Should Mothers Stay at Home?

A growing number of people are concerned about the impact working mothers have on family life, according to British research. Should mothers stay home and look after the family? A study by Cambridge University in the UK has found that support of mothers having a career is beginning to decline. In 1998, 51% of women and 45.9% of men believed that family life would not suffer if a woman went to work. This number decreased to 46% of women and 42% of men in 2002.

From the BBC News website

The inference from this research appears to be that working mums are to blame for declining standards of British society. If mothers stayed at home like the dutiful wives they're meant to be, to look after the children and cook and clean for the husband then life in Britain would be idyllic. Wouldn't it?

This may have been the way of things in this country fifty years ago. But life in
21st century Britain is far different. The economics of this country mean that most people simply have to work. When my gruesome twosome daughters Laura and Michaela were children, their mother had to work at the weekends in order that we could make ends meet. Which meant we seldom did things as a family and this increased the strain on our relationship. But if she hadn't gone out to work we wouldn't have been to afford the mortgage. Now, years later, daughter Laura struggles with part-time work and having to pay what are, quite frankly, outrageous nursery fees.

This is something that needs looking at. The cost of childcare in this country is ridiculous. If the government would spend less of the taxpayers money on futile wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and more on the people who really need it - the working people of this country - then perhaps society would improve. I'm not blaming the government for bad parenting. All parents have an obligation to bring up their children as best they can. However, for some, the financial struggle of raising their offspring is a real hardship. If real financial assistance was available for families, perhaps one of the parents may consider not working full-time and spending more time with their children.

To my mind, it shouldn't just be mothers who should be seen as the ones staying at home. Fathers should have the right to do this too - the term house husband should be looked in the same light as house wife.

It seems to me the researchers at Cambridge University have too much time on their hands. I wonder if any of them have children?