CPS Research Fellow Kathy Gyngell writes for the Daily Mail on the changes to child benefit.
To view the full article, visit the Daily Mail website.
“When my two sons were pre-school age, my husband and I had dinner with Margaret Thatcher. She had only recently left office and I recall feeling slightly shamefaced when she asked me what I did.
‘Actually I don’t do very much – although I am thinking of going back to work,’ I hazarded, not wishing to admit to the world’s most powerful and pre-eminent woman that I had actually made a considered decision to relinquish my career in order to stay at home and raise my children.
I imagined the former prime minister would be unimpressed; actually she applauded me. ‘My dear, you should not rush back to work. It just isn’t worth it. Your children need you.’
To this day, I recall feeling at once grateful that I did not have to embark on an exercise in self-justification, and pleased that a woman of such formidable political standing should recognise the value of my role as a stay-at-home mum.
I do not know whether Baroness Thatcher harbours any regrets about the time she spent away from her own two children to pursue her political career – and it would have been presumptuous of me to have asked.
What I can be certain of, however, is that she would never have acted to diminish both the status of mothers who choose to raise their own children, and the importance of the traditional nuclear family, as her successor David Cameron has with his ill-judged and shambolic changes to child benefit payments.”
To view the full article, visit the Daily Mail website.
Date Added: Wednesday 9th January 2013
