[Socialism Today, No 16, March 1997, p. 9]
‚Working mums damage children’s education‘ screamed the media headlines. ‚Flawed research causes working mums‘ guilt trip‘ would have been more to the point.
Based on research from the University of North London, Panorama claimed that the children of full-time working mums are failing exams. At almost the same time both the Tories and New Labour unveiled plans for getting single parents off benefits and into jobs. Most mothers will be feeling confused, angry – and guilty.
Once again whatever we do women are being blamed for capitalism’s inadequacies. If we’re single parents at home with our kids then we’re scrounging off tax-payers‘ money raising the next generation of criminals and delinquents. If on the other hand we go out to work to try and give our kids a better future, we’re responsible for turning them into educational failures.
These constant mixed messages reflect the contradictory needs of capitalism. Mothers are expected to provide a cheap source of flexible labour in the workplace as well as being the main carers for children and, increasingly, elderly and dependent family members. Its heads capitalism wins, tails we lose.
Blaming single parents for young offenders, truancy and a whole range of social problems, has become a convenient way of avoiding the real issue of how this system fails young people. Accusing working women (never of course working men) of harming children’s educational prospects places the responsibility of children’s care and upbringing entirely on women rather than society as a whole. Apart from a few fundamentalists like Patricia Morgan of the right-wing Institute of Economic Affairs nobody is really suggesting that women with children should give up work and stay at home. We’re too valuable a source of profits for that. While some women might find fulfilment from being fulltime mothers (and should be able to do so free from poverty) most want and need to work. Without the wages of working mums over the past 15 years the number of children in poverty would be much greater than the current one in three. And poverty is the biggest factor holding back children’s educational and social development – 76% of women say they would work outside the home even if they didn’t need the money. Surveys have consistently shown that working women are healthier, happier and have more confidence and selfesteem than women who stay at home. Attributes which you would think would be of benefit to the children of working women.
There’s no doubt that given the choice most women and men would prefer to work shorter hours as long as they weren’t worse off. A maximum working week of 35 hours with no loss of pay would allow parents to work and spend more time with their children if that’s what they wanted. A minimum wage of £216 per week and uprated child benefit would provide the means of bringing up children free from poverty.
Excessively long working hours can be damaging to everyone’s health and wellbeing. The same is true of being stuck at home all day depressed with not enough money to feed your kids properly let alone take them out anywhere. But what solutions are on offer? Schemes aimed at getting single parents back into work (which 70% want to do) will be worse than useless if not backed up by resources for training, a minimum wage, and affordable good quality childcare.
It’s clear that neither the Tories nor New Labour will provide the necessary resources. As a consequence the schemes will either fail or they will introduce an element of compulsion as New Labour already intends to do for young people and Clinton has done in the USA. This would force single parents into low-paid jobs in poor conditions with children suffering from both poverty and inadequate and potentially damaging child care.
One of the weaknesses of the University of North London research was its failure to take into consideration the quality of care that children were getting while parents were at work. There’s been no shortage of horror stories especially from the USA, about children being packed into unsafe understaffed day-care centres, where staff lack training and are demotivated by low pay and poor working conditions.
On the other hand surveys have shown that good quality day care, with a high staff to child ratio, with well-trained carers paid decent wages, can be extremely beneficial for children’s future development. Predictably those surveys don’t make media headlines.
Publicly funded, good quality, childcare, including after-school clubs and holiday schemes, could transform the lives of working class women. With a shorter working week it would enable both women and men to work and pursue leisure activiities knowing that children are properly cared for.
Yet capitalism cannot even deliver these basic reforms. Under this system, however hard you try to do the best for your children, you can never win. All that capitalism offers is a surfeit of guilt. Increasingly women are seeing where the real fault lies. Understanding that the system’s to blame is just one step away from organising to change it.
Christine Thomas
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