Domestic zombies, motherhood penalty & childcare

I have no solution because I don't think one is possible until there is a full and honest conversation about motherhood and the desire to be with your children.
For me it felt primal. I hadn't expected it and it blew me - and all my plans - away.

I don't think feminism has ever got to grips with it, which is bizarre because motherhood is arguably one of the main reasons we need feminism. This board is about the only place where I see it discussed.

You see, I find this idea that there is a view that spending time raising your children is a bad thing fascinating. I have found this to be true myself but I have listened to other mothers in different circumstances. In their experience, the opposite is true, they feel that the prevalent view is that they are bad for working. I guess it goes to show that, if you excuse the paraphrase, a mother's place is in the wrong.

I think what would really help is if we could support each other. I have, on many an occasion, provided emergency childcare for my friends and was glad to do so. They, in their turn, have understood my circumstances and reassured me that I am not valueless.

this is such an interesting thread

One thing I would say is that we often view spending time raising your children as a bad thing. I was guilty of this myself at the time. to be fair it often felt like one small act of drudgery after another. In hindsight though, it was time well invested. I feel I have a stronger bond with my children than my husband does, and I credit those hours at home.

I do wonder if we could reframe that time, would it make men be more willing to slow their career down to get it?

I mean let's be very honest, if you stop working or go part time, I can't see how it couldn't slow down your career and therefore your earning potential compared to someone who focused solely on work.

I feel it cost me financially, and I also feel it was worth it.

The difficulty with massively increasing the state financial support for having more children is that in order to be meaningful to higher earners, it risks distorting behaviour in lower earners to have more kids than they can manage. France did exactly this in the 50s to increase their population - high payout, preferential access to accommodation etc - and it has been argued that this led to increased social deprivation and difficulties for the resulting kids in the 70s and beyond.

I'm a fan of using market forces to change things where possible, with nudges to push them in the right direction. I think it works better - and tends to have fewer unintended negative consequences - than full government intervention.

We currently have a huge skills shortage and under-employment in the UK. Employers can't get staff they need - across all industries and all skills levels.

We've all got used to more flexibile working by necessity during the pandemic. Lots of companies who wouldn't have considered it previously have now experienced having remote workers, and even for roles which can't remote have dealt with higher staff absence due to illness and self-isolation.

These are perfect conditions to encourage a profound change in how we work. For employers to be encouraged to provide flexible working across the board as a way to attract and retain staff.

Wouldn't a better model for early childhood care be for both parents to be able to take more time for their children and both parents to remain part of the workforce? This would certainly remove the motherhood penalty - not only by halving the impact on an individual worker, but by normalising it and - crucially - making it affect men as well as women.

A barrier is that women do feel more committed to doing the right thing for their kids even when it disadvantages them - a combination of social conditioning and evolution (women have already invested more in their offspring through pregnancy and the risk of childbirth). But I think men would do it with the right incentives. The structure of parental leave in Sweden makes it really normal for fathers to be very involved. Here too, I've had colleagues say they would love to go part-time to care for their young kids, but think it wouldn't be accepted for a man.

So my question is: what government nudges would encourage that type of 'flexibility as standard' from employers? You have to get employers over the slight hill of inconvenience and fear, and then it should fly since it will benefit everyone.

I've said recently that motherhood has reignited my feminism. I returned to the office workforce in 2019 (in a super-ironic 3 months b4 the homeschooling pandemic - didn't need that work wardrobe!) I'm earning thousands less than I used to and my job title is the same as my first job in 1997.

But it's "my fault". With no family nearby, it was nursery or nothing, I didn't want to do that and the kids are 18 months apart! So I insisted that my husband pay my pension out of his wages and I provided free childcare and supported his career. Very 1950s. (We met at University. )

I have some suggestions:

• state wages for childcaregivers
• child benefit alongside a professional caregivers allowance
• pension contributions alongside child benefit for the main caregiver
• all jobs to be considered part-time, whether worked by 1 person or 2

It really needs society to value caring and nurturing as important, whether that be nursing, teaching, social work, carers or parents. Hedge fund managers were not really important in the pandemic.

I think an economic landscape where the expectation wasn't that two incomes should normally be necessary to sustain a household. Possibly different social models around women's careers - many women might well be better off to have children earlier, and then train for a career once they are school aged and work a little later into life perhaps. There are things like mother's pensions and allowances that could help. And changes around spousal support/pension division and such after a divorce.

Some of these would be social, rather than policy, changes.

Sorry that 'you and your kids' sounded aggressive, I didn't mean YOU :)

I was trying to articulate that if 8 out of 10 mums think they are better off with them, we'll, that's not necessarily the point. And the evidence doesn't really bear it out in the results...

Also was thinking about weird statistics. Maybe people answer that they would prefer to have more time with kids because nursery is so damn expensive? It might have skewed their thinking. Could get very different answers if it were cheap or free. They might resent having to send them less!

I agree with better, cheaper/free universal childcare provision.

The benefits from socialisation and early education would have a simply massive effect on these children and for generations after.

In particular it would benefit those at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum. We all think we are great mums, but something goes wrong with a lot of kids and huge numbers of them turn up at school unable to sit still, go to the toilet, or dress and feed themselves. This is simple fact - ask any reception teacher.

Yes, some kids benefit from being home with a very good mum. It's just a very sad fact that this isn't the case for many.

Feminism isn't about what's best for you, and your kids. It is not an individualist movement. It is about bringing that to all women, and girls. I really think the earlier you can intervene and teach all children to have respect, manners and value education, we all win.

I really think you need to start from the premise that we all make decisions in life that will impact the shape of that life. And being the primary caregiver of children is one of those decisions. Especially if a woman has more than one or maybe two children, you are looking at a potential 10 year commitment. That is the amount of time many people stay in a career position. And parenthood does require time and flexibility even after the younger years of childhood, though not necessarily a FT person.

I think if you start there, you can begin to see that if you want women to have families and the opportunity to care for them, maternity leaves and free childcare are really not adequate to address it. It's not a tiny blip out of an otherwise steady career progression (and often never would be for less well paying types of jobs anyway.)