To feel it’s a motherhood penalty… AIBU?

Women don’t have to juggle it all. Men have just as much right to request flexible working. Women can transfer some of their mat leave to their partner. And of course many couples continue to work equal hours after having kids and it’s up them whether they also share house and child responsibilities equally too.

the reality is that some women don’t want to share things equally. If one partner is going to stop work or go part time, they want it to be them. You see it frequently on Mumsnet…. Women who choose to reduce their hours while their partner remains a full time earner.

there Is nothing wrong with couples dividing up home and earning workload whatever way works best for them, but it’s disingenuous to either juggle it all, or to intentionally step back and let your career take the back seat, and then complain about it.

I absolutely agree that being rigid about working hours isn't good - but I really feel like there's a big difference between the sort of flexibility that I enjoy and encourage my team to have, for example:

I have a regular exercise slot 8:30-9:30 one day a week, by the time I shower, I am at my desk for 10 which is later than usual but not excessively. I can move it for important meetings.

I will pop out to watch my kids in their school performances and then work a bit later. Back in the day, you would have to book a half day off for it - I think it's brilliant we can now usually WFH and just take it as a break.

This sort of thing is generally fine because you can work around it and it's occasional.

But that is very different to day in day out doing the school run with primary age children

Some really good pints to ponder here.

It is certainly true that societally we don’t value motherhood, and therefore don’t support it. So women have to juggle it all, and yes, making accommodations for that could damage women long term.

But rigid working hours don’t really help anyone. My dad was WFH from the 1980s, for himself to be fair, and would pootle off to do some gardening on a sunny afternoon and catch up in the evening. He made it work for years.

Need to think more about this!

Childcare maybe. Elder care? Spousal care? That’s just going to ramp up.

So framing this as “mothers want something I don’t have because I don’t have children and that’s unfair” is very shortsighted. Unless you have zero personal connections at all, you may well be called on to provide care at some point in your life, and wouldn’t it be good if the work could be done to show employers that they can be more flexible than perhaps they think.

I agree with what both of you have said about @Grammarnut reply to me.

I won’t even unpick everything again as I think you’ve both summarised well some key issues with their proposals .

I will say that I completely disagree that you can confidently say a man in OPs position would be allowed to work more flexibly and they would accommodate his wishes.

A man would almost certainly work round this one. My DS works from home. In the summer the DGC are with him for half the hols. He has no problem with work - and organises his days in the office around the DC.

It obviously varies from workplace to workplace, therefore citing an example of a different company allowing a man to do this as proof of sexism doesn’t make sense.

You would need to compare like for like, as in a father within Op’s company who was allowed to take time off to pick up the kids.

I mean I could equally cite companies including mine that let certain mothers in my team take a break do the school run.

And my point about 30 years ago is that the 9-5 working paradigm was absolutely in full flow then. And there was no paternity leave, transferable leave or lengthy maternity leave. Yet many of us mums returned to work, paid for childcare and expected our partners to play an equal role in the home and with nursery pick ups.

in 2025 when there is way more flexibility and far more favourable maternity and paternity rights, it’s a bit pathetic to hear women complaining that they can’t possibly use childcare for a school pick up, or that they expect to be able to be free at 3:30 every day without it having any impact on their job.

Interesting that some people assume that any employer who places any expectations on their employees to work outside the home, or work certain hours, is somehow not being innovative and is just stuck in some outdated rut.

most employers want the job done well. And if that involves being in the office/on site/ with clients/ somewhere which isn’t the employee’s house then that’s entirely reasonable! If it means being available in person/ online at 3:30 in the afternoon and not doing the school pick up - that’s reasonable too!

there’s a difference between being flexible (which the OPs employer clearly is) and thinking employees have a right to dictate exactly when/ where/ how they want to do the job they applied for!

You can say this as much as you like but at the end of the day employers decide what they want and need to meet the needs of the business. He who pays the piper and all that.

I don't the birth rate has anything to do with this.

Availability and quality of childcare, especially wraparound which is now available in the majority of schools, has never been so good. The ability to WFH for many people makes a huge difference even if you're not simultaneously looking after your children. Yet the birth rate is still coming down.

The birth rate was at its highest in 1920 when you definitely didn't have women earning top 1% salaries asking to nip out for the school run.

It's the economy and particularly the housing market that is the real issue

You can work well flexibly just as well as someone hanging out in the office during core hours. People are not working solidly 9-5.
people need to move with the times!

People end up single parents through no fault of their own too.
we have technology now which we can use to break free of 9-5 working paradigm. What someone did 30 years ago is not relevant

The way the birth rate is going, looking after children will be a generational problem that will end with the next generation.

OP, you'll get a lot of people saying "you chose to have children" and all that guff.

It's hardly unsurprising that women are increasingly choosing not to have children. And many of the same people who go on about "small state", "personal responsibility" and all that are now becoming quite upset about this. Certainly, everyone will be when income tax goes up to deal with the economic consequences of a declining birth rate.

I agree.

and I’ve never understood this idea that people (which usually means mums!) should be paid to stop working and be at home. I mean, being a SAHP is a perfectly valid choice, if you (or your partner) fund it.

A lot of this comes down to the partnerships that we choose. Dh and decided from the get go that we wanted things on as equal footing as possible. We both worked and both took equal responsibility for housework, nursery drops etc. And this was 30 years ago.

the OP is earning decent money. She has the choice to either accept the flexibility offered by her employer to not work core hours but to stop at 3:30 and collect her child from school, which would mean earning about 75k. Or she can work the full core hours and earn 95k, using some of that extra money to pay for a childminder or other form of care for the pick up and after school hours. Like millions of other people do (on lower incomes too!)
it’s really not a bad choice she has there and it’s a bit pathetic to see a woman in the 21st century whining that they want to do school pick up every day while still retaining the same salary as if they worked the full core hours

You’d be absolutely right if we lived in Utopia @Grammarnut. The approach you outline would cost an absolute fortune and require businesses to reduce their profits. Meanwhile, here in the real world where a generation of women fought long and hard to be taken as seriously as men in the workplace - your generation if you have grandchildren - this kind of demand for special treatment is making women of childbearing age the least desirable recruits.

It might not be great or ideal but what is the alternative poverty for single parents kids. People do the best they can. It’s not the 1950s. Flexibility is good!

I actually think in many ways when workplaces do accommodate this, it's not good for women really. It sounds like it should be but I dunno that it really is.

It sets an expectation that women can somehow literally do everything at the same time - hold down a senior role and also look after their children.

When done properly, logging in early, working through lunch, logging on in the evenings are really unhealthy habits and I think lead to burnout much more than just using wraparound care.

I also don't think it's great for children to get home and be told not to disturb mummy because she has an important meeting. Not against children entertaining themselves and I know all children of mumsnetters who do this do worthy activities and never look at a screen but I do think it's different when you know a parent is available to you if you need something.

And of course my experience TBH is that the vast majority of parents (it's been men and women in my workplace) don't do this properly - I am currently performance managing one who does both school runs, looks after 3 children under 7 after school, and takes a full lunch break, she basically works 4 hours a day which does not get the work done and is unfair on everyone else.

It also - though it doesn't for me personally - lead to people being unwilling to allow WFH across the board because that is a simpler way to police this and I think that's bad for women and disabled people. I do use wraparound care (obviously I know most mumsnetters live very rurally and have no childcare or running water) but lack of commute from being be able to WFH helps immensely and I will be really annoyed if my employer ceases to allow it because of the pisstakers.

It also makes wraparound care harder to make sustainable which is tough on typically lower paid women who work in roles where they can't WFH.

Excellent post, @Grammarnut 👏👏👏

A man would almost certainly work round this one. My DS works from home. In the summer the DGC are with him for half the hols. He has no problem with work - and organises his days in the office around the DC. I would hope this is the same for a woman - but women tend to be the parent who has the DC all the time (ex-DiL has DGC for most of the time, for example).

We need to stop treating workers as if they are all the same. No, not every woman has children, but many do - and those children are the future workforce and future consumers so are of great value to a state, to industry and commerce. So, work practices to be equal to all would accommodate childcare and men would be expected to take an equal burden of that and also of elder care, the trip chain, the domestics on the basis of 50/50 irrespective of earnings. Maternity and paternity leave would be properly paid and nursery placements would be for the benefit of the children, not to turn parents into economic units - so support would be to parents to arrange what childcare suited them: a stay at home parent, grandparent care, nursery, childminder etc.
That society would be equal (not equitable, since not all outcomes would be the same). Childfree or childless men and women would get the benefit of a wider range of possibilities as well - to compensate for not having children e.g. sabbaticals etc, but childfree and childless men and women may have other responsibilities e.g. they may be caring for an elderly person, an ill spouse etc. Just because you have no children does not mean you do not have domestic responsibilities which an equal workplace must accommodate.
Until we treat women as people who have unpaid work as well as paid work, and shift the burden of that unpaid work so that it is seen as of equal value (because society won't function without it) and to be equally shared, there is no equality. And, since women bear most of the burden of unpaid work society is sexist. Thus treatment of OP is sexist - she mostly would not have this problem if a man because men do not usually become children's full-time carers, so work does not have to accommodate them.

It’s not a mum penalty, you’re chosing to reduce your working hours, therefore your pay reduces.

Sorry but this is bollocks. My partner and I have fully equal responsibility for our children. We used to fit our work patterns together around childcare and a school, it's no more my responsibility than it is his.

And we BOTH never expected our workplaces to let us swan off in the middle of the afternoon for the school run.

Don’t be ridiculous 0P. It’s not a motherhood penalty. Just pay for childcare like millions of other people do.

So you think if a man asked this thry would get it but as you are a women no?

Otherwise how is it a 'motherhood penalty' you are being paid for hours you work aren't you?

Ah I see thanks for clarifying.

Yes, you're right - my math is wrong.

There’s no pay gap.
There is an earnings gap between people who work full time and don’t take large chunks of leave, and those who prioritize things other than their careers. As it should be. Why should those who work less expect to earn the same as those who work more??