Aibu....is too blinking hard too get a job that fits in with children!

[Muckyhighchair]

a little bit of back story

I've worked all my life started when I was 12 earning money to pay for my horse (it was no job, no horse in my house) all fine.
Left school and started working full time as well as doing a full time college course, fell pengant at 18 and left college (horses and not safe to conitinue)
Had baby went to work as a nurse fine for a few years, ended up leaving due to health reasons.

Went back to work as a home carer which I did for 4 years, lovely at first but as time went on it really started to get to me that I was treated as a slave/maid/bit of scum by both the people I looked after, their family and the office. Ie went to make someone tea, only to find family had done a full 3 course Sunday dinner and left ALL the washing up for me, even though 8 family members had been there.
Ended up again leaving with health issues

Got my self back together and I find a job that fits in with c/care. No I tried working for a retail shop for a few months but got moaned at because I couldn't work Saturday's (even though it was a weekday post) and then after school club was costing me 400 a month when I was only bringing in 700. And on top of that benefits were cut, so I was actully losing money at the end of the month.

And now I can't find a job that fits in without having to use c/care. All jobs seem to want you to work on Saturday's which I can't do as dp has too work, evening work would be ok, but then I don't have bar skills etc, or working as a home carer, which I really don't want to do.

Why is it so hard to find a job, that just fits in with child care! Really need the money but every time I call up a job I get shot back because of having kids!

I can't even get a get a job during school hours because 1 there aren't any and b I'm then stuck at holiday time.

AIBU just to stay at home and claim benefits and say sod it to the job world.

Dozer Why? Girls actually come out with better school results, better uni results and yet when women hit the world of work they start performing worse than men. The difference is that hiring a woman has a bigger element of risk for a company than hiring a man, so they get less responsibility, less pay and less jobs. I'd love to see it as equally split - as I suspect if you just gave people the right to decide who takes it, then it would just be the woman.

Do women come out with better uni results? It has not always been the case.

Dozer - as I said before, its a case of perspective. You say 'maternity leave is only one year'. I say, ' wow, that's 6 whole months more than I had and 9 months more than Many older colleagues.' You complain that the free 16 hours care isn't always at the convenience of the parent - but to many older women who had NOTHING, no subsidised childcare, no tax credits, and to the dads who had NO paternity leave, and literally would have to take one days leave for the actual birth- these things are an amazing step forward. I am not saying it should stop here and no one should ever consider how things could improve further - but come on!! There's a risk of just biting the hand that feeds you. I would have killed for a years ML - things really are not that bad now

northerngirl, don't necessarily disagree with your point, maybe is just how it's written. Just thought that your statement was oversimplifying and implying that it is women's expectation of taking leave that hampers earnings progression rather than other factors (e.g. discrimination, men seeking more promotions etc). And women don't "start performing worse than men", unfortunate way to put it!

Toniguy, am not complaining, and do appreciate that things have improved etc. But the fact is that the measures you mentioned do not help the OP or those in similar situations. Your arguments are also those often used by people who essentially argue that feminists should shut up because things are much better now / biting the hand that feeds you etc. Don't agree with that!

OP, maybe nannying (in someone elses' home, possibly with more than one family, bring your child) would be another option?

It's hard as hell.

Dh works, but doesn;t earn much, and only PT as he is a FT student (has to be, legal quals needed in his field so if busines is to grow etc)

I have 2 disabled children and 1 beinga ssessed

I desperately want to work, it is affecting our security (if this home was no longer rented to us we'd be in homless accom) and my sanity but we can't use chidlcare becuase of the ASD and becuase ds1` at 11 is classed as too old by local providers, nanny unaffordable atm as would need to be an SN one and earn mroe than us added together! Someone has to be at home to accept the SN Taxis after and before school which rules out the local CM as well, sadly. No family. Tried to get a PT TA post but couldn't get funding for the quals due to my degree.

I've a post grad diploma and trying to finish the year that converts it to an MA from home but it's money we need, and possibly more so the ability to say to a landlord that I have work (DH is self employed and LLs don;t like that any more than benefits). Dh works or is at college into the nights most nights and at weekends so I am holding on and praying that we'll get a lease extension for this last year of him studying sometimes I wish I could just pull my duvet over my head until we know what's happening.

But it's scary and I hate this month of the year becuase it amkes me feel so powerless. I know Dh is doing the right thing with work / study (briefly his employers moved away taking the jobs in his field with them) but it's just whether we get one more year. And I guess after that whether I can find work but that's me and everyone else isn't it? Same for everyone.

op, I sympathise

I had a great job when ds was small, it involved working at weekends regularly

dh worked shifts, but my mum was able to help out if needed

then as time went on mum got too old to help and dh's shifts were still ongoing

so I had to leave my great job as no one provided childcare at weekends (and boy did I look)

now I have a school hours job and I earn half of what I earned 8 years ago

it is hard, all of us have totally different circumstances

its no use saying "oh I paid all my wages into childcare in the early years, now the kids are in school and I've moved on in my career its been so worth it"

I wash dishes in a restaurant in a job that fits around the kids, what career progression will there be for me????

there was ample opportunity to progress in my last job but I had to give it up due to childcare no being available, now I'm in a dead end minimum wage job and I just have to get on with it

I hope you manage to find something

Hi muckyhighchair,
you have had bad luck with your experience as a care worker and I say that as someone with 20 years experience [mainly positive] within social care.
A friend of mine who has been out of the loop work wise for about 6 years, has just got a job at a school in the kitchens 11 -til 2 each day. Not glamorous I know but she sees it as convenient. Pay just over minimum wage.
Good luck.

sunshineandbooks What if somebody without dependent children wants to work flexibly? In the end somebody has to cover the shifts which nobody fancies. If there aren't enough volunteers everyone must take a share.

Any other rule is discrimination - age discrimination.

Andrew that's why I said where appropriate. There are always going to be some careers that due to the nature of the field need to operate 24/7. Some careers are never going to be work alongside being the primary carer unless that career is so well-paid you can afford a live-in, permanently on-call nanny. But most careers aren't like that. And unsociable hours can be incentivised by greater pay. There are many people around without caring commitments (whether that be children or elderly parents) who will eagerly take the shifts no one else wants. It's how many low-paid industries already work.

IMO there are a lot of people out there like me - people who don't expect or even want their hours changed to suit them, who just want the ability to obtain flexible, affordable childcare that will work with the job they already have. My own job is 9-5, mon-fri and I have my childcare sorted, thanks. But it's costing me an arm and a leg (or, more literally, my teeth, since I am left so poor I cannot visit the dentist to replace my cracked crown). And if I was working shifts I'd be screwed because it simply isn't available. And I'm not unusual. This is the NORM in rural areas. And quite a few of us live in these areas.

Subsidising childcare would ultimately pay for itself because of the extra taxes raised and the relief to the welfare state. Other countries seem to manage it perfectly well...

To the poster up-thread musing about the gender pay gap and women's performance in education/work, yes women do outperform men at all levels of education up to and including first degrees. In their twenties, women also tend to do better than men in the world of work. It all goes horribly wrong after that, and it's no surprise why that is - the fact that most women have children. And the lack of decent paternity leave (making it unpaid makes it unworkable for many men) means that women become entrenched in the role of main carer, which then continues and often affects the rest of their working lives.

So again I come back to the fact that for all those mothers there is father, and we are all one big society. Those who are benefitting from women's childcare labour should be paying more towards it, just as those who are working pay taxes to cover benefits for those who are not, just as everyone contributes NI to cover the NHS, as well all know that at some point in the future we may be requiring those things ourselves. And given that 82% of people are parents, needing/benefitting from childcare is more likely than anything!