to think that many SAHMs/part-time workers would have chosen differently with the benefit of hindsight?

[working9while5]

Just a thought, have come across this on another forum and wondering how it applies to me.

I have just the one dc. Originally, I was desperate to be a SAHM but grudgingly decided to go back p/t but cut it back to the bare, bare minimum (2 days a week).

A few months down the line, if I am honest I am wondering how much my decision was framed by having a small, non-mobile baby and enjoying lunches with friends and Summer walks. As the hormones/baby shock wears off, I do wonder why I am not going back to work 3 or even 4 days.. and if my thinking was very short-term.

Unfortunately, I effectively "gave away" the bulk of my permanent, public sector job and there is a job freeze in my area. So, my (hormonally-driven? rose-tinted?) decision, while not final, is not so easy to go back on. I am studying for a postgrad too, so it's not the end of the world.. but it has made me think.

I wondered what mothers who are much further down the line think with the benefit of hindsight? Was that initial decision the right one for you, or was it influenced by newbabyitis?

"The inequality starts and finishes with the biological fact that only women can bear children. We are already working from a disadvantage"

My problem with that sentence, is that implicit in it, is the acceptance that it is right and proper that the half of humanity which can bear children, is systematically disadvantaged throughout their lives in the way that society is organised.

We have to re-organise society, so that the workplace and the home and all the institutions of society, function in the interests of both halves of humanity, not just one.

I'm always surprised that so many women seem ontent to accept that society is organised to exclude and disadvantage them. I want the world to be open to me and my daughter as fully as it will be to my son. AIBU?

Excellent posts btw blueshoes - entirely agree.

And it's strange isn't it how people are so quick to jump in and whinge 'oh but you're expecting people to put their job ahead of their child'

Not at all. I have 3 children who have always been immeasurably more important than my career. But that doesn't mean that in every post ive held, I've expected the world to revolve around my particular agenda. Its perfectly possible to combine a career which meets the needs of your employer while still prioritising your children- as thousands of women- and men- will testify

I do think we've come a long way though in terms of women working, with the introduction of flexible working and culturally this is becoming more acceptable.

HOWEVER I truly believe that it will only become a more level playing field when maternity rights will be shared with men, for example with the introduction of a share parental leave.

I think that's where it all starts; if a parents want to spend 1 year with their baby it HAS TO BE the woman as men are not given that right - and then once the family is readjusted in that way, things just carry on.

It is also less acceptable for men to put in flexi applications after the birth of their children.

The way to go about it is to encourage men to take time out and make career breaks or flexible working the norm. Hence, I am all for enlargement of paternity rights etc.

The way to go about it is not to legally force employers to take on de-skilled workers who demand salary credit for their outdated skills (just because they happen to be women).

As for jobs that have such inflexible work hour, some jobs can be done flexibly - they tend to be low skilled or non-client facing. The people who tend to want these jobs are women with family responsibilities, for which demand exceeds supply, so employers get get away with paying less. If all women refused to do these jobs, employers will be forced to pay more. So why do women take them up? It is all supply and demand.

Other jobs, usually better paying, have more inflexible hours or are unpredictable. A lot of them can only be practically done in the office environment with expensive office equipment and colleagues working at the same time as them. Of course an employer can work around this to some extent, but why should they? Modern business is so competitive, if they can get a workforce that gives them the most convenient arrangement without the scheduling issues of pt-ers and work-from-homers that would require extra management resource (which slows down a project), I can hardly blame them.

When I was working pt and from home, I was relying on those in the office to work around me and pick up the slack. Why should I expect the same promotion opportunities as them?

It is not due to structural sexism. It is a question of fairness.

Oh and in response to that truly ridiculous comment about not liking an employee being subordinate to my timetable.... Well, timetabling A level, AS and International Baccalaureate to a 6th form of 400 students, tying it in with the 1200 students in the lower school, is fairly complex. So when one member of staff demands working days which would severely compromise up to 40 ALevel and IB students across more than one subject area.... Guess what? The consummate professional in me prioritises those students. After all, they are the most important person in 80 other parents lives.

HerB: ""Any man would be expected to do the same". You can bet your life that if men did most of the childcare, the workplace would have been designed to fit childcare and work in seamlessly."

I somehow don't think so. If men were doing the childcare, what are women doing? Presumably striving at work. If so, they would be filling the higher paid jobs. Gender does not come into it.

If the world was a simpler, less competitive place, there would be room for your utopia. As it is, it is a global marketplace. The company that is less efficient will be left behind with all its flexible workers. A suggestion was made (could be this or another thread) that women set up their own businesses and employ these flexible workers themselves. If it works well, you reckon, there will be a niche for it. Although I suspect that niche means paying these women a lot less in return for flexibility.

Free market will dictate what works or not. Start your own revolution.

A lot of silly women accept they clean up and mind children. Women with more sense ensure they share things fairly with their chidlren's father so that it is as likely to be him and they who has to rush home to collect from nursery or the nanny etc. Part of the problem is women make themselves whipping boy by enabling sexism at home which ensures their skills are not up to date and they are less good at their work. There is nothing to stop most women taking virtually no maternity leave as I did and continuing to work and then you just don't suffer discrimination particularly. If your'e the best at what you do int he UK, if you work hard, if you're talented, if you give employers solutions not problems or work for yourself it isn't that hard to get on.

If you accept sexism at home and go around with a huge chil on your shoulder or sense of entitlement that because you're this g
glorified thing called a mother you should not be required to satisfy the needs of customers any more then obviously you lose out. Get those husbands asking for flexible working. Hang up your mop and take the better course.

If you want things to continue seamlessly use annual leave to have a baby and go back full time. It is the win win situation which I particularly recommend to women in recessions. It's more fun too. Babies for an hour or two a day are lovely. One reason I had 5 of them. Adorable, wonderful. But 12 hours a day for even 4 solid days a week is just dull and domestic and not worth the effort.

Xenia, you are joking?

I love you Xenia. No really I do. I echo what you say completely.

Interesting, violethill, to see you miss the points being made to you. Have you ever considered going on a course in negotiation analysis? There are some very good short courses in business schools.

Blueshoes I work in a company with an all female board. There are 7 of us in the company and if are kids are ill, we stay at home (unless we don't fancy it and then those with present fathers for their children tell them to do it) If we need a hair appointment we go on a Monday in the morning (when its cheaper and quieter) If one of our kids says they want us at assembly that day.. we go. No guilt.

Its sensible and normal and 'grown-up' we are all amazing at what we do, very succesful and we work no fewer hours or are less useful than anyone (male or femaile) who is chained to a desk from 8 - 6.

Companies need to wise up. WOmen say they work 3 days a week so they can be there for their children.. chances are it will be your day off that your employer will really need you... and your day at work when your child is sick and off school.

Parenting and working can't be tied down to set hours each day.. its absurd.

If companies sorted all of this out then there would be more choices for women. And yes I agree, if more men shared childcare equally with the mother of their children there is no question that companies would have sorted thiss out a long time ago..

But why would they bother, whenso many women are ahppy to take the role of SAHM, and give up their independance???

And as Blueshoes mentioned - paternal rights at work need to be sorted. The government is behind this.. why is there only maternity pay..?
When I had my DD I had to be the one to take 6 months off because had my DP been off, we would have missed out on maternity pay. It's only £400 a month but we couldnt do without it, so due to my possession of a womb, I was forced by the government to take 6 months out of my career.... 2006??!! More like 1950.

In other words (on morald' s post) my comment that women accepting sexism at home does have a bad effect on women and on other women at work too. I remember my children's father who worked in a school where the school day was to 6pm (private sector) and women could leave earlier for children rhings. He was the one of the two of us who would take over the children first at the end of the day although over 26 years as a mother I have always wanted to get home to see them too ( to breastfeed if there's a baby, help with homework, chat to teenagers (as most parents of both sexes do)). It was assumed because he was male he would not have those same duties as other teachers who were female who had small children.

Women can vote with their feet and work for themselves (I work for myself) and plenty of them do.

In a free society decisions, even about women's legal rights, are often driven by economics not moral principle. When we wanted more women workers in the war nurseries appeared. When we didn't we tossed those women on the scrap heap in the 50s so that men could have jobs.

In a recession when even the newly graduated 20 somethings with no ties cannot easily get jobs even in bars, it would not be surprising if women who can only work the first Tuesday each month between 9 and 11am as long as the baby isn't sick and she wasn't up in the night, might find themselves less employable than a student who will work for nothing for 6 months and work all hours. It's just market forces. Workers with children though can stay longer and be more responsible because of their financial obligations to their families (although not those women working for pin money who live off male earnings I suppose). So experienced good mothers with children who employers will fight over to have with customers who follow them are never going to have too many problems.

"But why would they bother, whenso many women are happy to take the role of SAHM, and give up their independance???"

Wrong question I feel, why would they(employers) bother when they dont have to change anything, as they can employ someone else who doesn't have any competing demands without the realistic fear that there will be a backlash?

Xenia, apart from the take 2 weeks off after a baby theory, everything else you say makes sense.

It is also a question of supply and demand - the only reason the NHS has had such flexible working practices is because there was such a shortage of nurses in the 1990's, now that supply outstrips demand for nursing posts flexible working is disappearing again.

Exactly Xenia. It might sound melodramatic but when a woman makes a choice to be a SAHM.. they are making a decision which colours the expectancy of aall women..

I was one of the first of my friends to have a baby..as each friend has had a baby and it has approached 6 months old I am willing them and cheering for them (internally of course!) to go back to work and I have to admit that a little piece of me dies inside every time one of them decides to stay at home

Yes Nellie youre right, that would be a better question.

so it is acceptable for women or men who want to work flexible hours to be passed over by employers in favour of those without children (or those with children who are prepared to let a stranger do the majority of childcare)

The really shocking issue here was that violethill didn't even think it was reasonable for the colleague to make her own interests clear; VH thought that her colleague should take VH's interests into account when stating her own.

Which is mad. There really should be no issue with stating what one would like to achieve, just as there ought to be no problem in the opposite party declining. No need for outrage!

Hmm.. It should come down to who will do the job most effectivly.

For the record though tinky19... I have never encountered anyone who has let a stranger look after their child... have you? Very strange.

moraldisorder - ha ha ha. I know plenty of people who let strangers (whom they have never even set eyes upon) take care of their children.

I agree Bonsoir, we all have asprations about how we would like to work.. My colleague is currently expressing that she would like to work 4 days a week. We have all nodded and taken it onboard. She is working a way that she can do it so that she has her own interests and the team's interests in mind.
If it makes business and personal sense, she'll do it. And we'll all be behind her.

Had she walked in and said - I want to do 4 days a week and I'm not going to consider the implications on everyone else because it is my devine right as a parent and screw you and your business... it might be a different story!

completely agree with bonsoir. Why is it so ridiculous pf her to put forward her hopes. Surely with such a large school and therefore presumably staff, there should be room for flexiblity.

Bonsoir, the way to a compromise is not to bang on about my needs, even if that is what is driving the agenda, but to show the other person how fulfilling my needs also suits their agenda. Negotiation analysis 101.

I am sure violethill has no problem saying 'no' even while she keeps her outrage professionally under wraps.

Really Bonsoir?! How would that occur?

Teachers are strangers too. Funny how they are ok.