If you have children, don’t leave them anxiously alone while you work
SIR – How I agree with Dr Catherine Keech (Letters, December 1) – surely being a mother means bringing up one’s children.
Unlike her, I didn’t have any degrees or great educational achievements, but I chose to be a mother at home for my children.
I hated my own mother not being in the house when I came home from school. Children need somebody to upload the day’s adventures to as soon as they hit home turf, or just want to know they are safe and home.
I can’t say I felt completely fulfilled throughout my children’s childhood, but I did what I felt was my job. To be a mother means looking after one’s children, not farming them out.
If you feel you have to follow your own expectations and desires in life, fine. Just don’t have children and inflict loneliness and anxiety on them. Ann Baker
Tor Point, Cornwall
SIR – Well said, Dr Catherine Keech. Three cheers for stay-at-home
mothers and also fathers. Their contribution is priceless. Jill Creak
Beckenham, Kent
SIR – It was a pleasure to read Dr Keech’s letter about the rewards of being a mother to her young children. Every benefit she records from looking after them has the ring of truth.
In my opinion she made a logical connection between a lack of mothering (or fathering) and the rise in mental health problems in young people. With two parents working, it becomes impossible to monitor internet use, subtle changes in behaviour and crises of self-esteem.
In the tiny amount of time left between arriving home, doing the housework, making the dinner and endless homework issued by school, there is perhaps the opportunity for a few short exchanges.
Wealthy families with nannies may feel immune to these problems, but if you do not have time with your children, the relationship must of necessity be a different one – in all probability less profound and secure.
Successive governments have been very keen to increase tax revenues from working parents, many of whom are forced to work because a low-pay economy no longer allows the average family to survive on a single wage.
Interestingly, Dr Phillip Lee, the Justice Minister, recently said in regards to the elderly: “Care is much better delivered by people who truly care, not people who are paid to care.” If this is true of the elderly, it surely must be true for babies and children.
It is time for the Government to offer families a chance to be together and create strong units, so that the costs of weak family policy cease to grow exponentially.
Perhaps it could start by offering the funding that currently goes towards nursery care hours, as vouchers to parents who wish to raise their children at home in the crucial early years. Elena Sapsford
Barkway, Hertfordshire