On working mothers
Auberon Waugh
One of the most agreeable features of having a Conservative government is in the quality of the political waffle we read. Nobody supposes that the politicians can – or will – do much to change the abject state into which our country has fallen, but at least they can waffle about it.
Whereas, under Labour, the parliamentary hacks had to copy out noises which were stupid, wrong and vile to contemplate, they now give us quaint little opinions which seem true, obvious and pleasant to hear. Little Mr Patrick Jenkin was talking in Bath last week to something called the National Children's Bureau Conference, on the subject of working mothers. Goodness knows what the National Children's Bureau Conference is – perhaps it is an ad-hoc body hastily summoned to hear Mr Jenkin's thoughts about working mothers – but they say Mr Jenkin is now Secretary of State for Social Services, although nobody had told me of this.
In opposition, of course, Mr Jenkin would have felt bound to berate the government for its inadequate supply of creches and day nurseries. If he had been a Labour minister in office, he would have pointed to the one and a half day nurseries established in the Bristol-Bath-Swindon-Chippenham complex in the past ten years and claimed they were part of a crash programme of government assistance for the working mother. That is the way Labour ministers are expected to cover up for being unable to do any of the horrible and fatuous things they want to do. But little Mr Jenkin, bless him, faced with the same problem of having to explain why the government is not building many day nurseries or creches in spite of strident demands from all the spitting, slogan-chanting feminists in the country, has thought of something quite different to say: 'State help for working mothers should be restricted to particularly needy cases,' he said. 'I am convinced that a mother is by far the best person to look after her young children. She knows them best, she cares for them most, and her love, guidance and care are crucial to their well being — For most families, these services are not appropriate.
If they were made available at public expense too readily they can all too easily be seen as the expression of a philosophy which preaches that parents may do what they like and it i§ the duty of the state to look after the children.'
I rejoiced when I read Mr Jenkin's words, not just because they are so obviously sens ible and humane but also, I must admit, because it seems to me the time has come to start contradicting the feminists. Up to now one has been content to insult them to their faces, revile them behind their backs and throw lumps of coal at them from a distance whenever this seemed practical and safe. At last, with Mrs Thatcher on the throne, the moment has arrived to tell them they are wrong.
Mr Jenkin did not enumerate these 'particularly needy cases' beyond mentioning 'children where family circumstances such as poor health or bad social conditions mean that parents are unable to cope'. He also agreed that some mothers 'had to work to make an essential contribution to the family's finance and to fulfil themselves' but this second group', he suggested, should not have government assistance.
Before examining Mr Jenkin's proposition in detail, we should pay tribute to his bravery. After the war, he served for a few years in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and no doubt he saw a thing or two, but I doubt whether he came up against anything to compare with the massed ranks of crypto-lesbian extremists who seem to have taken over the Guardian, the Observer, the National Union of Journalists and many other areas of the publishing trade and communications industry.
The basic problem of child-reating is that the mother's role has always been an exceptionally unselfish one, requiring a much higher degree of self-sacrifice than is normally required of the father. Large numbers of females are now demanding the right to be as selfish as the male which, in equity, they have a perfect right to do. Fewer women find fulfilment in the business of raising their own families and, once again, it is easy enough to see why, since it must surely be the most hellishly boring job ever invented. But why on earth, under these circumstances, do they have babies? Practically no woman enjoys pregnancy or giving birth, and if they find no satisfaction in raising their families either, one wonders why they bother. This is to look at the Matter purely from the point of view of a woman's fulfilment and it is this aspect which one hears most about, at any rate among the middle classes. It avoids any controversial questions, about whether there might be such a thing as a parental responsibility to see their children do not grow up as emotional cripples, while their mothers are fulfilling themselves elsewhere. So far as personal fulfilment is concerned, it seems to me that women hgve a clear choice, whether to fulfil themselves as mothers or in some other way. If they have residual maternal instincts which might be frustrated in their roles as sales promotion executives they will find that chihuahas have many endearing qualities while, for the poorer classes, cats are still plentiful and cheap.
So much for the rhetoric of women's liberation, but where Mr Jenkin talks of 'some mothers' being required to make a financial contribution I think he misses the most significant economic development of our time. Working practices imposed on us by our very wonderful trade unions ensure that wages in Britain are so low that practically nobody can afford to keep a wife out of work, unless he already possesses a house. It astounds me that newly married couples today can begin to buy a house even where both partners are working. I am addressing myself, as always, to the professional middle class but the same scale must apply, mutatis mutandis, to such of the working class as are not accommodated by the council. The mortgage on a £30,000 house – and that seems to be the going rate for two-up, two-down cottages with a few square yards of garden in the villages around my home – now demands £312.50 a month in interest payments alone. On top of this, the wretched couple must find £55.70 a month for the endowment assurance which will pay back the principal after 25 years. Tax concessions help a bit, but how many newly married couples can find £368.20 a month (nearly £4,500 a year) even out of their gross income before they start paying for rates, heating, furniture and all the various other things which go to make a home? Obviously some married couples can afford these prices or they would not be asked, but equally obviously practically none can afford them unless the wife is working. The process is self-perpetuating. Working couples push up the prices so all couples must work to afford them. The hard economic scandal is hidden by all the women's page drivel about mothers fulfilling themselves in careers. Many women who would indeed be happy in the despised role of mother and home-maker are given no chance. For my own part. I am convinced that Britain will be a happier country if fewer women have larger families. Far from government assistance to working mothers, there should be a stiff tax on day nursery facilities. Family allowances should not be paid to working mothers, but there should be gigantic bribes – both in tax concessions and in ready money – to parents of large families. That is the French system, and it works. Nobody expects us to be as sensible as the French, of course, but at least the waffle comparison mightgive us something to
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