Should we more honest about the impact of children in careers ?

[mids2019]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-13184193/Lily-Allen-insists-choosing-motherhood-pop-stardom-love-children-ruined-career.html

Is Lily Allen being honest here and saying something that a lot of women (and possibly men) realise but don't openly admit to?

I think in a fundamental sense she has a point in that for women celebs and athletes having children if not logistically 'managed' can destroy a career. For women athletes the reality is for many having children is normally done at the still end of a career with the understanding at an elite level pregnancy and early years child reading can be difficult while meeting the extreme demands of competitive sport. You could argue Taylor Swift may or may not have had the career she had if she had given birth to a couple of children (possibly losing a little career momentum because of being out of the limelight for 2 or 3 years).

On the more mortal level having children can push you back on a career path as part time working may put you back relative to your peers and as children get older it becomes more difficult to move due to schooling and children friendship ties. Having children means there may be less opportunity to 'put in the extra mile to further you career by gaining a 'hard working' reputation.

Should we be more honest about this in society and admit even in 2024 there are sacrificed to be made having childen? Are these sacrifices something we can put down to a lifestyle choice of do we need to continue to press to remove any career disadvantage having children may bring?

Yes, it's a really big issue. Women's careers do well until they have a child. Then it falls off a cliff and never recovers. There are lots of factors in play - the expectation that a woman will make sacrifices for children, the comparative lack of impact on men's careers, unconscious bias in upper management, residual health issues after childbirth, and a heck of a lot more I'm too fuzzy-headed to reel off right now 😳

With luck, somebody will come along with the studies to support this point.

The motherhood penalty is very real. It is the woman who takes the hit - her career, her finances, her future. Yes things have improved in recent years but fuck me, I got sacked for being pregnant back in the day. There was nothing I could do about it. Thankfully I was smart enough to set up my own business and take care of myself and my kids.

In the UK, men can walk away from their responsibilities with literally no consequences. It happens all the time.

Women are the "default" parents. They end up with paltry savings and sod-all pension provision. The pay gap is shocking. Their lives become a patchwork of unpaid caring responsibilities.

It's no wonder birth rates are plummeting.

When women are given the choice (and the bare facts) about motherhood, they are increasingly saying sod that for a game of soldiers. It is nothing short of life-ruining.

Don't get me wrong. I love my (now adult) kids. But I wouldn't recommend motherhood to any woman unless she absolutely knows what she's getting herself into and is prepared to take the risk/hit.

I think most jobs expect to be your number one priority - especially if you have any kind of seniority - so once kids come along achieving that becomes impossible.

The men who are still able to prioritise their work once becoming fathers can only do so due to their partners picking up the majority of the household and parenting work.

However, in my life, I see fewer fathers thinking this is acceptable and their careers are now being similarly impacted. My male boss recently took a demotion because he was fed up of being expected to work all evenings and weekends and never seeing his kid.

The absolute stress of trying to ask an 9-5 employer to consider flexible hours!

@AmandaHoldensLips

I really agree with this but her there seems to be societal position that we now have something akin to gender equality with women in positions of power and in general relatively even gender splits in a lot of professions. In reality the situation is a lot different.

I will give an example. I work in a profession where there is a full on graduate training scheme that takes you up to around 24 and now the profession has decided that for the more senior roles there has to be a further 5 year part time higher training which inevitably requires portfolio writing and research out of hours. There will be some extremely talented women that will be able to combine this with child birth/rearing but many whom will simply decide that they will have children in their bid twenties and step off the career ladder. It is this sort of workplace gender bias that is very subtle in a sense as there is no inherent discrimination but the role itself it could be argued is set up to be discriminatory with its demands.

There are women obviously who have reached senior positions obviously but in general the more senior you go the lower the proportion of women and maybe this is due to the structural obstacles of having a family and pursuing a demanding career path.

I would find it interesting to see what proportion of women in senior roles have remained ed childless. I suspect quite a lot.

I actually read the Lilly Allen article and she does make some good points. She does actually say that she actively chose to prioritise her kid and it was that choice which destroyed her career. She also talks about her own childhood and how she didn't want to repeat her parents mistakes for her own kids. So she has experience on both sides.

In my own experience, women having it all means women doing it all. I'm currently in the position where I will actually lose money and be worse off should I take on more responsibility/promotion in work. Everyone tells me to think of my pension. Think of what will happen in ten years when my kids are done with education etc. They are right. But they're not the ones trying to do everything by themselves (I'm single) and not getting paid any flipping extra for it.

I suppose that some may think Lily is making her daughters guilty by being so brutally honest but don't we need that unvarnished searing statement of truth!

Having kids can ruin your career.

No one in public will openly admit to this and I wonder how many parents do discuss this with their children in terms of general life advice.

I'll be honest having children has meant I haven't been able to move for more senior or more enjoyable roles in the country. I occasionally am reminded of this sacrifice when I see others move on and up because of their flexibility and yes, whisper it, I can get jealous.

@Pepsimaxedout

I absolutely see Lily's point of view but it is good she can be honest and say that she may have stayed in the limelight for a lot longer with our kids. I constantly see interviews with young female stars where children are always for the far future and their careers take priority. In reality the delay in motherhood is not a personal choice but the knowledge that in a highly competitive entertainment industry having children means you move out and possibly others move in.

if you look at celebs like Kylie Minogue and Jennifer Aniston you can see how the pressures of a career can derail your parenting plans to such an extent it may become too late. I guess these are high profile examples but there must be more.

Yes completely agree., I’ve excelled at recent reviews and yet the white man in our team who hasn’t has just been slotted into the manager role. Why? Because he. can work five days a week plus overtime whilst his wife looks after their kids. He’s already started man-splianing various parts of my job to me…the one I’ve been excelling at for years… Im now disliking my job but have to suck it up and grit my teeth . ..and I guarantee he won’t grade me as ‘excelling” next year, because he won’t give me the juicy projects but the dross he doesn’t want to do, then the cycle of women not progressing perpetuates.

I think we are in a weird and extremely difficult time.

The world of work has intensified in lots of ways as demands on employees have grown and people can be easily accessed away from the workplace through technology. The old idea of a 9-5 even is unrealistic in some industries as there is a growing expectation that employees will meet 'business needs'. Although many businesses pretend to be family friendly and offer flexibility, in reality they expect to be the priority and any parent will be competing against those without such commitments when it comes to performance reviews and promotions.

Alongside this, the expectations of parents and especially mothers has also grown. There is now much more emphasis on parental input in children's education and the importance of things like a healthy diet and extracurricular activities. It is no longer acceptable to be one of those laid back parents who let your young kids go out to play the whole day with kids from the same street and to attend a few parents evenings. Put bluntly, the perceived 'needs' of children have skyrocketed. Mothers are in particular are expected to prioritise their children and in scenarios where it is deemed that a child's needs haven't been met then most of society will judge the mother most harshly.

I honestly think not that many decades ago it was the complete norm to do either of these aspects (working or mothering) in a less intense way than is currently expected and this was considered good enough. Many men did bog standard jobs, knocked off work and their free time was pretty unencumbered by work or parenting duties. Women often stayed at home to look after the kids but their involvement in the children's lives were lower and expectations are less. Is it any wonder in this modern world where we ask women to seamlessly juggle two really difficult things that this will negatively impact both elements? We are literally asking the impossible of them and then wondering why they either aren't choosing motherhood or are unable to ascertain the top jobs.

There will be no "equality" for women until there is full equity in the splitting of gender-based roles, and full equity in the financial provisions for women who become parents.

The often-quoted notion that women are now equal to men is utter horse shit. When we choose motherhood, we have all the same crap to deal with as we always had (generationally speaking) PLUS all the responsibilities of working to boot.

Mothers are expected, by default, to pick up the entire mental load associated with raising a family and running a home, as well as the child-rearing and elder-caring responsibilities.

There is also the impossible issue that you cannot force a father to step up and do his share. You cannot MAKE them take on 50-50 of the responsibilities. The majority of men have absolutely no intention of stepping into those roles. They are boring, thankless, unpaid, and low-status. They do not fit with the male idea of masculine superiority.

Women are still viewed as lesser-than men. We are NOT equal by any stretch. We are viewed as a pain in the arse. We are supposed to shut up and get on with it, and to serve the patriarchy.

This will never change until women start saying NO.
Or better still, Fuck You.

@Bumpitybumper

Excellent points.

I find the demands of child rearing an absolute elephant in the room and I think there is so much set against parents and especially mothers that isn't illegal in a n employment sense but in reality is deeply facto discrimination.

there is no societal plaudits for being a good parent. The praise for good parenting comes from an immediate and select group and importantly from.self. In a society where we are geared to want to aspire and gain praise from our peers this a real change of mindset.

when we term women 'sucessful' we often refer to careers and not parenting.

I'm struck by this when I walk to work. Most of my fellow walkers are women, various ages, and on public transport too. As we drag our asses to work there is a steady stream of cars going by. Almost every one is driven by a white man. Comfortable cars going to their on site parking spots.

I think Lily Allen is lucky to have had the choice.

Should she have decided to keep at her career, she'd have had the money to do it by employing a rota of staff and bringing her children with her.

She said herself her parents weren't there for her and didn't want her own children growing up in the same way.

There are so many woman who don't have that choice and are working out of necessity.

I used to really want children and now I'm in my mid-thirties I'm the complete opposite.

I wouldn't be able to do the job I do (and love) if I had children - at least not without making some massive changes. I see people in my field with children and every single one of them struggles.

It's hardly a secret.

I knew that my career would need to plateau for a bit after kids but I didn’t realise for how long; my oldest is primary school age and I imagined it’d be the same as pre children by now but it’s not as I still am limited in terms of putting in extra hours and I didn’t realise how far back a year off would put me back by. Admittedly a lot of this is a choice as I could do it but I don’t want to miss my DCs entire life or burn myself out completely

I completely agree. A lot it's due culture and can be rectified to an extent, but as long as women will be the ones having to go through childbirth, complete gender equality will never be a thing. Even when companies "try" to be fair.
Perfect example: I position that would have been the obvious step up for me opened when my daughter was 6 weeks old. My company reached out to let me know, in case I wanted to interview for it. There was no way my sleep deprived, hormonal, newborn-cuddle-loving self could have gone for it, and while some women might, I believe the greatest majority would have been the same as me.
There is also the fact that while I believe it is fair to work with you partner to split responsibilities and support each other's career, sometimes in order to ensure the family remains financially safe and children are well cared for, the best choice might be for the lowest earning parent to take a step back. It doesn't have to be the woman, but gender pay gap makes it easier for them to be.

@AmandaHoldensLips

I work in a professional graduate career and it feels like there is a kind of weakness being displayed if people use parenting as an 'excuse' for not stepping up to work late etc. I think part of the problem lies in a culture where our children are part of our private lives and depending on relationships we don't mention our private lives to work colleagues and there are many that don't wish to discuss the particular challenges of parenting to professional peers.
in a professional role children are part of your private life and it is your responsibility to sort it out not your employers. It is this attitude that drives parents to change jobs or accept less inflexible roles.

I feel.very much that I only mention children briefly in passing to colleagues as the fact that I am a parent may colour people's views.

Working full time and having kids sucks. It really does. It’s too much. Especially as kids are more work than they used to be as kids don’t just take themselves off to play in the neighbour hood with their peers. Instead parents ferry them around endlessly to activities.

@lifebeginsaftercoffee

I wonder how many women are in similar positions? A career is such that to maintain a certain level of success and peer recognition you really consider being chikdkess. I guess it is a personal choice but does society force people into such choices?

She is not wrong in that having children makes you less available for work, and your employers know this. More and more women don't work full time (including me, 30 hours, and it has had an impact).

However the timing is also important. Lily Allen chose to have her children young, in the middle of a career in the limelight which was always likely to be short, and also at a time when celebrity motherhood in itself was very marketable, so it is honestly difficult to compute the impact on her career. It is entirely possible that if she had waited ten years or never had children at all she would be in a similar position career wise.

@Dacadactyl

Lily is privleged, yes, but I suppose you could argue that she has given up a high profile celebratory career with the game for something more prosaic. Do all ambitious women make that choice?

My daughter is going to see Taylor swift on her Eras tour and she is certainly hoping she ins t pregnant when the event comes around. Being a high profile celeb means having to change children plans to please you can base.

Yes, the situation is dire. I have a stark choice before me at the moment, take a step back from my career so i can do school runs, cook meals and interact with the children i birthed and therefore have a gap to explain, lose the pay increases and have a black hole in my pension, or carry on as the hamster on the wheel paying for kids i never see. :( (dad is long gone and never pays a penny or gives a shit btw)

With your celebrity comparisons though Taylor Swift and Adele are the same age, Adele choose to settle down get married, have a child and pursue music in a more static way by working in Las Vegas so her family have a settled life.

Taylor Swift has so far decided not to have children (if she does I expect she'll time them for after the Eras tour she has previously talked about wanting to be a mother). But her life style is full of jet setting and travelling all over. Her current lifestyle would change a lot but I'm sure if she had them her mum would look after them if she didn't want nanny's, they are apparently very close. I'm not sure whether her mum still has a career but in her shoes I'd choose to look after the grandchildren - it's not as if she needs the money from work.

Pink had children later, focused on them and tours with them.

There are choices to be made by every woman, is it fair for your career to stay on the same trajectory if you have missed years out of the workforce? No one makes you have children and therefore it's a lifestyle choice

Lily Allen's music was great, I loved it but. Dnt think it would have stayed popular as she got older, she would have had to changed her music style and move with the times. She could (and may have I don't know) focussed on other areas of music songwriting for others and producing that allowed amore static life rather than touring.