Being labelled unreliable as a working mum

In this day and age where flexible working is supposed to be the norm I don't think you are being unreasonable.Where I work majority of the staff are women and highly specialised in their field. My boss is very pro active in ensuring that they have a good work life balance..She says it's not forever and if you lose that talent you never get it back.
Lots of people work until 2.30 then leave to work from. home.And they manage their work load accordingly.

The only people who you should be worrying about that you refer to as believing you are unreliable is your boss. It does not matter what you perceive to be offered to other people or if they are taking the Mickey unless the employer is directly discriminating against you. You seem to expect your work to accommodate all this but you don’t have it agreed. You are fed up because you haven’t got a agreement for your work pattern. Plenty of people are suggesting you do this or drop/ consolidate hours with UC top up whilst you have young children, alternatively look for a different job. Working parents do find childcare they don’t use the excuse that none is available so they can get paid for full time hours whilst looking after their child.

She says she is getting her work done on time and in full. Victimising her for having a child is out of order unless her actions are effecting the quality/quantity of the work she is being paid for.

She actually sounds like a great employee - just because her ‘working hours’ are more unusual why should she be victimised? Unless her contract specifically states she needs to be available between 9-5 or similar then they don’t have a leg to stand on by bullying her into conforming to some arbitrary ‘norm’.

If you want to keep great employees sometimes you need to think more flexibly.

If she is logging off from 3-5 to care for her child and then logging back on 7-9 once her child is asleep then why does that make a difference?

I think the issue here isn't that your leaving for a hour to collect your child. The issue is you then go home with the child and "work" from home with child. You said u r only gone max a hour but ur not, you are gone from the school run.

What the rest of us have 'got figured out' is that your employer doesn't pay you to look after a 2 year old in your working hours. Which is what OP is doing for 2 hours every day and then all day every day in school holidays.

Are you saying that you as a child free person would be happy to work 7 hours a day and get paid the same as a colleague who only works 5 hours a day and then works no hours a day for the 12 weeks a year it's school holidays? You think OP should get paid to look after her own child on work time?

She's not being penalised for being a parent, there are millions of working parents and we have to pay for childcare while we're working, OP thinks she's a special case and shouldn't have to do that like everyone else does.

Flexi time in the civil service (and most of the real world) doesn’t permit working while caring for a toddler. These arrangements are good for working parents (I work flexi time in another public sector organisation) but it doesn’t stretch to paying people a full time wage to work part time hours.

Wow I'm not a parent and the judgement coming from other parents is absolutely disgusting. So you got it figured out. Woopy do. Have a gold star.
This lady was asking for support not much is it.
She already said she goes above and beyond. Something her colleagues with out children don't seem to do. Coming in late. Not finishing tasks. Causing deadlines to be missed.
Does anyone not read the original post.
I see that she's being penilised for being a parent and all you lot of haters turn it towards her like she's "making us look bad".
You ought to look bad. Because your not nice. Hold a mirror up to yourselves and say what you put in here and see how that feels

We have a contractual clause in contracts of employment that you cannot work from home if you have unsupervised under 10’s at home. The ability to work from home may be withdrawn if this is breached.

Assuming nothing else happens from 230-330pm then I’d have no issue having a member of staff take a late lunch break every day. Annoying to work around at times I’d think but not a problem necessarily. I’d have a massive problem paying someone a full time wage who isn’t available after 230 every day.

I would suggest looking into civil service jobs. Most are flexi time which is great for working parents and there are lots of family friendly policies too

This sounds like your employers problem and not yours. Start looking for another job. Find an employer who appreciates and values you.

Plenty of people where I work leave to do the school run. We just work around them.

Stand your ground and ask for any grievances they have to be documented - I bet they wouldn’t stand up to a tribunal!

Everyone is presenting this from the point of view of the OP getting her work done and offering to do work in the evening etc. Depending on what her role is though, she might not work completely independently like that. I have freedom to “choose” my own hours so long as the work gets done. But a significant part of my job is working with other people. I can’t do that properly after my child goes to bed, or over the weekend. Even if I think I’m being productive, the organisation as a whole wouldn’t function properly if people can’t collaborate because everyone is working completely different hours on individual tasks in little silos.

And for holidays, not getting childcare in place is completely unacceptable. You can’t work effectively with a 2 year old, it’s unsustainable. I did it for a few months during the first lockdown because I had no alternative, and was a rubbish worker and a rubbish parent during that time.

I love how the parents of young children on my team are trusted and allowed to shuffle work around child commitments

'Flexibility' to nip off from work and take your child to the dentist or pick them up from school when they've been sick is one thing.

I don't think it's being 'flexible' to have inadequate childcare during every working day and then NO childcare for 13 weeks a year during the holidays. That would warrant a disciplinary or termination of contract in many jobs.

I also think it's one thing looking after school aged kids for an hour or two after school while working.

School kids will sort a drink, toilet themselves, raid the biscuits, watch telly. And might even go and play with pals. Even if they aren't quite old enough to be left home alone.

Pre-schoolers need much more parental input. And really not fair to be trying to juggle them and work.

And TBH I don't think it's fair on primary kids to be left watching telly all day in the school holidays.

Agreed. There’s flexibility towards parents which is awesome, and then there’s zero childcare for a 2 year old over the entire school holidays!?!

Picking up older primary age kids and letting them watch tv while you finish up the last hour of your day or log on later in the evening is flexible.

Im not sure how it’s actually possible to work any semblance of a 40 hour week with a toddler with you all day every day over the holidays?

If your CEO is happy then just ignore your line manager and keep doing what you’re doing!

but I love how the parents of young children on my team are trusted and allowed to shuffle work around child commitments

Do any of them only have childcare for a few hours a day, and none in the school holidays?

I am so lucky. WFH full time in an incredibly flexible job, which I also love. After the stress of being made redundant from my job of 23 years, followed by months of interviews and rejections, i am still a bit imposter syndrome about how I have won the work jackpot
I don’t need that flexibility anymore as my kids are grown up, but I love how the parents of young children on my team are trusted and allowed to shuffle work around child commitments
we are a really hard working, dedicated team who all want to do our best because we know how lucky we are

I don't think it's fair to be officially working with young kids at home. It's not fair on your colleagues and it's not fair on the kids. Being treated differently to colleagues who can give work their full attention in this time isn't being treated unfairly. If the kids were teenagers and looked after themselves after school then that's completely different. If you're just doing the school run and then have childcare in place for after school until you log off that's different too. I get it's difficult but you couldn't have them with you in the office so shouldn't be able to do the same WFH. It gives those who work from home a bad reputation.

Interesting show today on BBC Woman’s Hour today relating (loosely) to this topic. Anyone interested can listen on BBC Sounds.

I'm unsure what you mean by UC deduct money? They don't touch your take home salary, just provide a top up over that if you're entitled. What's your current salary, monthly rent and childcare cost?

It's my biggest work irritation too.