Towards the end of his life, in a letter to Marie Bonaparte, Sigmund Freud made the following confession: "The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'", asks Breda O'Brien
Well, Siggy, maybe your mistake was to assume that all women want the same things. For example, in relation to work, some women want careers, some to be full-time homemakers and some to combine the two.
However, no woman I know wants to drop her children off in the wee hours of the morning, spend three to four hours a day commuting, work all day and then collect them at dusk, day after day. Yet, as we all know, that is the pattern of many women's and men's lives. One can only shudder at what it does to mental health and to relationships.
The commonly proposed solution is greater provision of affordable childcare. No doubt cheaper and more accessible childcare would mean that some couples and lone parents would be under less financial pressure, but it does nothing to answer the problems caused by hours of commuting and the impossibility of affording a home close to parents and social networks.
Nor does it answer the deep need of parents and children to spend long stretches of time together, but that is the great unmentionable.
In Ireland we seem unable to address the question, "What do children want?", much less, "What do children need?" The Progressive Democrats published a document on childcare recently. The media seized upon one aspect of it, that is, a proposal to develop before- and after-school care using existing school buildings. Has anybody asked children whether they want to be in school buildings from 7am to 7pm, five days a week and during school holidays?
There is the obvious problem that many school buildings are not suitable for use as schools, much less as childcare facilities. Some schools have no kitchens or poor or non-existent play facilities, and some do not even have enough toilets. Even where there are excellent facilities, what child would choose to spend even more of its waking hours in school?
There are some worthwhile aspects to the document, including a look at how some other countries solve their childcare difficulties. John Minihan has said it is an attempt to stimulate debate. Yet perhaps debate should not centre on childcare, but on care for children and families. The two are related, but they are not the same.
Perhaps we are afraid to ask children what they want, because the answers might be too uncomfortable to hear. One American study did just that. Right up to teenage years, the response was that they would like to spend more time with their parents, and for their parents not to be stressed and tired all the time.
Children, especially small children, crave time with their parents. Not only that, but they need it. Children under the age of two thrive best with one-to-one attention from a consistent carer, someone who can interpret the various non-verbal signals that a child gives and respond appropriately.
Recent research has shown that these interactions literally shape the brain. The systems that manage our emotions and the way we as children and adults respond to stress are not present at birth. These systems develop rapidly in the first two years of life.
The most stressful experience for all babies or toddlers is to be separated from their mother or a constant carer, someone who knows the baby so well that any signs of distress can be recognised and dealt with. A parental replacement should never be cheap, because the responsibility is awesome.
It used to be taken for granted that a child would receive that kind of responsive care from a parent, most probably a mother. No carer, no matter how kind or qualified, can be expected to have the kind of passionate connection that a parent has with a child. Now it is expected that only the very poor and the very rich will spend large amounts of time with their children.
There is a massive irony in the fact that never have we known more about parenting, and never have we had less time to practise it. Yet most of us know in our heart of hearts that the kind of lives we are living are not sustainable. Our children crave time with us, and there are many parents out there starved of time with their children.
The PD proposals for using schools and voluntary care for school-age children only puts a band-aid on a wound. With, the parent and carer non-governmental organisation, has a proposal for a system of child and education credits that is much more flexible, and which would allow parents to have more choice about the amount of time they spend at work and in the home.
Every family would earn childcare and education credits for each child equally. A credit or voucher could be kept by at-home parents or transferred to others providing care and education, as long as the child stays in full-time education.
With suggests that this system would replace current systems of maternity, parental and child benefit and capitation grants for schools. Standards could be maintained by regulation and registration of institutions and places where such vouchers could be used. Most importantly, it would allow flexibility.
The first question will be: how could such a system be funded? Well, has anyone thought through the costs of attempting to provide universal childcare to replace parents in the home, not to mention obliging grannies and neighbours?
The Government has already discovered it is far better and cheaper to maintain elderly people in their homes than to attempt institutional care for all. The same is true of childcare. There is a great need to look beyond the short term to the important questions.
We need to have the courage to ask, not just what human beings want, but what they really need. The engine of economic growth is not so important that it has to be fuelled by the distress of chronically exhausted and frustrated parents and children.
bobrien@irish-times.ie