Splitting the childcare and earning – Catherine’s Story

Thank you for your most recent newsletter about sex and domesticity, to which you invited comments and thoughts. I have thought about this topic a lot over the past few years. My husband and I are both professionals, educated at London and Cambridge universities respectively (he – a secondary school teacher with a PhD, me, a civil servant currently working in a middle management role, running a select committee at the House of Commons). When our first child was born in 2008,... Read More

Granny Au Pairs

In Mothers Work! I declared that perfect childcare doesn’t exist and that the fictional creation, Mary Poppins, would be struck off by today’s standards. Beyond nannies I share my own experiences of hiring an au pair to add to the childcare we already had (a terrific husband and wife childminding team) because like many working families we recognised the potential benefit to our careers and our marriage of having help beyond the standard 8am-6pm.  It is not selfish or indulgent... Read More