Working mums

Isn’t it funny how Conservative party’s emphasis towards childcare, work and women’s pay changes when a significant number of Conservative frontbenchers have young families and working wives?

I am glad that we have had the guts to discuss this because for a long time we seem to have highlighted the importance of mothers spending time with their children and forgotten about the importance of earning enough money to pay the bills.

There are lots of women who would love to stay at home but just cannot afford to, I am sure that there are also women at home who feel that perhaps they are letting the side down and are retreating from the victories of the women’s lib movement.

I will say this now and hope I will not have to repeat myself. The Conservatives have never been against working women, we had a rather high profile one leading the party for quite a while, remember? We have been guilty of letting ourselves be caricatured as being against working mums, that was our fault and now we are setting the record straight.

I have seen both sides of this argument, Susie went back to work after Freddy was born and was very unhappy about how little time she had to spend with him. After Rupert came along she gave up work and is much happier, as am I. We both are much poorer.

These are the kind of decisions and compromises that couples make every day up and down the country and it is important for politicians to understand that. For many parents this is a much more important issue than the balance of payments deficit or even taxation levels.