Mills's article in the Sunday Times

Great discussion!

I believe it's not a 'personal, individual choice'. I always thought it was. Until I moved from a Northern European country to the UK. Our choices of a couple have changed, whereas most of my mummy-friends in my country have just continued with both partners working 4 days/week, like I wanted. I have now become a WAHM, doing 90% of the house/childcare work, whereas he is pursueing a career. Why have we changed? Different flexible working laws, different mat/pat leave policies, Different quality and cost of childcare. All external factors that society/politics can change.

Changing those factors would make it much easier for me to argue my DH should do a step back at work, find cover for school holidays and thus continue to work myself in a professional career. He might not easily accept it, but at least the arguments that 'it is impossible to work 4 days in this job' wouldn't work any longer. His reasons for not 'doing his share' of the house/childcare work seem to be supported by policies in the UK.

I just wanted to mention that most of my friends at home bring in quite a bit more jointly (in 2x4 days) than my husband does on his own (in a very good career). Besides it makes them less vulnerable in case of redundancy of one of them or in case of divorce.

Of course, you don't want to force this model on everyone, and that is a danger and I agree with Mills that even though I might prefer this, it doesn't mean most mums do.

At the same time I believe it is a waste to society to make it so difficult for well-educated, experienced women to stay into senior jobs when they have a child. Many choose to stay at home because they don't want a senior job and all the pressures it comes with AND look after a child. But I do think their choice would be different if there were more options to work flexibly in senior jobs.

Of course, if everything else was set up to make it equally straightforward for men or women to take parental leave/go part time, then it would be a private matter. But it isn't set up like that, is it? Women are still in lower paid jobs, or more accurately, women's jobs are still lower paid. So it's much harder for us to be the main breadwinner while dp is SAHD. The idea that domestic arrangements are private, not for political debate and public policy, is a pernicious myth. If we all believed that, there'd be no maternity leave/right to return and no law on domestic violence. An englishman's home is his castle, etc. The family is primarily an economic institution no matter what mythology is served up for valentines/ mothers' day. How else would the next generation be produced/educated?

They can simply stay on late in a crisis rather than say 'I have to pick up from childcare' etc.

I don't see why they shouldn't get back on track-it isn't as if childhood lasts long. I think that I could have progressed steadily up the ladder when I got back-if I had been ambitious because I have friends who have done it.(same job-DCs at same time). However there is no way around it-if you have DCs someone who is 'married' to their career is going to get ahead faster. They can simply stay on late in a crisis rather than say 'I have to pick up from childcare' etc.

There is no way around it-someone who puts the job as number 1 priority is going to advance quicker than someone who has it as number 2 priority.

I'm not suggesting that businesses should revolve around parents. I don't see why if a role can be flexible it shouldn't be though. Both DH and I have days working from home, go in late, come home early as suits us and we don't have children. (The flip side is that we work late and weekends when we need to.) We get our work done and our employers cope.

I'm fairly certain that I could do what I do in five days in four if I were more efficient. Same for DH. The problem is that it is career suicide because the workplace is focused on presentism.

I think that everyone should have the right-but you have to accept that if you are not there as much as some people you will lose out.
There is no way around it-someone who puts the job as number 1 priority is going to advance quicker than someone who has it as number 2 priority.

I think if the right to flexible working and career breaks were extended to everyone after a qualifying period, it would help to level the playing field. You wouldn't be able to discriminate against particular groups. Of course there will still always be the people who will want to work to the exclusion of all else....and these will maybe do better in their career in the long run. But a part me thinks that is fair enough.

I guess it is because when you are not there the rest are not standing still and they are forging ahead with their career-I really can't see see a way around it. Why should those with DCs be a special case? I dare say lots of people would like to do 3 or 4 days, for a variety of good reasons.
If you are very ambitious in a career you have to be physically there, unless you can do something like run your own company and are good at delegating.
It is just a fact, DCs alter your life and you have to accept that something goes-money and a career. Two part timers mean that 2 careers take a dip. If you are going to put career first then you have to delegate a lot of the childcare and not see them much.You have to know that you have someone to collect them if the school phone to say they have been sick, or they go down with chickenpox just as you have an important meeting.
I'm not being difficult-why should society and businesses revolve around those who want DCs? It would be very annoying for someone who wants DCs and can't have them to find that they have to put the needs of parents first.

exoticfruits, I think you don't understand because the one choice that society currently offers, is the one you want.

DH and I haven't even conceived yet and it's already apparent how difficult it will be to split responsibility for our children evenly (because that in theory is what we both want) and maintain two careers while doing so.

I say this is what we want in theory because when DH is faced with the very real prospect of losing a career that he has spent 15 years building, he isn't exactly over the moon. The only reason while he's willing to go along with it, is because I require it. But knowing how reluctant he is, I'm also aware that he could pull the rug whenever he wanted. I don't think I've married a man that is like that, but who can tell?

In your world you have three choices: one parent (mother or father but usually mother) gives up a career or both maintain one but the child is neglected. Why does it have to be that way? Why can't DH and I both work four days a week for maybe two or three years out of forty and not throw our careers away?

And my argument is I don't believe your two choices HAVE to be the only two choices, its just currently they are the only two choices. I want there to be changes so there are other choices.

I just don't understand. Asher has had a DC and is upset because she can't do what she wants to do when she wants to do it. (welcome to the club!)The entire system can be set up so that men are the main carers-I fail to see how it works for her if her DH says he doesn't want to be the main carer.
Society is set up so that it is mainly the woman, historically and because hundreds of women (like me) love it. You don't have to fit in -I know lots of couples who do it the other way around.
My argument is that it is completely personal. If you want your DH to be equal carer don't choose a high flying career man-it won't work.
If you insist-both have careers, get a housekeeper, a nanny and send to boarding school.

I give up, I am clearly (well obviously not) explaining myself very well or you are being obtuse. Karma is saying it so much better.

exoticfruits

If society does not set up structures to favour women staying at home, why aren't 50% of SAHPs that aren't breastfeeding men? Don't you think men prefer to spend time with their families rather than in the office too?

Going back to you point about how you should discuss everything first, what happens if you do but then one partner doesn't do as they agreed?

DH and I have had extensive conversations about how we will share childcare and it's all good in theory but what happens if he doesn't do as he says he will in practice?

So, I've told him that I would expect him to take advantage of the new paternity leave laws if I want to go back to work. He (grudgingly) agreed. What if when it actually happens he won't? How do I make him?

He is ambitious (as am I) and doesn't want to sacrifice his career but he has also agree to take advantage of flexible working, if he needs to. Ideally I'd like us both to work four days. What happens if he won't? Do I go down to three? I can just about get away with four and not kill my career, but not three.

What happens if he takes his day a week to look after baby but doesn't actually look after baby? What if he just hands the baby to a creche while he plays golf? What if I come home to a neglected child?

Presumably, I would be expected to take care of everything and his life would just go on as before children arrived.

Exactly- but it is between the couple. If society bends over backwards to make it an equal playing field it doesn't help the woman whose DH insists he isn't going to be main carer.

Society in all its structures, not just in what it thinks....ie.e mat leave/pat leave etc. etc. Yes, she should have a conversation, but people change and so do circumstances. I don't think anyone really knows how they are going to feel about children until they have them. So back to what I said, there are choices, but it is not a level playing field. And as Karma said you can lay it out, but in the end you can't make the other person step up to the plate even if previously they have agreed to.

You don't have to go with societies view. Lots of couple have the man at home and the woman as the main breadwinner. I think that on the whole women are more likely to want to be the nurturers. People don't generally say before they die I wish I had spent more time in the office! They are far more likely to say they wished they had more time with family.

I am not arguing about it-I just think that it is pointless Asher moaning in general. She should have had an honest conversation with her DP before she got pregnant and not gone ahead unless they had a system that suited her.
Too many people have DCs without discussing it first.

But it isn't just down to personal choice - society is pushing it to be mainly one way (the woman does it), so as MyBrain says, fine it you fit the picture, but if you don't then its harder work. It is not a level playing field where all choices are equal.

It is all down to personal choice. There is no reason that the woman has to be the one to stay at home, the man can easily be the one who changes his life-I know lots of couples that do it that way-but it is a private matter to be resolved by the couple. The only fact is -that it changes lives and one person has to be the one who is going to be hands on unless, you pay and delegate the lot.
I don't see the fuss. I like the assumption that the woman does the caring, but you don't have to make that assumption, it can equally be the man. All it takes is discussion before you have a DC. What you can't do is decide to have a DC and expect everyone to fall over to help with the caring. Many people don't have DCs and they have to care for elderly relatives-they have just as much need for flexibility i.e. the DS can be the main carer and not his DW.

Portofino - I so get your post! Dp is the same (as I said he largely raised ds until about the age of three/four as I worked f-t and he worked p-t at the time), I am the one who does the stuff in the background. I know dp can do it (witness when I have been away), but it wouldn't occur to him either. I am getting tougher on this (taking lessons from a friend, who, for example, has the parent mail from the school sent to him so he has to deal with trips, afterschool clubs etc) Ithink men will allow you to take up the slack (may be that is human nature), if you do the thinking for them, they will let you!

"If parenthood changes your life, and I agree it does, then why is it that (on the whole) it doesn't appear to change the life of men. Are they not parents too?" I share nooka's thoughts.

When dd was born, I was the main wage earner and dh was on a temp contract. I had to go back to work to pay the mortgage and was mostly happy to do so. DH could not have stayed home either as he was just starting a career change after taking a late degree. It would have killed his career off at that point. (He is 11 years older than me).

7 years on, dh's career has come on in leaps and bounds, we moved abroad to facilitate a promotion - and I hope upon hope that he will continue to do well - he only has 11 years to go before he is 65.

I still have a good job, but I don't have a GREAT one. I don't have the job that I think I should have - mainly because DH travels so much and there is NO WAY I can take on the same level of responsibility and not hire live in care for dd. I don't want to do that. I want to be home every night after school. That is my choice. DH also does his share in the house/entertaining dd. Generally it works quite well and I am happy that DH earns the cash and bumps up his pension as he will be retiring a long time before me.

But it does piss me off a little that DH can just makes plans and disappear at the drop of a hat, based on the assumption that I will pick up the slack. That goes for work trips, occasional visits to the pub after work, team building and the like. I have to fit round him and cancel things if required. I can never, ever just decide to pop for a drink after work as the school run is normally done by me. I have to make "arrangements".

Also DH never gives any thought to all the "stuff" that goes on in the background for dd - dinner money, school trips, new clothes, presents for parties. He would do it if I asked him - but it would never occur to him otherwise.

He is generally a hands-on dad and dd adores him, but I think that being a "dad" seems to be somehow different from being a "mum" - but is it the job, biology or the Patriarchy, or a combination of all 3. I have no idea.

Children change your life-end of story. Either you want to change and go ahead or you don't have one. If you go ahead you sort it out between you-a private matter. Two adults can't have a high flying career and children, something has to give -unless you farm out the whole lot to nannies and boarding schools.
Children -to me- means spending time with them. DCs want time-they don't want money. I don't see why everyone should bend because you want children and a childfree existance. Lots of other people want flexible work times, time out etc.
I don't mind what others do-I just don't want people fighting for me to leave my DCs for paid employment. I think that I got the very best choice-the choice to be at home with babies and toddlers-I can't think of a single job that beats it! (I don't expect others to feel the same).I am very grateful that DH wasn't fighting for the priviledge.

not as simple as that is it exoticfruits.

Saying children are not society's responsibility is a canny way of getting patriarchies not to support mothers financially or practically, and to force them into living with men, often dangerously abusive ones.

The "children are a lifestyle choice" spiel is very nineties.

Implying that mothers and children should fit around society and its structures is a classic patriarchal reversal, a patriarchal lie, which values males over females. I.e the "male" is the human norm and women can't quite "match" men, in fact they're shit compared to men, because they have to take maternity leave and stuff.

In an evolved society, workplaces and political institutions would be designed to fit around mothers and children, because they are the root of society.

Citizens, soldiers and clients come from somewhere, and it's not the cabbage patch.

"And it struck me that the person who really has the choice in most of these situations is the man. All the talk about women's choices between SAHM/WOHM is largely specious unless the man effectively grants that choice by agreeing to take up 100% of his 50%. I am certain that I have missed that point being made many times over on this forum, but it just hit home today." (Ayerobot)

"I can talk a good game about how it'll be even once baby is here, but it's up to DH as to whether he upholds his half of the bargain." (Karmakameleon)

These two quotes kind of say it all for me. I have read the Asher article in the Guardian (there is a thread here and in AIBU on it) and this thread. I identify alot with what she says. I felt I lost myself for all sorts of reasons (although it was a bit more complicated than just having a child - I was also the main breadwinner and went back to work after four months, dp did the majority of the early years childcare). I am only just finding myself again and it is hard.....