[Sundae]

Yeah, Infi's found the quotes I'da wanted to find, and highlighted what I'da wanted to highlight.

Raising children is hard work.
Bloody hard work if you work all day and then have to still raise them single-handedly and do all the shopping and the housework - not because you're a single mother but because that's woman's work.

I did not grow up in that household. My dad did not "help" with the children or "help" with the dishes. The 'rents worked shifts (at work) to earn money and then worked shifts at home to bring us up. My bro wet his pants before school? One week Dad cleaned him up, cleaned it up, put the pants in the wash. I had a migraine and puked all over the cloakroom after lunch? My Mum brought me home.

My Mum is not an intellectual. She did not need work to fulfill her; work was a chore. Had she had the choice she would have stayed at home with us, but probably volunteered. Had she had viable childcare options (like pre-school) she might even have gone back into education - I said she wasn't intellectual, not that she was stupid. I wish she'd had the money to find something she loved doing.

She taught us all the read and write before we got to school. She was the driving force in my love of reading and of poetry. My Daddy taught me my times tables (multiplication) when they were making me cry. Had either of them stayed at home I'd never denigrate them by saying they didn't work. But what can you say otherwise. They worked double-plus-good?

ETA
One of Mum's fiercest and harshest ephitets is, "Of course she's never worked a day in her life!" Applied to friends, neighbours, pop singers, actresses et al. Even to the Queen Mum. I think this comes from the fact that Nanny didn't work until after Mum left home, which meant Grandad worked far longer and she never saw him. And she was forbidden to play with other children because "I don't want to be alone, what do you think I had a baby for?!"