Sandra Paterson: No caregiver can do it like mother

A decade ago, I sometimes described myself as a career woman by default. I loved my work as a news reporter, but still hankered after marriage and babies. Call me old-fashioned, but there you are.

I then had a baby - minus the marriage bit regrettably - and became a stay-at-home mum, a role I remember as tiring but rewarding. After a couple of years, I started to work part-time and have gradually increased my hours.

These days, I type like crazy until the school bell goes and, sometimes reluctantly, in the evening. The money is not great compared to what I could be earning in a full-time job, but it is important to me to be home when my daughter is home.

In short, I am what Catherine Hakim categorises as an "adapter". A sociologist from the London School of Economics, Hakim found that in terms of work-life preferences, there are three types of women: work-centred, home-centred and adaptive.

The vast majority, some 60 per cent, are adapters - women who like to combine work and family life. They enjoy their jobs and hope to get the most from both worlds, but tend to stop work or work only part-time when their children are young.

Another 20 per cent or so are work-centred women who are passionate about their careers. Family life fits around work and many of these women remain childless, even when married.

The remaining 20 per cent are home-centred: women who want to look after their children fulltime. They tend to have larger families and prefer to avoid paid work unless necessary for financial reasons.

Unfortunately for women in this country, Helen Clark seems to ignore three things. First, that women are quite different from men. That sounds so obvious I hesitate to elaborate further, but it is a fact that those in power would do well to remember.

According to Catherine Hakim, men have dominated the labour market and will continue to do so because most are work-centred. Only a minority of women are prepared to make their jobs the top priority.

This, of course, is unwelcome news for 1970s-style gender feminists, who assume women are just as likely as men to be work-centred given the opportunity.

Secondly, Clark overlooks that many women would - shock, horror - really like to be able to look after their own children when they are little. And, finally, she forgets that women are not a homogeneous group: we are all different and have different values and goals.

So we find ourselves being shuffled into the same box: do your bit for the economy, pay lots of tax and leave your kids in state childcare for the day.

Adaptive women who would prefer to work part-time are now having to work fulltime just to make ends meet, as one fiscal policy after the other makes it increasingly difficult for households to survive on one income.

And stay-at-home mums? Well, the message to them is clearly "wipe the vomit off your shoulders and go get a real job". Never mind making snails out of play-dough or kissing scraped knees, the gross domestic product is more important.

In fact, the Clark Administration's attitude perfectly illustrates Catherine Hakim's words: "Present day governments tend to focus on the working mother and ignore those who want to stay at home."

Take dawn-to-dusk childcare services or paid parental leave. These ideas are presented as being beneficial to women generally but in fact favour one particular group - work-centred women who choose to return to work soon after a birth.

They are of less value to adaptive women, who would rather drop out of the labour market or work part-time when their children are young, says Hakim; and of no value to home-centred women, who want to care for their kids themselves and who often resent their husband's taxes being used to subsidise childcare for women with other priorities.

Of course, there is no question that high-quality, affordable childcare should be available and that women who want a career should be given assistance and encouragement to pursue it.

But those who want to be at home to raise their own kids should also be able to do so - without being made to feel like second-class citizens and without paying such a huge price financially.

A smart idea, used in several countries, would be to give all parents a childcare subsidy, regardless of whether the mothers wish to go out and work or not. It would then be up to the family whether to use it to offset lost earnings, should mum wish to stay at home, or pay for childcare services.

And what of the children themselves? I will no doubt be shot down in flames for saying that while many children appear to do well in daycare, it has to be better for a baby or toddler to be with a parent, no matter how good the level of professional care on offer.

Surely that is simple common sense: no one can be as irrationally committed to a child's wellbeing as its Mum or Dad.

* Sandra Paterson, of Mt Maunganui, is a freelance journalist.