"I pay an in-home childcare provider to look after my child. I got just a month's maternity leave after giving birth"; "You're lucky, I had to be back at work within two weeks." As soon as the topic of "career mothers" was broached, the discussion became animated and my former college mates began to pour out their hearts. It seemed that every working mother had to cope with a difficult family situation.

"I'm considered to be a model mom because I get my baby back from the childcare provider's in the evening to look after her myself. Nights are hard for me. I never get enough sleep and constantly have dark rings around the eyes. I Iook like a panda!"

"You're driving yourself into the ground. I leave my child at the childcare provider's all week and only bring him home on weekends, because I often have to work overtime or go on business trips. My husband is also very busy. It's the only solution."

"I may be exhausted, but I'm not about to quit my job. Being a dutiful stay-at-home wife would suffocate me. I simply couldn't stand it."

"I have a mortgage and can't afford not to work."

"Until they're two, children are a lot of work. When they get a bit older, you can take them to a day-care center or kindergarten. Once they're in elementary school, they're there all day and it's not a big problem anymore."

Then came the clincher: "Grandparents these days are not as good natured as they used to be. If a working mother asks her parents too look after her child, they'll say that they're too old or that it's too much responsibility," said one, not without resentment in her voice.

Maybe I'd been brainwashed living in Germany all these years, or maybe I was ill informed, but I could scarcely believe my ears, because hardly any of my female friends and acquaintances with young children here in Germany are in a position to pursue a normal career. It's not that German women are naturally inclined to be dutiful housewives and stay-at-home moms, but different social conditions have created a different lifestyle and way of thinking over here.

Der Spiegel, Germany's leading news magazine, devoted a cover story to Ursula von der Leyen and her family of eight. (courtesy of Der Spiegel).

"Raven mothers"

In Germany married women usually look after their children from the moment they are born. That's when they begin to conform to the socially accepted traditional family pattern of the husband working outside the home and the wife taking care of the home and family. Naturally, there are a number of factors behind this. First of all, labor is expensive in Germany and paying for childcare is not worth the expense. Moreover, mothers are socially expected to raise their children themselves, and those who don't are labeled "raven mothers" (Rabenmutter, i.e. heartless mothers who have abandoned their children). Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber, who lost his bid to become German chancellor by a few thousand votes, once said that women naturally belonged in the party of Kinder, Kuche, Kirche (children, kitchen, church). In fact, Stoiber's wife is a typical German hausfrau. It's hard to believe that in 21st-century Germany, a country renowned for its advanced scientific and technological prowess, there are still people stuck in 18th-century thinking.

In fact, Stoiber is no crank and most Germans share his view, although elected politicians and government officials rarely dare speak with such candor for fear of offending feminists. That they also agree with Stoiber is clear from numerous government policies and measures that have intentionally "put a series of obstacles on the racetrack." Married career women encounter restrictions wherever they go.

For example, because two-salary families pay much higher taxes than single-salary families, the spouse with the smaller earning capacity (usually the wife) tends to give up the idea of working outside the home. Moreover, on the one hand little effort is made to set up public daycare centers, and when they do exist, single mothers or mothers who are still in college are given priority; and on the other hand, government policies encourage mothers to stay at home.

For example, the law allows working women to take three years' maternity leave. If they have a second or third child during that period, they can extend their maternity leave. In practice, such legal guarantees are an empty promise for women in managerial positions because they cannot leave their jobs for that long. Nor are businesses, particularly private companies, willing to employ working mothers. At the end of the day, big obstacles to a working woman's career advancement mean that she has two choices: either she chooses not to have children, or if she does have children she has to accept a low-paying and low-status job. There are no other alternatives. In this respect, women in Taiwan or China have a much broader range of choices.

This was long part and parcel of the German value system and lifestyle, and working mothers had no alternative but to accept it. Until, that is, Ursula von der Leyen was appointed federal minister for family affairs.

A superwoman with seven children

Von der Leyen's extraordinary career has earned her more media attention than any other German government minister. She hails from an aristocratic political family and is the daughter of Ernst Albrecht, the premier of Lower Saxony from 1976 until 1990. There is no denying that her family background was a tremendous boost to her political career. She relied on this political capital to rise effortlessly and at an astonishing speed through the Christian Democratic Union party ranks. After a few years as minister for family affairs in Lower Saxony, she took the same job at the federal level.

Her husband, Heiko von der Leyen, is an internationally renowned professor of medicine as well as the managing director of Hannover Clinical Trial Center GmbH. But the most unusual thing about Ursula von der Leyen is that she has seven children. This fact alone makes her appointment as family affairs minister very appropriate. She offers a model to be emulated by German women, whose willingness to have children is pretty low.

Most remarkably, this almost 50-year-old beautiful slender woman with shoulder-length blond hair not only has an MA from the world-class London School of Economics, but she is a doctor of medicine with work experience as a resident physician in a German hospital. She is warm and unassuming and has nothing of the overbearing quality typical of successful career women. And unlike many career women, she's not forever rushing about and trying to burn the candle at both ends. Simply put, she personifies the ideal modern woman.

Yet ordinary German housewives are not exactly full of praise for this government-minister-cum-mother-of-seven (whose eldest child is in middle school and whose youngest has just entered kindergarten). In fact, they view her with suspicion, saying things like: "She's too perfect to be true"; "Women of wealth and influence can afford to have as many children as they want; after all, they have nannies to look after them"; "She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, has never known hardship, and is incapable of understanding the plight and problems of ordinary working women." Still, von der Leyen does enjoy the loyal support of many young working mothers who have been struggling to juggle family and careers for years.

Tackling a falling birthrate

As soon as von der Leyen took up her post as minister for family affairs, she made some sweeping changes, beginning with a policy on the parental allowance (Elterngeld) that caused great controversy up and down the country: Gainfully employed parents who interrupt their employment because of the birth of a child receive a monthly parental allowance of at least 67% of the lost net income up to a maximum of 1,800 (NT$80,000) for a combined period of up to 14 months. It is hoped that generous rewards will rouse couples to step up to the plate. The legislation facilitating the parental allowance, which was introduced in January 2007, was passed very quickly because of an awareness that due to Germany's steadily falling birthrate--it is now the fifth lowest in the world--the German people face a real danger of dying out.

The passing of the parental allowance law gave von der Leyen the confidence to propose a threefold increase in the number of daycare centers by 2013 to benefit a great many working mothers (although even this increase would only meet a third of the need). At present, there are too few public daycare centers, not enough public daycare center places for children who need them, and even fewer private daycare centers. Moreover, most parents can't afford to pay for home childcare. Unless a solution is found, working mothers will continue to be unwilling to have children.

Von der Leyen came under attack from all sides as soon as she announced her proposal. Although she also received plenty of praise, many feared that if daycare centers became widespread, German housewives would rush en masse into the workforce. Edmund Stoiber, who gained notoriety for his "Kinder, Kuche, Kirche" statement, was the first to oppose von der Leyen's proposal. Walter Mixa, the Catholic bishop of the Bavarian city of Augsburg, was even blunter in an interview with the media: "If women are only responsible for having children but not for bringing them up themselves, won't they be reduced to the status of breeding machines?"

The bishop was simply being candid about where the church stands on the issue, but his talk of "breeding machines" sparked a backlash, particularly from professional women who accused the Catholic Church of being backward and fettered to old doctrines. There were even demands for an apology. Professional women believe that happy mothers make happy children. They believe that if as soon as working women have children, they are forced to quit their jobs, become housewives, and give up the opportunity to fulfill themselves, they will get depressed and take it out on their children physically and verbally, which can only be harmful to the children's development.

It all sounds reasonable enough. But the real issue behind this national shouting match is money. The federal government has stated that increasing the number of daycare centers is "theoretically feasible" but would cost so much that further deliberation is needed before a decision can be taken. Local governments have said that their budgets cannot be stretched to pay for this. Evidently, the realization of this project is still far away, not least because the question of where the money is to come from has yet to be settled. I am afraid that young working mothers will not be able to celebrate in the near future.