms of time that you refer?
Yes men are important, that goes without saying, but the main thing you forget is that most men realize that spending time with their kids is important, but you know what's important too....eating...having a roof over your head.
Just like Keoni had suggested, you can't have it all, men know this and have always realized this.
Great post Keoni, your post shook the hamsters of both Kimberly and jz. They tried to get you to bow to their hamsters and your logic never faltered. Good for you my man.
Do we really want women to be stay-at-home moms? Let me tell you want happens when a man gets divorced from a woman who is a stay-at-home mom. The man will lose custody of his children and will be told by some family court when he will be allowed to "visit" with his children. The man will probably only see his children a few days a month, if that. The man will also be forced to pay his ex-wife big bucks in alimony and child support. I ask again, do we really want women to be stay-at-home moms?
While it is precious and special that men are sooo very concerned about the "opportunity costs" that career moms pay, men should also focus on the "opportunity costs" that career dads pay.
"While it is precious and special that men are sooo very concerned about the "opportunity costs" that career moms pay, men should also focus on the "opportunity costs" that career dads pay."
How much different is it from a man divorcing an employed woman period? He may pay less money, but he get's screwed just the same. I see your point Andrew, but this is a different issue at the moment. When raising children, it's better the mother stay home, that is if one is brave enough to even marry in this day and age.
In the mid 1980s a couple of my acquaintance, career people. He worked in high tech, she in publishing. They had a nanny, full time. Though the nanny did not live in their home, she was close and was there as much as 12 to 14 hours per day, including some weekends. The nanny was a native of central America.
The couple invited me to dinner one evening. The nanny had the night off. As we all sat around the living room enjoying cocktails before dinner, the mother was trying to get the child, then about 6 or 7 years old, to go to bed without much success. Finally, in exasperation, she tells the child in no uncertain terms to get his ass upstairs into bed. The child responds with an angry and defiant, "No! I don't take orders from no woman!"
It's all about culture. It was at this moment that they both realized that by outsourcing child raising to a woman, and essentially her family, from a third world culture that it was the nanny's native culture that the child was learning and not the upscale western european and US culture that they intended. They were mortified!
The nanny was dismissed shortly thereafter and she became a stay at home mom with the unenviable task of de-programming her child of his first 6 years of latin american lower class values and biases. -- I left the workforce in 2001 and a few months later the geographic area in 2000. At that time the effort was still in progress. The ultimate outcome was far from certain.
"You seem to be completely focused on mothers and have forgotten the fathers?"
As I said in the other thread, the man has NO choice in the matter. He MUST work and sacrifice family time whether he likes it or not. Only the woman gets the choice, and only the woman gets to delude herself that she's great at both work and child-raising.
"men should also consider parenting more and working less"
No they shouldn't, because that's a good way to have your woman lose respect for you and dump your ass.
One problem we have in this culture of glorifying Single Mothers and Working Mothers, is that so many Modern Womyn are simply mentally and psychologically unfit to BE mothers -- hell, the vast majority of them are unfit to be WIVES!
Witness the change in their thinking and attitudes when they start approaching thirty and start having baby rabies -- and suddenly want the "Good Men" (aka, 'suckers') that they had nothing but contempt and derision for previously.
Modern Womyn don't want to RAISE children -- they simply want to HAVE babies and get their "motherhood" jones taken care of. But after the child gets through infancy, they become an impediment and an obstacle to the Modern Mother's almighty and all-important "fulfillment".
"...If it wasn't for parties and alcohol, none of us would be here. I don't care what day you were born on, you were started on a Friday or a Saturday night."
-- David Brenner
In our family, my wife worked swing shift part-time when the kids were little and then full time when they were older (with every other weekend). We used a small amount of supplemental day care to cover the occasional overlap, but otherwise there was always at least one of us home. It worked well. The kids are grown, well adjusted, happy & healthy adults. You do what you've got to do.
I think it's great if you can make it work with one full-time stay at home parent. In this day & age, few can really do it.
Very well said, sir.
You strike at the very heart of the problem: materialism. It is the default world view of most Americans, and why there is great confusion when people are so unhappy despite the fact that but any standard every American is wealthier than 95% of everyone else in the world today, and 99.99% of everyone in history.
The problem, of course, is that material things don't make you happy - any serious thought about the matter will lead to that conclusion. So, once you realize that, you have to determine what will make you happy, and this leads to red pill stuff and a general rejection of most of the values of feminism.
Excellent post, once again.
"Modern Womyn don't want to RAISE children -- they simply want to HAVE babies and get their "motherhood" jones taken care of."
Amen. You can't be a full-time parent and a full-time worker at the same time. You have to at least make one or the other part time or possibly eliminate it altogether.
Modern women want to REPRODUCE, not parent. This is another corollary of the feminist fallacy that men and women should play completely interchangeable and identical roles in society because the traditionally masculine role is always better for women than the traditionally feminine one.
I know a lot of married MEN who say, "Hell, my kids are the only reason I go to work at all. If I ever won the lottery, I'd stay home and be with them all day." Working to support a family is difficult and tiresome, especially since so many of today's jobs crush and degrade either body or soul in one way or another. That's not to say that most men wouldn't still rather work than stay home. For women, though, to assume that whatever men traditionally did that they didn't do is better for them just because men did it is childish and irrational.
I realize that there are some women who would rather work than parent and who would have no regrets about outsourcing their child-rearing duties to a nanny or allowing their husbands to stay home. The problem is, though, that almost all women who grow up today, including those who would be happiest as solely wives and mothers, believe that they, too, are like this. These misled mothers are the ones who end up with alienated children, divorced or emasculated husbands, and deep loneliness and despair, usually without ever understanding why.
I think it's great if you can make it work with one full-time stay at home parent. In this day & age, few can really do it.
Oh please. The typical liberal claim that "we are progressing" and "it's inevitable" didn't work for me and many, many of my friends.
I'm a millenial, my husband works and I'm a stay-at home (occasionally part-time working) mother and we live just fine. Many of our friends do the same. Couldn't be happier.
Sure most women worked throughout history. They did women's work!
Also about liberal and libertarian chicks not having children? That's GREAT! Less liberal and libertarian genes being replicated and passed on to future generations.
Keoni,
You are one of the few people that will understand this. Yes, it is 3.5 hours, but it explains much.
The Money Masters
She looks at her family as a possession, so indeed she "has it all". She doesnt have the bonding with her kids, but she doesnt value the bond, because, in her mind, bonds are chains.
So she´s the female version of the vilified absent father whos too busy with his own life to love his family.
Thought this is relevant and cool:
G.K. Chesterton On Motherhood
“To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can imagine how this can exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.”
-G.K. Chesterton
Sending the children to school is the same as having a nanny, because in essence, other people are indoctrinating your children.
The men will have to restore the culture of home life by rewarding women with marriage, only if they are the right kind: the homey, stay at home, cooking, teaching their own children, dedicated to marriage types of women.
If women in general know that the only way to get guys to marry is to have those homey and feminine virtues, more women will go to cooking school and more women will want to learn to sew, to show off their domestic accomplishments and attract the kind of guy that appreciates them.
But it will be the men who will change things, by insisting that no woman is good enough unless they will only marry women who are feminine, non-competitive with men, and who will be dependent rather than independent.
Most "career women" couldn't tell you their children's favorite colours if their children were standing right beside them and yelling, "I don't like green, Mommy, I like purple!"
Do be careful with your assumptions folks. I am a career mother and I do not regret my choice, my daughters father stays home with her and is secure enough in his manliness to not feel uncomfortable with that role. I see no reason for anyone to assert that the working parent by default should always be the father. And, no, I would not assert, as the commenter under discussion did, that I "have it all", but I believe that I have the best possible life that I could create and have given my daughter the best opportunities and examples available. In short, while not "all" it's still a whole hell of a lot!
"Do be careful with your assumptions folks. I am a career mother and I do not regret my choice, my daughters father stays home with her and is secure enough in his manliness to not feel uncomfortable with that role. I see no reason for anyone to assert that the working parent by default should always be the father. And, no, I would not assert, as the commenter under discussion did, that I "have it all", but I believe that I have the best possible life that I could create and have given my daughter the best opportunities and examples available. In short, while not "all" it's still a whole hell of a lot!"
I see what you are saying but what you don't grasp is this. You are simply the exception which proves the rule. If the swapping of these roles works for you that's wonderful, but women tend to feel resentful when they are the main breadwinners.
Bluntly, just because it works for your one case doesn't negate the the large amount of information which suggests you are the minority. I know of a 55 year old woman who can eat what she wants, drinks like a fiend, smokes like a stack and never works out but she has a body of a 25 year old.
No joke, I have mistaken for a much younger woman on two different occasions approaching her from behind.
Does that mean we all can follow that same pattern and we will have such amazing results? You and I both know this isn't true. These generalizations and assumptions may be just that, but they exist for a reason. Most men feel emasculated to stay at home there are a large amount of women who feel resentful as the main breadwinner.
Just because "it works for me" does not mean it is good for a child. Men are naturally geared toward working and being providers. A small percentage of men will be unable to work or be providers, due to disabilities, but I am speaking men who can work and will not. Women are physically geared to child care. Between the ages of 18 and 35, it is important to increase a certain kind of exercise such as "load-bearing" to prevent deterioration of bones (this can be verified in many health studies), and this is the exact age when most women would be carrying their babies or lifting their children, bending to look after a small child, and moving about in a way similar to exercise. When women let others do the child care and they go to work in another capacity, they skip all the necessary work that really makes them healthier. When a man becomes a house husband, he misses out on the opportunity to be a good provider and increase a sense of satisfaction in his manliness.
(to continue)--it is not necessarily good for a child to be raised by a father while the mother becomes the provider. Mothers are tailor made for their children, and have a nurturing ability built in to them (which can sometimes be sabataged by an unhealthy indoctrination of feminism) that provides everything a child needs to develop essentials that help him or her have a balanced life. Mothers were created to look after their own children, and while fathers have a huge impact on their chilren, it is the mother that will provide the details of the child care.
Wow! My first thoughts on reading this article was that it hit the nail on the head with what I've been thinking lately. I get soooo angry with these arrogant women who assume that they superhumanly have the ability to be it all and do it all in terms of achieving all that the essential roles of masculinity and femininity provide, thus negating or diminishing the need for the opposite sex to contribute (in her case the man). And Keoni so excellently demonstrates it to be a lie, and whilst I agree she has an excessive reliance on materialism, I can't help thinking her arrogance and pride in "achieving it all" as a (super) human and woman shows a deep need for self reliance and belief this makes a better more competant person. How sad this is, when the truth what makes us strongest as people is knowing when we really NEED other people to complete us, contrary to the ideal of women making it "on their own". We all have limitations as humans and so as he says no one can "have it all", but isn't this why the sexes and indeed human beings need each other, one can make up for the lack in the other, when one person tries to do it all, there will always be a lack they can't fill.
What is the point of giving birth to a baby if you are not prepared to bond with them properly as a parent, and leave the real parenting to a nanny? It is possible to have career success and a family as a woman, personally as an artistic woman I am inspired by mums who nurture their family and manage their creative business from home. But if she is the nurturer this role must ALWAYS be first, and invariably that will limit to a varying extent her career role. The father in general can work without these limitations, but will spend less time with the kids as a result. But I disagree that fathers cannot work long hours and still be good fathers, in general children do not need the physical presence of their fathers as much as mothers, but value the different parenting style of the father just as much, even though it may involve him spending less time with them. (As a christian the bible shows me the father's role as parent as just as important by being the head, the main protector of the family, a head disciplinian among many other things).
What INFURIATED me recently was when I read on the BBC web site of a study in the UK mainly I think, where I live, that studied mothers at work giving counselling to their distressed child on the phone, and mothers who comfort in person at home and concluded that both approaches are just as beneficial to the child. It never said how they gathered the data and drew these conclusions but to me it just stank of a study designed to appease mothers who spend too much time at work, reassuring them that they don't need to feel guilty, mothering on the phone is just as good! Of course there are cases where a stressed mother at home may not give a sympathetic response and a mother at work may be in a calm mood and a better listener, but in general isn't it obvious that children will benefit more from having their mum physically there to comfort than talking to her on the phone esp at what may be a stressed workplace? What angered me most is the effect this will have on children, there are already reports in the UK at least that children's mental health is suffering more, these sort of studies will only serve to justify more neglect from mothers, I pray that God changes the hearts of these women.
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