To take exception to the term 'mumtitlement'?

[MerchantofVenice]

I'm sure many people have spotted this rather insidious word popping up on recent threads. Personally I find it unpleasant and misogynistic. Depresses me that a number of people immediately piped up about how much they 'loved' the term as soon as it was coined. Bleurrgh.

Why do we hate mums so much?? If someone's being unreasonably demanding, then that's one thing... But to try and link selfish behaviour to 'being a mum'... Wtf?

I get the idea that there is this general feeling that mums are marching around being all 'entitled' and, you know, trying to carry on their lives without apologising for being alive. This desperate need to belittle the whole of mumkind every time one mum gets something a bit wrong is so bloody annoying! Ok, if someone is a twat, call them out on it... But using a term like 'mumtitled' is confrontational to all mums - as if twatishness is peculiar to them...

A lot of the time, the issues seem to be about what women 'should' be doing - should they be going there, should they be breastfeeding there, should they just clear out of the way with their offensive offspring so that more important people can get on with their lives in peace? Pisses me right off.

Anyone else?

I could understand everyone falling over each other to slag off mums if this were, say, chauvinisttwats.com or similar....but it's, you know, mumsnet...

At work you're an employee. What you do with your genitals (as I include fathers here) shouldn't have any bearing whatsoever on what happens in the office.

Goodness. At work, my colleagues and I are all human beings, just like out of work. We all do our reasonable best, and help each other out if we have things like family emergencies.

I find that I get the best from my staff when I treat them like actual people , rather than robots - after all, if they've nipped out to go to a sports day, then they can't have a problem when I need to do the same, and frankly, if they didn't show a sense of responsibility and care for their kids I'd worry about the kind of responsibility and care they're showing in their job.

Personally, like Squirrel, pre-kids I often worked Christmas/whatever because of the enticements, and now, I'm management so I'd be on call no matter what anyway, but having kids means being in an office would require a lot of bribery on that office's part (or that I owed them a huge favour for some other reason). It is a management problem, they need people to cover, and you need to find people to volunteer - which means you need to make it worth someone's while.

What a cop out that reply was.

I did take it up with management, and they made parents damn well do their fair share of Christmas shifts. As they should.

Personally, like Squirrel, pre-kids I often worked Christmas/whatever because of the enticements

I got nowhere asking Squirrel this. Perhaps I'll have better luck asking you.

What about those of us without children who want to have Christmas off from time to time, and don't want the enticements?

Sorry, I'm not understanding - the idea is that you get people to volunteer to work Christmas by offering them double pay, time in lieu, whatever else, so you, who don't want to work Christmas, wouldn't work Christmas.

I've rarely seen anyone have to be strong-armed into it - once you're at that point, it should be the management so do the cover.

I will add, that your colleagues might start to get a bit miffed with you if they're reasonable, and sometimes take the late night/early morning/new years/christmas hit and you never do for the sole reason that you don't want to, rather than because you have responsibilities that prevent you.

My colleagues got miffed because they had kids but couldn't have every single Christmas off.

I like spending Christmas with my family and feel that, childless though I am, I should have my turn to do that.

Yes, you should, and if your colleagues never want to work Christmas, then they need to either have that agreed with the management, or perhaps do something else of equal value (new years day/eve is a common one for instance).

However, in any case, it's not entitlement to negotiate a particular set of working conditions, or have responsibilities outside of work that restrict your working hours.

squirrel

"The existence of a small, entirely dependent human redefines what a parent's working capacity is. Their limits are not something parents wake up one morning and selfishly decide."

Absolutely. Although, as someone's boss, I think it is selfish for someone to say, "we've had a baby and so expect x,y,z"

Greentomatoes

But I wouldn't "pop out for sports day". I may plan ahead and book it as out of office. I don't expect people to be robots. At the same time, I like Nicolas Cage at the beginning of The Family Man - I've had children / marriage yet never expected special treatment. I've turned down a interview for promotion to the board as I was in the very early stages of pregnancy as it was the fair thing to do. No mumtitlement here.

I think it is selfish for someone to say, "we've had a baby and so expect x,y,z"

I strongly doubt that anyone expresses it like that. It is more the case of 'new baby means I will not be able to x,y,z.

"I strongly doubt that anyone expresses it like that. It is more the case of 'new baby means I will not be able to x,y,z."

Yet, in my experience, they expect their salary to remain the same.

I don't see taking people's personal circumstances into consideration as 'special treatment' though - I see it as recognising that everyone is different and has different needs and strengths.

I for instance will happily dial into out of hours meetings, be on call whenever etc, but am not available between 6:30 and 8 without prior arrangement. Another of my colleages staggers his start time so he can always do pickup (and so isn't available for late afternoon meetings, and cannot realistically do travel - not that he was interested in that even before kids) - his (and my) skills still make us worth employing, but with those restrictions on what we can be asked to do.

I do think there is a difference between his reluctance to travel before kids, and his inability to do so now that he has kids and needs to be there to look after them. I don't think that's entitlement though, I think that's a practical issue, that as an employer I have decide if I will work around, or if that means he can no longer be an employee.

That still smacks of entitlement to me. I suppose it's a bit less so if you negotiate the never working Christmas because you have kids at the interview stage, before you join the firm. Because management should realise that that's not fair on their employees with kids, and refuse to employ you.

Negotiating it while you're working there, on an "I have kids, so I don't think I should have to work Christmas any more" is textbook entitlement, IMO anyway.

Now I haven't own business I don't let my staff with kids dictate to those without, although Japanese workers never even try to, in my experience.

The assumption that I would prefer new year off instead of Christmad really pissed me off when I was an employee. Having worked the previous Christmas, I was furious when some mother tried to pressure me by calling me selfish into working the next one. Fortunately management put her in her place.

Now I haven't own business I don't let my staff with kids dictate to those without, although Japanese workers never even try to, in my experience.

But that's not what's happening - the staff with kids are making a request of management, and management are deciding whether that request can be accommodated or not. The staff without kids are in exactly the same position, and management will decide what they are willing to accept from which members of staff.

If a member of staff is dictating to another member of staff, then you have poor management.

Yet, in my experience, they expect their salary to remain the same.

Do they expect or hope? Suddenly hit by time constraints that are part and parcel of parenting, along with the cost of childcare - taking a dip in salary too can be a bleak prospect (effectively becoming the working poor) that barely makes the separation from their kids worthwhile.

And the rest of my post?

Which other bits - that management put someone 'in their place' - ie did what management are supposed to do? Sounds like that workplace is working correctly!

That people assumed a single person would prefer new years? Well, tell them that's not the case?

Negotiating it while you're working there, on an "I have kids, so I don't think I should have to work Christmas any more" is textbook entitlement, IMO anyway.

People re-negotiate their working conditions all the time. Management can say yes or no, and the worker can decide if they accept that or not - I don't think it's entitlement to ask - if you never ask, you never get - and at least this way there is a chance for a firm policy, rather than this ad-hoc rota filling that people seem to find much more annoying

I did tell management that. Still couldn't help getting a little irked that you also seemed to think that NY is equal to Christmas Day for childless people.

I'll just have to disagree with you that it's not entitlement to negotiate working conditions that puts your colleagues out simply because you have a child and they don't. For me, mumtitlement sums that up perfectly.

But anyway, I appreciate your replying to my posts.

simply because you have a child
lad there is nothing 'simple' about having a child. It is complex in every way including logistically. It comes with multiple constraints.

Bloody hell Japanese workers rights aren't what we should be emulating -it's 20+ years since I lived and worked there, but back then women teachers were still expected to stop work altogether if they married, presenteeism ruled (the joke was that if you could make a convincing life sized model of yourself and prop it up at your desk with a newspaper 24/7 year round you'd get promoted sooner or later but never fired) and the youngest female teacher was expected to make all male teachers tea and if she had a dodgy boss would be called in to serve him and other VIPs sake, serving the ice with chop sticks (ritual humiliation). Sexual harassment at compulsory evening work socials was par for the course and nothing could be said for fear of upsetting the harmony. Nobody took their holiday allowance meaning teachers in school reading the paper to look hard working on Saturday and during the holidays.

But glad Japanese workers please you Badlad - and you are glad management "put her in her place" - what place would thst be, in your charming opinion? What the fuck?

Also badlad I can't believe you are proud of your strong stand. It actually stopped some kids being with their mum on Xmas day.

It,s the latest addition to the multitude of women hating terms . And yes there will be women who will defend it as long as men have more power.

Also badlad I can't believe you are proud of your strong stand. It actually stopped some kids being with their mum on Xmas day.

And every year I got this guilt trip from selfish arseholes who wouldn't see that if I was working my dh would be alone on Christmas Day. Tough luck-it's not ideal but not everyone can have a day off and children do not break if a parent is working at Christmas.

badlad

'You did claim that such [flippant, demeaning terms for men] weren't even coined in the first place.'

No, I really didn't. Given that I acknowledged the existence of terms such as 'mansplain' on the very first page, I don't see how you can say this. What I went on to say is that we don't go in for coining these words for men in the same way as we do for women. That is, we do it more infrequently, and it is usually just women doing it when they're feeling put upon. There's a crucial difference there.

I haven't been back to the thread in a while, but I now see that it has turned very much into something about work conditions. What's interesting is that the defenders of the word 'mumtitlement' keep going on about parents wanting 'special treatment' at work. This might be true to some extent, I suppose; parents just cannot be as flexible as non-parents most of the time.

But, hang on... why isn't it 'parenttitlement' then??? Hmmm. Could it be that women are getting to do all the emergency picking up/staying at home due to sickness/taking to appointments/doing school runs because the fathers are busy being taken seriously at work??? How fun: the mothers have to drop everything every time there's a child-related issue, thus damaging their professional status amongst sneering childless colleagues, AND get a nice new label of 'mumtitled' into the bargain.

Everyone wins. Oh, hang on...

purple
And every year I got this guilt trip from selfish arseholes who wouldn't see that if I was working my dh would be alone on Christmas Day."

Okay.... just straining to see parents who insist upon being with their small children at Xmas as selfish arseholes. ..... mm ... trying again.... mmm. ..nah... it's no use.. it's just not happening.....

Alright, now I'm going to give it my all to overflow with pathos for your grown adult man being alone at Xmas. ... mm... trying hard again..... nah... isn't happening either. ..

Okay.... just straining to see parents who insist upon being with their small children at Xmas as selfish arseholes. ..... mm ... trying again.... mmm. ..nah... it's no use.. it's just not happening.....
Parents wanting to be with their kids at Christmas is totally normal. Condemning childless people to work every single bloody Christmas because their definition of what a family is is more important than anyone else's makes them selfish.