Time for Parenting...

...because raising children is a full-time job.

Fourth Time Lucky!

New Mum wins the right to describe herself as a ‘Full Time Mother’ 

August 2008

FTM member Karen * and her husband Michael*  could not believe it when the General Register Office refused to define her occupation as ‘full time mother’ when registering the birth of their third child a couple of years ago.

Karen said : ‘ Although I appreciate that all mothers are mothers all the time, whether out in paid work or looking after their children, there is clearly a significant difference, which would affect all kinds of socio-economic analysis, between holding a paid job and arranging various forms of childcare, and taking care of your own children all the time as your only job.’

She continued: ‘It is important to me personally that my children’s birth certificates accurately reflect my occupation at the time of their birth, but surely it should also be important to the Office of National Statistics that all information gathered can be used to analyse the actual situation of our population.’

Karen felt strongly that ‘house-wife’ or ‘home-maker’ were not adequate descriptions of her daytime occupation, since her main activity during the day is caring for her young children, not cleaning the house, as this gets done in the evenings when the children are asleep, not unlike ‘life-before-children’ when the couple tackled domestic chores after returning from their daytime jobs.   Karen explained:  ‘ You could easily define yourself as a house-wife or home- maker and in fact not have any childcare element in your day at all!’

Happily, the General Register Office finally relented in June this year, after Karen and Michael produced baby number four, allowing, for the first time,  the occupation ‘full time mother’ to be recorded in birth entries. 

Karen and Michael now intend amending two of their other children’s birth certificates. Karen maintains that her previous paid job before starting a family should appear on the birth certificate of only their first child, as an accurate description of her occupation up to that point, since when she has devoted all her time to the care of her children.

Karen is sure that this decision is an important step to achieving more recognition, at national level, for the ‘unique role’ and value of  full-time mothers and full-time fathers.

*  names have been changed to preserve confidentiality