Being labelled unreliable as a working mum

It's called long term financial planning and was about my children's financial future rather than status 😅 As I say it's worked out extremely well for us and was a brilliant decision for us. And actually, we are not in any debt at all now. We're all flourishing in fact.

This, 100%
OP, taking advantage as you're doing - and we're talking whole school holidays here, not the couple of hours a day during term time that you take for school pickup and looking after your toddler on work hours - is what makes it so much harder for other working mums.

So, everything is great!

What’s the point of this thread?

Oh my goodness this made me laugh out loud 😅 I love how binary your two options are, as they are the only two possibilities in the world 🙈 Has the OP said that she and her children will be malnourished if she does not use her paid working hours to look after her 2 year old instead?! Missed that bit!

Okay. You asked for options. I've been there and it's tough, sure, but there are so many ways to weather those early years without needing to neglect a child or scam an employer.

How about she makes a choice between working or paying for childcare rather than neglecting her child or her job by trying to do both at once?

If she finds herself short or money, how about she increases her earnings by undertaking some additional online work when her child is asleep in theevenings? (My husband and I both did that and it helped keep us afloat! We worked very hard for a few years).

How about she explores universal credit options (already suggested on this thread) if she is genuinely struggling to that extent (you suggest that she and her kids will end up malnourished if she doesn't use her working hours to look after her kids 🙈... )

How about she explains where the father and his financial support fits in?

We personally chose to get in to (some) controlled, managed debt to pay for our (very extortionate) childcare, knowing we would claw that back when the kids were in school - which we now have. We didn't have to choose that option but felt it was the best way for us.

Sooooo many options 👌

It's better parenting to have children in childcare where they're cared for and attended to than leaving a toddler to amuse themselves for hours on end while you try to work. Then you're a bad employee and a bad parent.

Actually, that's not judgement but a sensible question that I'm happy to answer. 👌

The position I was in wouldn't allow me to cut my hours without a knock to my career. Flexible working requests arent automatically accepted you know. I could have gone part time but lost out on longer term career and earning potential. So we took a short term financial hit for childcare, knowing that within a few years we'd be able pick up financially (we are finally there).

And of course we could feed our children 😅 We wouldn't have had kids (2 close together) without being able to do that. We had a small amount of savings in the bank, and used credit cards where necessary. All finally paid off 🙌 Trust me, my kids ate VERY well. Nothing unfair about it (not least because my kids weren't neglected and there was no scamming of my employer 😊)

So @Positivegirl - I've asked this in the thread before as have others - how will you manage in the summer when your 2yo is home full time?

Maybe she should be chasing up the other parent who isn’t contributing anything to their child practically or financially. I know you can’t force someone to do either but I’m sick of hearing about (mostly) men who just get away with it.

I’m not convinced this is completely genuine anyway, if this is someone who supposedly works in marketing/communications I’d be worrying about more than just their working pattern.

So what's your suggestion?
Option 1. She doesn't work. The money she maybe on from the government isn't sufficient. She uses most of the money on food for the kids. She suffers malnutrition. The kids suffer. Worst case scenario social services get involved take the kids from her.
Option 2. She works. She's at home when the kids are home. The kids see mum. They are fed. I mean we don't know what mum's job is so it may well be that she can fit meal times around her job.

I see a lot of guesses including my own. But again. No support here for mum. Just disgust. She's a bad mum. And a bad worker.

OP - you’ve explained the set up.

All you are going to get is people continuing to tell you you’re a shit parent/shit employee because women just seem to love tearing other women down.

If it’s working it’s working.

Youve got far better things to do with your time than try to defend yourself to peopld who are determined to find fault

I'm a teacher, so no 😅 As I said, it was more than I earned (and my husband is a teacher as well). It was rubbish but I wasn't going to neglect my child or try to scam my employer. We are only just out of debt now from the childcare years. But we made a choice to have kids and we knew childcare was expensive.

Two things can be true op. You might well get your work done eventually, but you clearly aren't reliable for your direct manager. More senior manager may not care for now as it doesn't affect them, but it seems like fair feedback from your line manager, you aren't always reliable and it makes their job harder.

Yes! Poor kid, and poor employer.

Childcare is expensive - we get it. I used to pay £160 a day for my childcare when my two were tiny so I could work (more than I earned in fact!). But I wasn't going to cheat my employer by pretending to work while actually looking after my child (or neglecting my child while actually working). I can't people seem to think that's okay.

The school pickup hour, taken as 'lunch' is no issue. People are ignoring the crux of the matter.

OP, you are still conveniently skirting around the fact that you will be looking after a two year old full time at home during the whole of the 14 weeks a year school holidays while still claiming to be working full time.
That's the issue, not your school pickup hour.

Good for you OP, crack on. You are fortunate to have a job that enables you to look after a 2 year old during working hours, and it also sounds like you are great at what you do which of course helps.

Now you understand and have context to the criticism from your line manager you can probably put it in a box and move on.

It will get easier on you as your child gets older.

Exactly this. 👏

Yeh and that's a MAJOR problem (both for the poor kids and the workplaces, both of whom get a raw deal) and one reason many employers and pushing for a return to the office - to avoid parents taking the mick in this way.

It's the child I feel most sorry for. Poor kid.