To feel it’s a motherhood penalty… AIBU?

I mean, you’re entitled to your own opinions, but the examples I gave are all real people who are very highly regarded within their own organisations. You’re deluded if you think that boards of large organisations care how their senior leaders structure their days, so long as the organisation itself performs. My very generous recent bonus tells me that my board are very very happy with my performance even though I work flexibly.

@WutheringTights

I am also paid in that region and I would reiterate what I said up thread - I get plenty of flexibility and can almost always attend school events etc (right now I am on my way back from a personal appointment and I reshuffled my diary to allow for it).

But there is a huge difference between occasional flexibility and every single day working less than a full day.. Especially as a single parent, she isn't able to work a weekend or pull an all nighter when required as you do to compensate

You et al have these high achieving jobs yet are out of office,unavailable during day. Genuinely if the organisation and colleagues manage effectively in your absence you’re not actually that important or necessary. If the work is reallocated,delayed,or reassigned whilst you are all absent coaching,collecting and parenting you’re actually not as pivotal as you think.

You are kidding yourself on with mantras about performance. Maybe that works in sales or a target driven environment.

In professional workplace you’re paid for ability to step up when required. Your expertise and oversight is required as well as your presence.

OP, ignore the posters saying you’re being unreasonable, you’re not. At that level of salary you should be able to manage your own time. It sounds like this organisation wants to micromanage you and isn’t the one for you.

I’m paid more than that, and make every sports day, every concert, every assembly. Some days I leave early to collect the kids from school and work later. Some weeks i just do my core hours and other weeks I work weekends and pull all nighters because that’s what’s required. One of my colleagues leaves to collect her adult child from college at 3 pm every single day and we work around it. I’ve done calls while walking to and from school to get my kids. I used to work with a very very senior finance leader who left at 4 pm on day every single week to coach his kid’s football team and simply wasn’t available no matter what else was going on. You just make it work. At that level you’re paid for performance, not hours, and I think a number of posters on this thread don’t understand that.

it sounds like she said after accepting the officer 'by the way I sign off at 330 every day to collect my child and then work from home with my child there being inadequately supervised' and they said 'no, you can stop working if you're actually in charge of your child' and the OP didn't like this either. Clearly didn't come up in the interview as the person has already accepted the role.

If you are the wrong colour, or religion, or sexual orientation they will search for something else. They are not supposed to even ask you about those things, but they get pretty close. It should be on merit and experience only.

Did you ask them, or did they ask you about child minding? I am not sure if they are legally able to ask you that.

After school club?

Pay for childcare or after school clubs. You can’t work and look after your child at the same time.

Depends on the job. Some jobs do need you to be available at set times, for example if dealing with the public or other offices. Not hard to understand surely!

Of course you can. If there's 100 applicants for one job then you can only give one person the job regardless of their colour and religion! The job should be going to the most suitable candidate. In this instance it seems they have been more than fair with the OP.

Is the new job the same company you previously worked at? If it is then I assume it’s a new job role and the flex hours will not apply due to the new role. If it as a new company then it doesn’t really matter that you have flex hours now as they have nothing to do with your old company. Surely you read the brief when you applied for the job/during the interview stage? It would have been the first thing I asked during the interview. You also can’t expect to be paid full time hours when you will not be working full time. Definitely not a penalty on motherhood.

You can though, easily. You just don't tell them that's why. Happens every day.

It was probably a bit facetious, but there are some rules such as you cannot turn down someone for their colour, or religion etc.

That's not even vaguely true. It couldn't be easier to turn down applicants for jobs. It's what happens to the vast majority of applicants for jobs. They don't even have to respond at all.

If is very difficult legally for companies to turn down applicants for jobs, and this is about the only way they can do that.

My husbands company is super flexible with childcare and as long as he works a certain number of hours a week he can pretty much do the hours that best suit our family life. It's great.

I'd probably feel sorry for you if you were on 30k but 95k, you can 100% afford a childminder/wrap around/ after school nanny/help.

It sounds like you wanted to stay at home anyway.

I was determined that having children wouldn't ruin my career so it was planned incredibly carefully and DS wasn't born until I was 36, in a senior role and with flexibility.

I also made sure to have savings which helped with the hit on maternity leave and I decided to not take a full years maternity leave or to drop to part time.

DH and I flex around each other which means one of us can almost always pick up DC early from nursery and it all doesn't fall on one person.

Taking a temporary hit was worth it to keep my career, as well as the fact that I work for so much more than financial reasons.

Fine if that works for you but I don’t see staying at home with kids all day as an opportunity. I want to work as well as spend time with then

I agree. I did caveat and say there will always be individual circumstances apply however I find it strange there's always talk of his and her salaries rather than income being a joint thing when you have children. The default position seems to be in many cases, that the women automatically drops out the workplace completely rather than both couples looking at flexible working agreements or looking at how they can structure their work hours accordingly.

It's fine if that's what you want to do. I couldn't think anything worse than being out the work place and glad I can go to work while my child is young.

Have you posted about this job before?

Working is about more than income. These fluctuations can be planned and saved for, you know.

I don't want to hear anyone whining about the "career hit" or "motherhood penalty" if they choose to drop out of the workforce because of short-term cash flow issues, especially if they didn't bother to save in advance to cover mat leave and/or childcare costs.

Exactly, @gattocattivo

People are so short-sighted to just focus on the income factor. There's also accruing seniority, contributing to pension (and perhaps gaining an enhanced employer's contribution to pension), job history, skills updating, networking and maintaining the discipline of working. All are worth staying in the workforce for.

There also was always the option for the couple to plan and save in advance for childcare costs, to cover any shortfall. Just as people are expected to save up for any other big-ticket expense in life.

yes but for some people, taking a financial hit in the short term is worth it for the sake of career progression, pension etc.

we had 3 children and in the short term were financially slightly worse off than if I’d stayed home, but in the long term I’m far better off. I feel very lucky to have the career I do while raising my children.

Its different choices

I don't know everyone's individual circumstances but the bigger question needs to posed is why is childcare not being shared equally between parents. Isn't childcare a shared expense and responsibility for both parents to consider when working not just always fall to the mum to have to organise everything

I hate this argument.

At the time - DH earned more than me - my salary was 17K Child care was 26K 3 kids.

How is ‘sharing the cost’ supposed to work?

I go to work - earn £4K less tax, getting 3 kids ready - DH salary drops by £13K to ‘share’ the child care and we all live on fresh air?

How does this make financial sense?

I feel I was lucky to stay home and take care of my own children.

Not many women get the opportunity.

There's a few reasons really, men have always in the past had the higher salaries and so it was the boat nobody wanted to rock.
There's also attitudes that men face in the workplace if they asked for flexibility - some years back I worked guy who got all the warehousemen in a room and laid in to them big time that they had no right to be taking time off to look after sick kids or do school runs "because that's what the missus is for" - horrific I know but in some of your grittier male oriented environments it would be frowned upon.