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Apple-pie mom or career girl?

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Stay-at-home mums vs career girls debate

In the July issue of Saga Magazine, stay-at-home mum and family values champion Terry Hekker described how she had a change of heart after her husband deserted her. We asked for your views and were inundated with replies

No regrets

Patricia writes

My husband and I met when we were both undergraduates and married soon after leaving university in 1951. Our first child was born a year later (those were pre-pill days). It was assumed by both of us that I would stay at home to care for her, which I was happy to do. She was far too precious to hand over to someone else.

However, I was surprised at the firm line my husband drew between his duties and mine – if his ended at 5 o’clock and mine went on till midnight, that was too bad, he shouldn’t be expected to help. One of his favourite sayings was: “You don’t keep a dog and bark yourself.”

I was not very robust physically and all my training had been academic, so I made heavy weather of domesticity. We had no labour-saving devices, no car, refrigerator or even telephone.

Perhaps I was over-conscientious (always a home-made cake in the tin and clean clothes every day), but even if three other children had not come along, I do not think I could have coped with a job outside the home as well.

To keep myself mentally active I used to listen to schools’ broadcasts and language programmes, while scrubbing the floor or tackling a mountain of ironing (no easy-care fabrics then).

Over the years our material circumstances improved, but there were further demands on my time and energy. We had to do a fair amount of entertaining and attend functions, where I felt humiliated by my husband’s blatant flirting with other women. So I was not unduly surprised when, during our youngest child’s gap year, he announced that he was leaving to start a new life elsewhere.

This was 24 years ago and I was then in my fifties. Once I had adjusted to being on my own, instead of the centre of a large family, and to living extremely frugally, I experienced a sort of contentment.

I found modest, part-time employment to supplement the small allowance from my husband, until I reached the age of the basic state pension. Then I embarked on a career in the voluntary sector, which I found very satisfying. My mother used to say that my education had been wasted, but I do not agree. It gave me the inner resources which helped me to survive.

Despite what may seem a sad story of wasted talent, I do not regret not having had a career. My children have grown up to be well-balanced people, all members of the “caring professions”.

Not surprisingly, my daughters were strongly feminist, whereas my son has had a more traditional marriage. Even so, he is a hands-on father and shares some of the chores.

For different reasons from me, my daughters have not had any more choice about their lives than I had: with huge mortgages, and so many short-cuts available, from disposable nappies to ready-prepared food, they have been expected to return to work as soon as their babies reached six months. I have witnessed the emotional wrench and, later, the stressful juggling of school runs, trips to the supermarket and demands of a professional life, and I do not envy them.

I agree with Terry Hekker that girls should ensure they always have the capacity to earn, because you never know when this may be necessary. But to enter a marriage or partnership half expecting it to break down, is to undermine it from the start.

Although I have known unhappiness and hardship, I have no regrets, because I still have the warmth and love of a wonderful family, and the knowledge that at least that job was well done.

Children come first

Elizabeth King writes

Having grown up with a mother who had to go to work to put food on the table, often going out as my father came in, I feel very strongly that we have gone too much the other way with mothers feeling that they have to go out to work as society seems to expect it.

Many only work in order to provide holidays abroad; second homes and designer clothes. They allow the children to do as they wish, partly because they feel guilty about not spending more time with them.

I have been lucky, in that I have dipped in and out of the work market (as and when more income has been needed) – but have not had what one would describe as a career. At the end of the day – the needs of my children have come first. They need you there to collect them from school, to comfort them, to listen to all of their tales of woe and triumph throughout the day. When they are young they want to help with baking and household chores (even though, as they get older this novelty soon wears off).

I have been involved with a nursery school, which is a lovely setting for the children, where they are well cared for and have lots of activities. But many children are there every day from 7am until 7pm. They have become institutionalised and even though the environment is kind, in my view it is not healthy. Also, when they do go home they are kept up late as their parents feel that they have to spend time with them to make up for not being with them all day, so the children are not getting the sleep that they need.

We can’t have our cake and eat it. It is hard being a mother, but having made that decision we have a duty to be a mother. That does not mean sitting at home watching soaps and then driving our children everywhere – it is very hard work, and we need to keep active, keep interested and not get too bogged down with the tedium of running a home.

The bottom line is that the Terry Hekker changed her mind. Working or not working will not make a marriage last – society has changed, and ideally we would stay married to one partner and be happy. Working mothers are more likely to have relationships outside the marriage and therefore create even more instability.

We cannot turn back the clock, but that does not mean she was wrong with her original ideas – it appears that she has had a shock and this reaction is a knee-jerk response. I too am divorced, so I am not looking at the situation through rose-coloured glasses.

Achieving a balance

Mary McCaughan writes

I am from the “women’s lib” generation, who decided that being a stay-at-home Mum was a form of oppression, and that women should be out there expressing themselves, using their talents and getting rewards for their labours.

Nevertheless, I spent seven years at home looking after our two children up until the second one started primary school. These were among the most fulfilling years of my life, and the happiest, even though I was dependent on my husband’s modest income. I took a great interest in all aspects of child development and psychology, as well as home-making and personal development (I did some distance learning courses), so I was never bored.

I have never regretted that time. I feel that it provided a wonderful bonding opportunity with my children, which has lasted for over 30 years now, and it gave them a stability and security which has stood them in good stead.

As soon as they were both at school I took a university degree and than went into part-time work. I am a great advocate of part-time work for parents and think there should be many more job-sharing opportunities out there. This would allow for a much better work-life balance.

Unfortunately, after about 14 years of marriage, our world began to crumble just as Terry Hekker’s had done. My husband’s drinking had become a problem, he seemed jealous of my achievements and, I later discovered, he was seeing other women. He was becoming increasingly violent towards me, and eventually left me hospitalised after a drunken incident in full view of the children. I left him.

In the fallout we lost our home, as he had been drinking money borrowed from the bank and we were terribly in debt.

I am forever grateful that I paid attention to my own career development, modest as it was, so that I had the wherewithal to lift myself and my children out of the morass into which my husband had led us.

Our separation was 20 years ago, and I have succeeded in buying another new home and putting my two children through university, and myself through a higher degree. We have gone from strength to strength, and thankfully they are now two well-balanced adults, and my best friends.

So you see, my experience has led me to believe in both the importance of dedicated child-rearing time, and also of career development opportunities for both parents.

I think our society should strive to find ways to give our children the kind of head start that is often best provided by having a parent at home, while giving the parent reward for the valuable work of child-rearing, and opportunities to make a career.

Halfway house

Jean Armin writes

May I enter your debate even though I am not a mum? I can certainly see the dilemma between the ideal and reality faced by Terry Hekker, although the fact that it all went wrong after 40 years surely did not make her marriage up to that point a mistake!

Today’s mums have a greater choice, an opportunity to have the best of both worlds. My mother left work to have her two children in the 1950s and never returned to it, although she did a bit of typing brought home from our father’s office.

Although I have not had children myself, if I did I could still be pursuing my present employment.

Working from home I have three part-time jobs, doing clerical work, bookkeeping and sales by telephone and computer. My total hours are about 24 a week, and I earn almost as much as my husband who works full time in maintenance.

It is a return to the old “cottage industry” where the man goes out to work and the woman is with the family but earning what she can “at the hearth”. I’m doing this now as a halfway stage to retirement, but it is certainly a feasible lifestyle choice for young mums too.

A fulfilling life

June A Coppock writes

I suppose I had the best of both worlds. My husband wasn’t ambitious – he was very intelligent, excellent at languages, loved sport, but was tongue-tied at interviews.

It was one of the things that attracted me to him. I had many friends less able than he who pretended to be what he actually was – well educated and with the standards of decency and respect instilled by a loving set of parents.

We married when I was 29 and I gave up work two months before having my first child at 32. We lived on a very small salary but, being a fair cook and good needlewoman (making my children’s clothes and so on), we managed. I turned my husband’s shirt collars and cuffs, shortened his trousers and replaced his trouser pockets.

I was a Sunday school teacher and a PTA committee member – my husband and I collected newspapers weekly from the other parents to recycle for funds for a swimming pool.

I encouraged my husband to continue his sport, which kept him healthy and he was supporting all four of us on a very low wage – even working at the GPO at Christmas.

Eventually I obtained a job at the DHSS and earned £10 a week for a year. I took my establishment exams and passed (which gave me back the confidence I lost badly during my housewife days) and then obtained a better-paid post.

It was more restful doing office work but all the other things, like dressmaking, took a back seat. The housework was done at weekends.

From the first I paid kind neighbours to mind the children at holiday times but, perhaps because I was not there at home for them, they were often defiant and tried my patience. Like most mothers, there were times when I worried about their future. They rebelled and I was a strict mother.

Later on, after we’d both retired, we became more affluent as the odd legacy came our way and endowment policies matured. Now my darling husband has died and I realise how fulfilling my life has been and still is.

I have been very lucky. Any hardships we suffered helped us to cope later in life. I don’t envy the rich. If you have all you could want, you never experience the thrill of making something you can be proud of and enjoy. Or, the joy of buying something that seem beyond your reach.

I also am blessed with the memories of a gentle man who gave me joy just to see him coming towards me – to the day of his death.

Best of both worlds

Mrs M Hutchinson writes

I was married in 1952, having been a qualified and full-time teacher since 1948. This was ever only a “fill-in”: I wanted to marry – to have children.

This I did and for a number of years thoroughly enjoyed housekeeping and watching and working at the development of two daughters. Even when they started school I enjoyed still being at home, socialising with similarly placed friends and looking after my able-bodied father who, on widowhood, had made his home with us.

On his death in 1967 I began to consider the options. I didn’t want a career but a family jinx seemed to say that my husband would have an early death, as his father had done. So, to keep my hand in I found a one-day-a-week teaching post. This brought in a nice bit of pocket money and kept me in touch with what was going on in school – as well as preparing me for the future, as it turned out.

By the time my daughters had left home I was teaching the equivalent of four days out of 10 and when, as I’d feared, my husband died tragically of a heart attack in 1985, I began to work the equivalent of seven out of 10 days. I refused full time work. I wanted to have time and energy to do things outside school.

I had the best of all worlds and I still feel – as I have always felt – that it’s a big mistake for mothers to work full time. They miss out on so much. The complete security of mum always being there is gone and I believe this has repercussions on a child’s life.

Don’t go there!

Mrs A Saville writes

Should a woman giving up work when married? My decided answer is NO! I married in 1953 at almost 30 years of age. I was stupid enough to become a housewife – and how I hated it! (I call it “slum drudging.”)

Four months later I had a three-month miscarriage and afterwards went “temping”. There I met a middle-aged woman whose husband left her with two children. She knew nothing about me but gave me the following advice: “Don’t have children and don’t let your earning power go down.” From then on it was work and no more pregnancies.

Even when I remarried I kept to her advice. Result: I paid full-stamp National Insurance and continued in paid work until retirement at 60. Therefore, I have a state retirement pension in my own right, a second pension from my employment and quite a tidy sum saved up – all because I worked and was not a housewife.

The right choice

Anne Lawson writes

I believe Terry Hekker had the right idea in staying at home to bring up her family properly.

When my husband and I got married in 1954, we decided that this was the right course for us, and after our first child was born I became a full-time home-maker – although still trying to earn a little “pin money” by occasional language coaching in our home.

We have no regrets – except perhaps in the meagre £50 pension I now receive weekly! We brought up three well-balanced children, who all now make valuable contribution to the society they live in.

More telling and pleasing is that each of the three chose the same home-making lifestyle in their own marriages.

Thankfully I was more fortunate that poor Terry Hekker; for we celebrated our golden wedding two years ago.

Right choice for me

Christine Noden writes

I qualified as a primary school teacher in 1957 and worked happily in a school in Burnley for six years. During that time I met and fell in love with my future husband who was in training for the Congregational Church, as a minister.

Before marriage we hoped to have a family of four children so thoughts of me working never seriously entered my head. Happily we had four sons during the first five years of our marriage and as the minister’s wife of a large, busy church I did not have much free time, or time to think of returning to teaching.

This situation has remained unchanged until my husband’s retirement almost three years ago, after completing 40 years service in three different pastorates, and my filling the role of minister’s wife.

We chose to have four children and I chose to stay at home, having all the joys and pleasures of family life at home, school, church, on the sports field, and also the satisfaction of all four sons graduating.

We were never wealthy, but I never really considered us to be poor and it always gave me more pleasure being able to buy new school uniforms than to buy clothes for myself. Fortunately my unmarried sister was very generous in supplying me with many items of clothing.

I have never regretted being “just a housewife and mother” but I have always been made to feel inferior to working mothers. I consider my five males have helped to make me the person I am, but I have never acquired the confidence to feel I am equal to wage-earning wives and mothers.

Life outside the home

L Bonner writes

I’m the same age as Terry Hekker and I think she is right to repudiate her early work. I married in 1952 and until my son was born in 1960 I worked full time.

My daughter was born three years later. When she started school I felt ready to get a job – temping and part-time to fit in with the children.

Most women have a need for more than domesticity – to keep minds active and to have a feeling of being part of the world.

I also found lifelong friends among working colleagues, and enjoyed social life which I would never have had by staying at home.

By continuing to go out to work, my skills were kept up-to-date and I continued until the age of 61 when my husband retired.

Mrs B Daniels writes

In my experience couples who sustain an active sex life into middle-age stay together “until death do us part”, while those who don’t separate.

So, although I agree with Terry Hekker’s original view that mums should stay at home, at least with the under-fives, they should also ensure they keep a foot firmly in the commercial world, even if it is only a couple of hours working each week. Call it “insurance” for the future.

I did, and when my husband left “to lead his own life”, I was able to go from part-time to full-time work and maintain the family finances.

Yes, my teenage children did feel aggrieved at the changes but at least they did not have to cope with a mother who was unable to cope mentally or financially with the breakdown of her marriage – as I had to do when my mother’s marriage collapsed (and she with it).

Janet Heasman writes

My parents had a traditional marriage and played traditional roles. Mum always stayed at home with us children and my Dad worked full time. He also did all the “male” jobs such as DIY, gardening and driving the family car. He gave us pocket money and gave Mum housekeeping.

Mum in turn took care of us, cooked, cleaned and never learnt to drive and never had any financial responsibility or any money of her own. She was happy with this arrangement; when they got married it was how things were done.

It was a standing joke that if Mum died first Dad would starve or eat out all the time as he had never had to cook for himself.

Looking back, I do feel quite sad that I have no real memories of my Dad in my early childhood. I don’t remember him reading to me or playing with us, in fact I think that apart from weekends he didn’t eat with us and we were generally in bed before he came home.

As a teenager I resented Mum big time. She was the one who dished out punishment and grounded us, I thought “she doesn’t do anything why should listen to her”, Dad stayed out of it unless forced to intervene, and this caused a lot of resentment towards Mum. I idolised my Dad but I don’t think we had much respect for Mum.

Now I am 36 and a wife and mother myself – and things are different. I am a working Mum, initially working part time but now working full time as the children are older (10 and 13).

I chose to work partly because we needed the money but also because I loved my job – and I do have the luxury of working school times only.

My husband and I have always shared responsibility for everything. He has shared all aspects of childcare, cooks family meals, irons and cleans.

In turn, I do DIY and gardening we both earn money, pay the bills and drive. We share discipline and decision making. Our children are well rounded, well behaved and have respect for us both and we have a close family together.

I know that my children will have many happy memories of their Dad that they will carry into adulthood.

It hasn’t always been easy being a working Mum. At times I was shattered and, yes, the guilt does creep in sometimes.

For me, being a working Mum works, and I have no regrets, neither do I think that we should criticise mothers who do choose to stay at home.

Who’s to say who’s right or wrong? Not me, anyway!