Was my upbringing/life unusual?

[2024i]

Growing up, my mum was a medical professional and a high earner/the breadwinner, my dad was kind of a SAHD although he was self-employed, owned various businesses of differing success.

She generally worked 9-5. I probably spent more time with dad growing up, he did a balanced amount of household tasks like cooking. My mum definitely had a voice in the family ie she was a decision maker, there wasn’t a “man of the house” attitude.

Growing up, I didn’t have chores aside from keeping my room tidy. I was never expected to cook/clean for the men in the house or anything gender-based like that. I was taught to focus on my education, get a good career, be able to stand on my own two feet, have independence, self-confidence etc.

Anyway I guess I have grown up to believe the above is normal? Or is it not? As an adult (female) I went to university, now earn £40k+ at mid-20s, have my own place. I seem to work in a place where more traditional gender roles are prominent and I am seen as an outlier. My manager for example makes a big deal of his wife being the full time childcare/cook/maid, him being the decision maker, the men at work often take the piss out of their wives in team meetings and I never quite know how to respond to this “banter”. Whilst none of their wives work for the company, generally speaking female colleagues tend to be junior, work part time & are very clear on not wanting to progress their career due to family. So I’m
a bit of an anomaly it seems?

My upbringing was reasonably traditional - dad working long hours, mum working part time and doing most of the housework. However they were a partnership and agreed things together. They definitely didn't treat me and my brother any differently based on our sex.

The majority of our friends (older than you) have fairly balanced relationships. In some cases both work full time, in other cases one parent works part time. This is more often the mum, but not always. However the men mostly do their fair share of looking after the children, cooking dinner etc. There are plenty of men in the school playground or at the soft play parties at the weekend. I'm sure it's not all perfect, but I (thankfully) don't recognise the narrative of 'useless men' that often comes up on here.

Thanks everyone for responding. Seems like I a had a childhood that didn’t have traditional gender roles. But it’s lovely to hear that others saw their parents with a similar relationship and were happy with that. I don’t have an issue with how I was raised but it does make me wonder how much my childhood has impacted me.

In my head, there was never a question about whether I would do the same with my own partner in terms of sharing household tasks or having like an equal voice in big decisions etc. I don’t think I could tolerate a man who wanted it differently.

Plus there was never any doubt in my mind that I would work towards earning as much as my parents if not more. They always geared me up
for that. But I think I’m definitely ruffling feathers at work, so I agree that it might not be the right workplace for me.

Honestly it seems really weird to me that a woman earning £40k would be ‘ruffling feathers’, I was in my mid 20s 15 years ago and it was completely standard for women to be earning that and more at that age in my workplace. I think you need a new job!

It seems quite traditional to focus on an education, go to uni and get a good job from it. The SAHD less common.

My upbringing didn't feel like there was "man of the house", my mum does most of the housework, dinner on the table at 6 every night but that's because dad worked more (and it's still that way now in their house). I wouldn't necessarily say it was gender roles more because of the working hours.

Well I know loads of families where the Mother is the main breadwinner and decision maker as the Fathers have fucked off! So that seems perfectly normal to me. Men are feckless and stupid. The men in your company are arseholes. Go to any poor area int he UK and our will see strong women doing it all.

It sounds normal to me, but in my experience the outlier would have been anyone with any sort of stay at home parents. It’s very, very unusual in my country as one wage would never be enough.

Everyone I know always had a set of working parents, ranging from lower income jobs (ie cleaning) to high income (doctors or judges).

I think you’re right. A lot of my colleagues who are more junior in grade than me (civil service grades) are older than me, some applied for my job and didn’t get it, so I think there’s some resentment.

It’s a bit awkward, I try and rise above it but certain people don’t like me. I have had comments that I am overpaid, younger than their kids (who work in department and earn less than me) etc. Meanwhile my manager tends to bring up traditional gender role commentary when I bring it up in conversation to him, as if to say I’m challenging the status quo and to ignore them.

When I was really young my mum stayed at home but then my dad worked days and she worked nights. My mum got promoted and had a "big" job - daytime hours. My dad was always very involved. He cooked with my mum or on his own, washed up until we kids were old enough to do that. We did have a cleaner who did the ironing too when my mum and dad were both working. It was an equal partnership I think and this was 70/80's. I would never have expected any less myself.

My dad was a sahd although it was due to ill health not out of choice, and my mum worked minimum wage jobs so not really an ambitious role model. He did most of the cooking and cleaning, all the school runs and all the DIY. It was unusual but I didn't think anything of it whilst growing up. My dsis is the main earner in her marriage and maybe she picked up something from my parent's role modelling, although me and my other sister have DHs who are the breadwinners so it's affected us differently. I'm a sahm and my younger sister is a lower earner than her DH.

We all had chores while growing up, which I think is healthy for developing independence and responsibility, regardless of gender. It seems normal to me to encourage dcs to focus on getting a good education.

Ahhh I think explained my dad’s occupation in a misleading way. My dad did work but wasn’t strictly a stay at home parent, so he was more present when I was too young to be left alone. Eg he would drive me to school, take us out, sort lunch etc. He was (self) employed though, just brought in less than my mum.

He owned a few businesses. Some more successful than others. Being self employed, he could work at home or do more flexible hours. Sometimes mum would work during the day and dad during the night for example. Or her on weekdays and him on weekends.

I’m in England.

I'm a lot older than you, in my 50s and my upbringing was similar to yours, DM was a teacher and worked long hours into the evenings, DF was 9-5 in an office and was more hands on, I was encouraged to go to uni, have a career etc. Totally normal and I think many of my friends had professional working mothers too.

I have never experienced a workplace like yours. Women have been treated equally and respected everywhere I've worked (mainly global multinationals). I'd be looking to move on.

I think pp are correct that your upbringing was fairly unusual for the time, however your workplace is also unusual in that it sounds pretty sexist.

I also worked in a sexist environment like that and thought it was normal when I was younger - every other place I've worked has been nothing like it! So I would leave, in good workplaces it's not unusual for young women to get promoted or women in general to be in leadership positions.

My mum was a SAHM. There were probably 50 percent SAHMs and 50 percent worked.usually the mums had less well paid jobs than the men in our area.
Mum wanted me to stand on my ow feet anf not be a SAHM as she would have loved a career but it wasnt possible at the time.
I dont think there is a normal tbh. There are so many variations of family life. I had friends who never saw either parents and were brought up by nannies, friends who lived with their mum or their dad only, friends whos mum had their own business, or there was a family business where both parents worked.

Men who do their fair share of the childcare and housework tend not to let their mates and work colleagues know about it...

Agree. As a woman earning £40k+ in the public sector, my male colleagues wouldn’t dream of going anywhere near this sort of chat. Where is HR and where is the training re. Equality, unconscious bias etc etc??

That’s interesting. I get the impression this is the deeply embedded culture of my department, like it’s the sort of vibe where everyone is expected to do a decade at each grade before being acceptable for a promotion then there’s me who flipped that around. Don’t get me wrong, there’s fast steamers etc who are probably more senior than me at younger age, but they aren’t taken seriously either.

. I was never expected to cook/clean for the men in the house or anything gender-based like that

I was never 'expected to cook/clean' for men, but certainly as a teenager, I made some meals each week for the family-which included men (and women!).

Fair enough, I said that mainly as I have friends who were expected to cook & clean as children simply because they were female whilst their brothers were not expected to do that. (Particularly those from other cultural backgrounds.)

Personally I cooked for the family a few times, but tbh by the time I was old enough to cook, I mainly just sorted my own food out cause I became vegetarian and they weren’t interested in my food lol

It sounds highly ageist and sexist, OP. Is it all like this, or is it just your department?

I can tell you one thing for certain, if having children is a priority for you, make sure that this place is long behind you before you do.

There are so many progressively minded workplaces out there. I have never heard of anywhere where people feel emboldened to behave like this in this day and age.

I'm G6 CS and my department is nothing like this, I'd come down on my team very hard if I heard any of that. I'd look at moving roles and raising it through HR as a systemic BHD issue. Are you ops or policy?

I'm mid 40s and my dad did the bulk of stuff at home (although I don't think he did the mental load...). Most of my female friends are the main breadwinner. If you're only in your 20s I don't think that would be unusual at all.

It’s not standard corporate banter, it’s unacceptable and I say that as a senior female in construction - I’ve seen it all. Your upbringing sound lovely, my dad was the breadwinner and mum worked (but didn’t need to) and she drilled it into us - never beholden to a man. My dad did more than is fair share of care and household chores whilst working long hours whilst mum worked nights and weekends around his job and this was in the 80’s/90’s.
They have inspired 2 strong women, one a Dr and one a Director in a tier 2 construction company.
Leave you job - that’s awful!

I have been in the workforce for 20 years too and I have never had anyone suggest anything like this either outwardly anyway.
Most men in my industry are very supportive of womens careers. We even had men join the menopause at work discussion group as they wanted to be allies. Their questions and inputs were bizarre but at least they tried.
I have only had one absolute wanker boss who said things about me coming back full time after mat leave. Other than that nothing specicially ever said about women in the workplace, salaries or promotions. And that isbacross probably ten different companies, large global businesses and blue chip corps.
I would be looking to leave if I was treated like that. It is so antiquated

Depends on your circles you mix in doesn't it? Probably less common of a set up, but not entirely unheard of in more upper middle class worlds.

I was speaking to a retired international executive the other day of a global giant company (I meet all sorts in my work ) nice chap. But anyway, he was so career focused that he taught his daughters to do the same. They both live in separate countries not in Europe with impressive careers. Neither had children due to career being too important to them. I found it sad to be honest. Family line wiped out. So busy chasing the career path that in my opinion they lost what's important in life.

I think it's very important to keep balance in life. Heavy career focus and trying to do extreme 'prove a point' feminism in this modern world has a price to pay.

I’ve known a few stay at home dads, but mostly both work, though some of the wives go part time after having kids. As for the chores, I don’t know any who expected the daughters to do more than any sons, and even my mother, born in 1925, was expected to go to university as did her older sisters (two became doctors, one a lawyer, one a dentist and my mother a medical social worker). That may have been somewhat unusual for the time, but my DD (20) fully expects to have a career and not give up work to have a family.
Your workplace sounds awful though.

Let this thread be a work wake up call. You need to be planning an exit from your department, you can do much better.

There are lots of ambious capable well supported woman in the civil service advancing to senior roles at a young age - i work for a partner org type thing so see a lot of them in my current role.

So in that regard no, you are not an outlier. Rather your department is totally outdated and it's quite depressing to read that this kind of thing is being normalised making you think that you are some how different.

If i were you, i would be trying to get on a development scheme to broaden my network outside my department. I know women who have really advanced their careers through being on schemes like crossing thresholds or the competitive leadership schemes. So my advice is take some control, build a case for your investing in your development, and use the opportunity to broaden your experiences and progress as other woman are doing.