What about the price of childhood?

Ah, the joys of watching a non-Disney children’s movie: no princesses, no frills and no twittering birds weaving ball gowns in the background.

We do have a lot to learn from children, and that is priceless- Kristina Chetcuti

I watched Une vie de chat last weekend with my daughter at St James Cavalier, which was about a cat with two lives: she spent her days sprawled on a sofa in the house of a little girl called Zoe, but by night was an accomplice of a bona-fide thief.

The movie starts off with Zoe waiting eagerly for her mother to come back from work. When the mother comes in, she’s on her mobile, barking orders to people at work, and fails to notice that her little one wants to show her something. The girl is upset.

As if on cue, in one of those moments where life imitates art, my mobile starts buzzing: it’s work. I whisper to Pippa that I was going to have to rush outside to answer. She didn’t tear her eyes off the screen but said: “Do you have to?”

Somehow this came to mind when, later, I read about the ‘The Price of Motherhood’ study which estimates that €5.1 million a year of income tax and NI contributions are lost from Maltese mothers “who drift in and out of employment in their quest to balance work with family”.

This information wasn’t meant to encourage Maltese women to join the labour market, I’m sure. No one is going to say “let me go back to work, so I can pay taxes”. But it highlights the fact that we’re not getting anywhere with luring women to work. This is because the approach from top-to-bottom is totally off-key.

Recently in the Sunday Circle magazine, journalist Caroline Muscat said: “We keep talking about family values – when what government should really be doing is providing support structures, such as more childcare centres. A woman should not have to choose between a career and a family.”

Well, I liked having a choice, thank you very much. If, when my daughter was born, I was forced to put her in a nice-and-bright childcare centre while I worked from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every single day, I would have been inconsolably miserable.

You see, we tend to forget one thing: that most parents, given a choice, want to be with their children and not at a desk.

Policy-makers have to get one thing straight: parents do not particularly want childcare facilities or after-school care; they want work flexibility. This applies to both mothers and fathers.

The scenario we should all be aspiring to is one where both parents work from wherever is convenient for them, and remuneration would be performance-based rather than on the hours inputted.

Like Chat, the cat in the movie, parents want to be able to live two lives, career and parenthood, in complete harmony.

Of course, if a mother is happy working round the clock and entrusting childcare to other people, that’s great. If she can afford to and is happy to forgo work and be a full-time mother, that’s equally brilliant. Children are happy if their parents are happy.

However, I can say that those of my friends who are in full-time employment, with no flexibility whatsoever, are permanently tired, exhausted and guilt-ridden. The way I see it, most of us simply want some sort of equilibrium.

Jamie Oliver, the TV chef and entrepreneur, said in a recent interview: “They do say, and I do see it as an employer of thousands of women, that the most unhappy women are the full-time workers and the full-time mums, and the ones who are the most happy… the ones that remain engaged, vivacious and humorous, are the two- to three-dayers.”

The thing is, it’s not just about the price of motherhood; there’s also the price of childhood. Children are not meant to spend whole days in a building till they are picked up: they need to spend a considerable time with adults as they go about their daily life – so they learn their social skills through example (such as that, erm, mobile phones in cinemas should really be switched off).

It’s a loss for society if neither the mother nor the father are ever around: we’re breaking a natural cycle, for in truth, parents also learn from their children.

The other day, Pippa had two of her friends over. They were busy drawing pictures for a competition. “What if we don’t win?” they asked. Well, I said, winning is not the most important thing.

“Of course not,” said one of them matter-of-factly: “The most important thing is to share.”

“And to love each other,” said the other. “And to be happy with what we do,” said the other.

We do have a lot to learn from children, and that is priceless.

krischetcuti@gmail.com