Far be it from me to join Mummy Wars – I’m far too wet. I’m all in favour of women doing what they want when it comes to staying home or going out to work.
I yield to no one in my admiration for FTMs (that’s Mumsnet for full-time mothers), such as my saintly, self-sacrificial sisters for whom the cry ‘Mummmeee, can we do some fingerpainting?’ at 6.15am on a Saturday are not the most chilling words in the English language.
But as the Coalition haggles over what to do about childcare, days after it has correctly withdrawn child benefit from the top-earning households – including mine – at a saving of £2 billion a year, might I still have a quiet word, Nick and Dave?
I know you’re both big fans of box-set Danish TV, such as The Killing, the one about the detective in the jersey. But have you also caught up with the ‘coalition thriller’ Borgen (BBC4, Saturdays)?
You see I’m glued, and I have a dream, that one day, this country will look more like an episode of Borgen, where all walks of life have their rightful complement of females – be they MPs, leering bosses, CEOs, scientists or psychopathic bullies. They will all preferably be clad in pencil skirts and silky blouses like slinky brunette Birgitte Nyborg, the PM in Borgen and a mother of two.
Warren Buffett claimed on the Today programme last month that ‘half the talent in the country, we’ve pushed off in the corner for almost 200 years. Now that we’re starting to use 100 per cent of our talent, it makes me very optimistic. Dual-earner families are now the norm.’
More... Rachel Johnson: Put the lardbutts on a diet - but leave my Pinot Grigio alone! Rachel Johnson: Dave's been a disaster as a gay wedding plannerBut even Warren would be, um, buffeted by a recent study which showed that here, a family of two earners taking home £44,000 could end up being just £4,000 better off than a single- parent family earning £24,000 because of the gouging costs of childcare.
The fact is, more women are now at work in Germany, the Netherlands and France than in the UK (it used to be the other way round in the Eighties). There are now only 2.2 million women here with dependent children under 19 working full-time.
And as the Sage of Omaha said, it’s absolutely essential for more women to work, as it’s women who are going to rescue the economy, here and in the US. But Warren, Nick, Dave: how can women go out to work, let alone enjoy their jobs or succeed in their chosen professions, when childcare here is so unaffordable, and often unreliable?
Our lack of a system means that unlike most men, most women have to choose between the satisfactions of having children and a career – as I did when I had three children under four.
Fans: Nick Clegg and David Cameron should try watching Danish 'coalition thriller' BorgenIt seemed like a good idea at the time (the late Nineties). We were moving to Washington DC. So I left a full-time job at the BBC to ‘do kids’.
Our lack of a system means that unlike most men, most women have to choose between the satisfactions of having children and a career - as I did when I had three children under fourIf I’d stayed in London, my ad hoc system of au pairs would not have coped: I’d have needed at least one super-nanny (I worked long shifts) so, basically, I’d have been working simply in order to pay her and not see my own babies.
So I resigned to take up an exciting new executive role as ‘trailing spouse’.
Fool! Washington DC didn’t go to plan, and 18 months later I found myself back in Europe, largely on my own in Brussels – it’s a long, sad story – surrounded by suicidal expat housewives, amid brasseries where jowly Eurocrats entertained their mistresses and powdered widows fed steak tartare to chihuahuas on their laps.
It was pretty grim, but if I’d had a job (which I didn’t, see above), it would have been less grim because I could have actually ‘had it all’ if I wanted to, as there was proper childcare provision from 7.15am to 6pm at the Ecole Maternelle at the end of my road, for a reasonable per diem compared to what we all shell out in this country, where childcare costs are among the highest in the world.
So Nick’n’Dave, if you did want to 1. Help women achieve their potential 2. Put the economy on a sounder footing and 3. Make my dream come true, don’t spend the money you’ve just saved on child benefit on new childcare tax allowances: bite the bullet and adopt the French/Nordic model.
Invest in the provision of high-quality, universal childcare for the under-fives, so women can leave their children with confidence, if they want to, and work without crippling themselves financially.
Upping maternal employment rates will not only make the country fairer, brighter and more like Borgen. It will also provide a small net return immediately to the Treasury and effect a huge change across society in the longer term.
Right-wing Tory MPs, and the FTMs of Mumsnet will want to shoot you but when you start annoying them, you’re often doing something right.
...............................................................................................................I was sad to read that English Heritage could be scrapping Blue Plaques, as each one costs up to £40,000, what with all the committees involving croissants and Stephen Fry in Central London hotels, etc.
But surely the scheme will survive.
The great and the good have such a vested interest that it does.
There is no more discreet, and yet powerful, advertisement of past distinction than to have a plaque affixed to a house you once inhabited.
Actually, my favourite London plaque (see picture) is displayed on a building in Bloomsbury and isn’t even blue.
In these turbulent times, I find it oddly reassuring.
...........................................................................................................It's the 200th anniversary of Pride And Prejudice, so a PR company asked me to come up with an alternative first line to ‘create conversations across social media’, whatever that means. Here goes, in fewer than 140 characters: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that every single woman in possession of children and a husband must be in want of a wife.’ Or: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a married man in possession of a job, kids and a working wife must be in want of a life.’ I’m sure Twitter can do better. Mr Darcy: Colin Firth starred in the BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary ....................................................................................................................... When things go missing, we tend to blame everyone else. My daughter knew that ‘someone’ had taken her headphones from the kitchen. I knew that my husband had taken my keys out of my bag. And my husband knew that our cleaner had chucked out his bespoke stationery from his study. We had fingertip-searched; so when all these items reappeared in places we’d already looked, there could be only one logical explanation. ‘We have a poltergeist,’ I announced. This seems preferable to acknowledging that there are no hospital corners in our home. When I told my mother a few years back that my husband’s overstuffed, rumpled study had been rifled by burglars, who’d chucked a brick in through the window and then made off with various heirlooms, she said: ‘But how could he tell?’
