I was made redundant this year, by a company who tend to make women who've taken maternity leave redundant when they come back, but that's another story.
I've been going for interviews and the question of children seems to come up. I have a one and a half year old and as soon as he is mentioned the temperature seems to change in the interview because there seems to be an assumption that because I've had one I will probably be having another fairly soon.
I've actually been asked outright if I'm intending to have more and in one case offered the job but only if I did it on a self employed basis, despite it always being done by an employee before. I am fairly certain they only offered on that basis to avoid maternity pay. Other interviews have been wrapped up fairly quickly after it's been mentioned.
This seems that there is some pretty blatant discrimination going on and I'm getting the impression that private sector jobs are extremely difficult to get in these circumstances.
The question doesn't even come up in public sector interviews.
Am I being unreasonable to think the only way of stopping this kind of discrimination is to ban asking questions about kids in the first place?