to think this is a depressing headline: Childcare costs and the luxury of working mums

[toots111]

This is Mumsnet's 'Blog of the Day' today: www.mummysays.net/2015/02/19/childcare-costs-luxury-working-mums/

I'm frustrated that the challenges that working parents face is often just positioned as an issue for mothers. And not fathers. Surely, if a child has two parents, the issue of paying for childcare if they both want to work is a joint issue, and not a mum's issue. It also reinforces the expectation that women earn less than men (and it's pin money not real money) whereas in my experience pretty much all my female friends earn more than their male partners.

This is not a SAHM / WOHM thread, just a rant about headlines that are unhelpful.

As an aside. I reckon I'm laid 15% less than I was before I had DS too

I think part of the problem is that after 9-12 months of maternity leave and getting by predominantly on one salary, when you are doing the childcare maths it is very easy to see it as wife's salary = childcare bills. You might know it's not, really, but that is how the maths breaks down.

And then it all starts getting very self-perpetuating.

This is slightly tangential but I think still relevant - I've just done a survey MN sent me that was about whether you thought it would be "more fun to be a Dad or a Mum". The wording of the whole survey was completely biased towards the set up of Dad - full-time work and the odd bit of evening childcare, Mum = stay at home or part-time working.

I appreciate this is actually the reality for every family - but I found it near impossible to even complete the survey, as there wasn't an option to say "not applicable".

If even MN is pushing out stuff which assumes a particular, predestined role for a Dad versus that of a Mum - well, that's bloody annoying, isn't it?

It's interesting to compare this discussion of flexibility with responses on a recent thread about taking leave when children are sick. I think business culture needs to become much more family-friendly. I read an article recently about a woman with nine children in a high position who was able to bring her youngest infant to work with her because of her position in the company, and I wondered what arrangements she had made for her employees to bring their babies to work (the article avoided the question).

As long as childcare costs are seen as a women's problem and not a parents' problem, it's going to be very difficult to make things change.

Exactly thurlow

Writing, surveys, advertising that caters for the majority compounds the belief that the other way is unachievable or for the minority,

Companies I have worked for have an emergency childcare service as part the benefits I haven't looked into it in detail but it's there in new starter pack. I have never worked anywhere that children could be brought into like described by sorchan

Including when the big cheese was female with children

coffee maybe you work with my dh

Quite possibly blended.

I've just written a huge rant to MN about that survey, actually because it is complete bollocks and asks questions about 'how does a mum do this' and 'how does a dad do that' without even asking who works and who does childcare in your family.

I must be a bit weird as I didn't marry "up". I did however marry someone who's probably more practical than I am in terms of being able to do DIY etc, can definitely iron better, went to Oxford, read to my son every night for years etc. But I earn more and have done ever since we married except for one year. I don't think that I have married below myself.

Both my husband and I have flexible working arrangements and have had since my ds started infant school. Before that, my son was in nursery and because I worked more locally, I did the drop-offs and pick-ups most of the time.

We were both working for employers who offered paid dependants' leave too - 5 days a year if a child under 5 was ill. The fact that my dh could take that leave as well as me made a big difference.

But I think that it's women who have the choices. Women can work full-time, they can stay at home, they can work part-time. It's much harder for men to break out of the full-time work mode. Maybe shared parental leave will help. Maybe not.

"Companies I have worked for have an emergency childcare service as part the benefits I haven't looked into it in detail but it's there in new starter pack. I have never worked anywhere that children could be brought into like described by sorchan"

Similarly - my current company provides backup childcare as a benefit and has an on-site (v expensive) nursery in one location, but I've never heard of anywhere that as a policy lets people bring their children to work in lieu of childcare. Nor would I particularly want it to be the norm - I love my children dearly but if they or indeed anyone else's loud children were in the workplace I'd never get anything done. I suppose it might be doable if you had a private office and they were ill enough to be happy lying around colouring/watching cartoons with headphones, but even still.

We pool all our money, and until very recently we earned more or less the same amount. There's the possibility my salary could also have risen to a similar rate as my DH's but I'm pregnant again so any thought of that is out of the window for the next year. The same has happened with any number of couples we know when they've got to their second child.

So now I can see how a gap will open up in our earning potential and I will almost certainly become the one who does more childcare (particularly during school holidays) than DH. It's a simple economics thing - he is paid more, therefore his company expect more from him, therefore he becomes less flexible and less able to cover sickness/holidays etc. I am paid less, remain more junior but maintain that flexibility.

There's the possibility my salary could also have risen to a similar rate as my DH's but I'm pregnant again so any thought of that is out of the window for the next year.

this is a maternity penalty imo.

I've actually found things have become more flexible for me in work the more senior I've become - like, flexible start/finish times, being able to work from home, being able to make up work at other times, etc.

Does anyone have the facility to work from home with their role and does that affect the take up of flexible working at their job?

leedy me too. I guess because i waited till i was really old to have kids i had built up enough equity in myself - people knew I got the job done and was always committed to the company. So when i went back to work after mat leave, i didn't even ask about leaving on time (whereas before I'd be in the office really late) i just did it and no one questions me. And it's not been detrimental to my progression either as I've been promoted since to a much more senior role.

Yup, exactly the same for me, toots.

(and am also a geriatric parent - had mine at 37 and 40)

The trouble is, all your seniority is dependent in keeping the same job which in these straitened times is not easy. I'm just started back in a new job (had to relocate due to DH redundancy, couldn't afford to prioritise my job as less well paid, and so the inequality perpetuates itself) and my boss works 80% but I had no option but full time. Big wages are part of the package where I am but part time just not seen as something attractive to your average corporate bad guy.

Also, leedy, are you leedy in the Other Place where I am cigogne?

OP I totally agree!

Thurlow - that is shocking about the survey - and from mumsnet!

I think it's hard to find a workplace that is flexible as well. I'm lucky to have had, to date, four female executive directors, two of whom were single parents. Their theory is that they are extremely flexible for illness, both child's and parents', flexible working to cover holidays and so on, as long as the job is done. This is incredibly rare.

DH's job is not flexible and he just has to say no sometimes when we have clashes, because my boss will work around things and his won't. When we met, he earned around the same as me. Now he earns twice what I do per hour. Partially the industry, partially because I moved to be with him and partially because you tend not to ask for raises (although I have been promoted) if you know your bosses are already bending over backwards.

I'm flexible and wfh - I have a sahp as well. TBH in my industry although flexibility is available (and heavily promoted) - it does lead to reduced career success - it is a competitive disadvantage. So people wishing to leave "early" to do drop offs etc don't do as well as they would have done otherwise. Hence the most successful model (post children)is that of one working partner and a sahp. there are a few with great childcare- but most nanies still need to leave relatively early - which limits hours/where you live.
The thing i've found hardest to deal with though is that many mothers don't want to work full time - they go down the mummy track- or give up - which means that there isn't a sizable population where I am of people pushing for a decent way of balancing full time working and motherhood - so theres no momentum (it also creates a gender divide money wise which excerbates the problem)- also (my pet hate) the presence of SAHP's just increases the pressure on others- I have colleagues whose SAHW's don't seem to make any demands on them time wise/help wise which mean that that becomes the model that everyone works to- ie you are expected to be able to stay as late as "necessary" as you don't need to be home...

At the office I left with lots of sahw I saw exactly what you described fragile.

Silly things like meetings starting at five. Lots of early breakfast meetings. All this was internal ie no business need to be eating dry croissants at seven am with your colleagues. But again no one had any reason to say no. Everything at home was taken care off. Interestingly those who did not fit the mould just went to competitors. So there was as you said no impetus to change anything.

I think the 7am/5pm meetings are deliberate - in some cases to give men an excuse not to go home, in others to allow them to demonstrate to everyone how committed they are and in others as a way of excluding the ones who do leave early as a sort of penalty. It's all bred from the boys club mentality - be part of the long hours culture or be excluded.