The Guardian view on motherhood: not a basis for judgment
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Version 0 of 1. Yvette Cooper, a supporter has declared, would make a better Labour party leader because she is a working mother. Writing in a blog, Helen Goodman, the MP for Bishop Auckland, makes some good points about the challenges that tend to fall much harder on mothers than fathers who work, and the way intelligent policy-making can help. It is true that juggling with childcare and homework as well as a very demanding job takes a high degree of focus and good time-management, and that Yvette Cooper believes that getting family policy right is the most effective weapon against child poverty. But motherhood is not a necessary precondition either of empathy or an ability to understand statistics about the costs of parenthood. What someone’s personal life reveals about them and what they can bring to politics is now considered a legitimate aspect of their public character. Family and friends and the life lived behind the closed front door have become a significant part of the picture. In that context, whether or not a candidate is a parent is one way of shaping opinion. It indicates a widely shared experience that enhances the appearance of normality. Most women have children. Yet childlessness is no longer unusual. In 1945, only one woman in nine had no children. Now it’s one in five. That might be a choice, or a personal tragedy or simply an unintended missing of the boat. It is not a basis for judgment. Applied to men, prurient examination of childlessness sometimes looks like a surrogate for explicit homophobia. Innuendo about William and Ffion Hague’s lack of children, itself unjustifiably intrusive, forced them into a humiliating explanation of their difficulty in having a baby. Gordon Brown was once persuaded to prove his capacity for family life by attending a child’s birthday party for the photographers. But it is women without children who endure the finger-pointing. The childlessness of the former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard made her a target for a particular kind of critic. One of her predecessors as Labor leader, Mark Latham, hit upon “barren” as his insult of choice. Plenty of women at Westminster will know that prejudice lingers. There are plenty of successful women in politics who are not mothers (Theresa May, Nicola Sturgeon, Margaret Beckett) and plenty more who were (Margaret Thatcher, Shirley Williams, Tessa Jowell). The most that can be said is that the experience of working motherhood colours policy ideas. So would, say, being born in town or country. But parent status is a not a useful way of choosing between candidates for leadership. |