I quite like Kirsty Young but my goodness she's talking a lot of tosh in today's Telegraph. She claims that mothers see children as an 'extension of their success', attempting to turn them into 'baby Einsteins', and that those who 'give up work' to 'do children' have to justify their decision. 'We've become much more child-centric as a society, it's a kind of badge of honour to say your life revolves around your children,' she says.
I'm not sure who Kirsty has been mixing with – the kind of parents who buy their children 'seven pairs of shoes', apparently – but most of the mothers I know who gave up work to raise their kids did so because they felt it was a) better for their children to be at home, at least until they went to school and b) it wasn't financially viable, once they'd fathomed in the cost of childcare, for them to return to work.
And ALL the mums I know – including the SAHMs and the WAHMs – have their own identities, separate from their roles as mothers. Yes of course they're devoted to their kids (isn't that kind of what being a mother is all about?!) but they also enjoy doing their own thing, too.
To add insult to injury, Kirsty claims that 'most women don't have careers. They have jobs that they have to do to pay the electricity bill or buy school shoes.' But I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive, actually.
*What do you think – is Kirsty right?
written by Liz Jarvis