#...Sometimes at school I miss my mum and dad. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I go to aftercare but on Fridays Mum picks me up. I'd like every day to be Friday."…#

So says a child of working parents.

…And how much more difficult is the task of a single working parent? …”Things are bad, but they could be worse”!

Thank god.

As I have do desire to ever move in "feminist circles", or in fact ever get close to one, I must be safe for now.

Sonja you are a decent person and have attitudes in commonwith most of the decent parents I know. Most value child rearing and spend as .uch time as tbeh can involved with their children. It is why they chose to have them in the first place.

Ha ha ha ha! Sonia, you just know that the majority of commenters on this site will not read the article you refer to and will therefore not know what the article actually said. And they will love your jibe at "The sisterhood". It was all an exercise to see what comes out of the woodwork, right?

Anybody really interested in the increasing pressure and necessity on women to participate in the oh-so-important free market place with its focus on growth, growth, growth would do well to start with reading the report by Maria Shriver http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/report/2009/10/16/6789/the-shriver-report/
True, done in the US of A. But there are many Aussies here who think we are much to soft with our welfare here in Oz anyway and dream of a capitalist society of the US kind.

Sonia, with children, you would need a very well earning partner, or yourself have an above average earning capacity to enjoy the luxury of baking pikelets with your children without some form of support from welfare in the form of parental payments. Even if just a top-up.

Yes indeed, hands up all those modern women who would have just loved to have stayed home full time with the kiddies like their mums did?
Yes, probably most of you.

Now, hands up all the modern fathers who would have loved their wives to stay
home with the kids and not worked to bring in money at all?
Hello? Anyone?

Most of us had no choice.
We weren't living back in the 'good old days' when one income was enough, and the little woman stayed home and did what she was told.
And no, we didn't both work for luxuries at all.

So whatever happened to the "Great Dream"?

In the US it started to collapse because of imported cheap labor from Mexico that drove down their overall standard of living.

Now throw in a period of high inflation and never-ending housing bubbles and some things start slipping out of financial reach while the market gets flooded with all sorts of gadgets to distract us all.

Then big business realised they had a large available workforce already on-hand that they could also underpay - women!

Everybody working and everybody consuming more than ever before! 24 hour shopping for all, and all it costs is the end of the traditional Family Unit.

All these things - minimum wages, inflation and the promotion of rampant consumerism - are the product of unregulated corporate greed, and it's getting worse. The gap between the rich and poor is growing faster and faster.

It's been said that "people are meant to be loved and things are meant to be used" but it's the other way around - people are being used and don't we just love our toys and goodies.

Perspective is a sad thing to lose and some people never get it back.

In the US it started to collapse because of imported cheap labor from Mexico that drove down their overall standard of living.
wobbles,
the same has happened here since so much of our revenue is syphoned away by the boat people phenomenon & so many other outfits clawing at public funding. There's nothing left to spend on infrastructure & building up the economy. Simply a case of too many snouts in the trough. The Public Service being the worst.

Here here Sonia, our kids were raised just like your kids, soccer piano ballet and swimming lessons and they are now role model young adults, with our daughter soon to be a mother herself.

I have often thought that many of these so called 'experts', the ones who are quick to judge your shortcomings as a parent, arnt even parents themselves, or, they are in a same sex relationship and, if they do happen to raise children, then I would suggest their kids run a far greater risk of being disadvantaged than ours.

Finally, our kids, now adults love and respect us as parents and to us, this is far more important than spending time at after school care where among other things they are often exposed to bad habits, as ASC is often used as a child minding service for the rich.

Excellent article, thank you Sonia.
Life is full of sacrifice, and the greatest and most essential of these should be for the effective rearing and care of one's children.
A person may rationalize a host of seemingly legitimate and honest reasons for outsourcing a huge part of their child-rearing responsibilities - to facilitate both parents (or a sole-parent) having to maintain full-time employment - but such thinking is grossly flawed, because the inescapable reality is that children need and deserve extensive quality time with at least one parent (and most importantly from the 'mum'). What the parent chooses to include in that quality time will determine whether the child/children will be 'left-behind' in the later competition for progress, achievement and success.

'Nannies' and 'Early-Learning Professionals' will ever be a poor substitute for a genuinely caring and capable parent.
(And, aspiring 'parents' who lack relevant skills, motivation or capacity, should seek relevant development - or else, leave childbirth and parenting to those who do have 'the right stuff'.)

Suze, your rationalization may appear compelling, but it can only ever be far from optimal. IMHO.

I second Saltpetre's comments.

The round instead of square ends on a swimming pool, or a new Subaru instead of a secondhand Hyundai are not fair exchanges for not being there for your infant's first word or steps.

The time between birth and school goes like the wind.

It is about what one sees as more important in the world

Well - that says it all! we'll just have to ensure full employment AGAIN in some way - maybe we need to get rid of the MADIF (Mandatory Dual Income Family) - that should free up around 40% of jobs.....

This compulsory two parent working bit came about with people wanting more in less time. A completely landscaped fully fitted out house and nothing less will do. It backfired and the prices of housing tripled, due to the amount of disposable money in the household.
My wife never worked outside except when she was sixteen on a chekout at coles. That was 42 years ago, and is still a social butterfly as she says.