Taking the penalty out of mothering

IT'S ironic, to say the least, that a state whose constitution pledges to "endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economics necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home", would have the worst provision in Europe for the mothers of new babies.

TD Frances Fitzgerald says: "The idea that we should be grateful for 12 weeks' maternity leave is ridiculous. Why are we putting pressure on women at what should be such a terrific time? Many couples now need two jobs to pay their mortgage. But we don't want to create a society where people have to leave their children. We have to look at the issue of parental leave."

Women feel "penalised" for staying at home with their babies, when in fact they should be getting a range of community-based social supports, says Noirin Hayes, psychologist and head of the School of Social Sciences, Dublin Institute of Technology.

The problem is that the role of the mother in the home has been so undervalued that the women who might like the role dare not follow their hearts for fear of the emotional and economic consequences. Yet the strain of combining the anti-family practices of the workplace with the strain of trying to rear children with inadequate childcare creates stresses which gradually break parents' spirits and sometimes even their marriages.

"I get young mothers crying to me on the phone because they do not want to leave their young babies and go back to work," says Patricia Murray of the Irish Childminders Association. "They all say the same thing, that it isn't even worthwhile for them half the time because after they have paid taxes and childcare out of after-tax income, travel expenses and so on they probably have no more than £7 net to contribute to the mortgage. Babies need, to be cared for by one person during the first year, ideally their mother. The Government needs to allow mothers to make this choice if that is what they want."

Increasing medical evidence on the developing infant brain suggests that by refusing mothers this choice, the Government isn't just being callous, it's being irresponsible.

"We have entered a new phase of women being separated from their babies which will have far-reaching and catastrophic effects on the mental health of children and ultimately society," believes Prof Forrester Cockburn, a paediatrician and expert in childcare in the Department of Childcare at Glasgow University and the York Hill Hospital for Sick Children. He thinks that governments should pay mothers to stay at home with their babies during the first year or two of life, not out of empathy but out of their desire to pursue sound public policy.

"We need to organise our society so that women who want to be with their children during the first year or two of life can do so without being penalised either in terms of their finances or their careers," he says. "In Sweden, mothers get up to two years' paid parental leave and there is also a very good, family-focused attitude in the work place. The whole atmosphere is designed to keep mother and child together."

Prof Cockburn cites US research which shows that mental illness, crime and psychopathology can all be traced to a poor relationship between mother and child in the first two years of life, particularly the first crucial nine months.

"Psychological evidence is increasing that the development of the emotional patterns of the child's brain in the first two years of life will determine the child's subsequent emotional robustness and skills in various social situations," he says.

"The give and take between the mother and the child builds up patterns in the emotional pathways of the brain and the way in which they develop helps the child to learn to participate in society and to respond reasonably to anger and frustration."

Many babies and young children today are separated from their parents during the working week for 10 hours a day. Some creches even offer overnight care for busy parents who have to travel.

"The evidence is that not seeing the parents very much during the week is going to predispose the infant to psychological distress and psychiatric illness," says Prof Cockburn.

Prof Cockburn's own research has found a biochemical basis for this. It has shown that breastfeeding for a minimum of four months is essential to the way in which the mother/baby relationship lays down emotional pathways in the child's brain, and to breastfeed, mothers and babies need access to each other. The long-chain, polyunsaturated fatty acids (DHA) which are essential for the rapid transmission of messages in the brain are present only in breastmilk. Deficiencies of DHA in bottle-fed infants mean that they lack the fatty acids necessary for the formation of the white matter required to speed messages through the brain.

Leaving a young baby with a disinterested minder who does not love the child will certainly not nurture the child's brain development, which is completely, finished by the age of two years. "Children learn by copying and responding and if they don't have a consistent pattern they don't develop their own identity and place in society," says Prof Cockburn.

When he shared his views at a public lecture last month, one British newspaper headlined a report of his lecture with the words: "Working mothers' threaten the future of the human race."

Prof Cockburn insists that this is not what he meant at all. In fact, he thinks that it is the establishment's failure - or even refusal - to understand that the issue is not one of the child's health versus the mother's desire for need to work. The real issue is that many mothers need, want and are entitled to careers, but they should also be entitled to have careers which are blended with child-rearing thanks to the support of good public and workplace policy.

PAID parental leave of nine months minimum and up to two years would be a central plank of such a policy, along with workplaces with creches and which would encourage women to bring their children to work with them, he believes.

Roisin Short all, TD, says that the Government's policy of supporting lone parents to stay at home with their children while offering married parents nothing to stay home with theirs is anti-family and could ultimately lead to a society in which none of us wants to live. In her view, the ideal arrangement is for one parent, whether it is the mother or the father, to be able to be in the home with the children and she thinks the Government should give economic support to working parents who want to do that.

Within her own party, Ms Shortall has been campaigning for statutory entitlement to career breaks for fathers as well as mothers.

"Politicians are light years behind the public on this." she says. In my own small estate there are five fathers at home, all professionals, looking after the kids and working part-time from home while their wives work outside the home full-time."