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...

'Condemning childless people to work every single bloody Christmas because their definition of what a family is is more important than anyone else's"

I think a bit of context to this appearingly overblown statement is required

Parents insisting on not working Christmas leaves childless people stuck picking up the pieces. Thank goodness most hr departments or line managers will step in to make sure everyone gets to have Christmas Day off on a sensible rota but people who refuse to work their fair share of undesirable days are selfish. I've been accused of being a nasty child hating bitch by a woman at work who lost out to me on getting Christmas off a few years ago. Apparently because I don't have children I shouldn't have requested the day off.

Thanks ego you've put what I meant much less emotionally than me. It makes me very angry.

mumtitlement = mothers think they are more entitled to days off work just because they are mothers.

NO THEY ARE NOT.

"Do people with children have more 'right' to time off at Christmas than people without children - or with adult children, or who are adult children and want to be with their families etc"

Its not really the 'rights'/'entitlements' of grown adults (whether parents or children) that is important here [xmas] as those of small actual children. Children's 'rights' to a xmas trump adult's every time imo.

Its not really the 'rights'/'entitlements' of grown adults (whether parents or children) that is important here [xmas] as those of small actual children. Children's 'rights' to a xmas trump adult's every time

Again in practice that means parents getting to take Christmas off ahead of non parents. I'm very glad you're not in hr.

My mum's a nurse. We had plenty of lovely Christmas days with grandparents/dad. Children do not have to lose out because a parent has to work.

I agree with Purpledaises on this one.

I used to work in the hotel industry and it annoyed me that just because someone had kids they thought they didn't have to their fair share of Christmas Day working. They seemed to think their plans were more important to mine.

Similarly I was annoyed the year the World Cup was in Japan (I think it was 2002) they sent a memo around about the odd hours it was on, asking you not to ring in sick. If you requested specific shifts around the matches the management would do the best to accomadate you. So it isn't just people with kids that it would annoy me. Apparently football fans plans are more important than mine.

Now I have kids, if I still worked in the industry I would still do my fair share of Christmas. I just plan to have our Christmas Day on a different one.

Jeremy did you mean to write "no they do not"?

Nobody thinks they are entitled to days off because they are a mother... that is a bizzare statement if that is what you meant.

Nobody expect the day off because they are anything - because they are a father, because they are blond, because they are a fan of a particular sporting team, because they are a pet owner, because they are a triathlete, because they are a Christian, because they are a bird watcher...

People want or need days off because they have responsibilities, or appointments, or plans, or things they have no choice about doing or things they would like to do or things people dependant on them or close to them or with some kind of hold over them expect them to do...

but not because they are anything... unless it is because they are ill or because their vulnerable dependant is ill ... in which case yes, they get to go home...

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?

The place where she had to work Christmas when it was her turn, rather than expecting to get what she wanted just because she had children.

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.

You've misunderstood the use of "simply" in that post.

I realise that you didn't actually misunderstand it - you just posted as if you had, but I thought I return your deliberate obtuseness at you.

purple
people who refuse to work their fair share of undesirable days are selfish

I would prefer rhe words 'unable to' to 'refuse to'... but anyway... why not get agency staff in? There are plenty of people who are happy to get paid double/triple time out there. No need for kids to be deprived of their parents at Xmas time so that grown ups can hang up their stocking.... just sayin ..

If mumtitled is going to be a word, I can think of lots of '......titled' words to describe people who think they deserve special treatment because of the group they are in. Not equal treatment but special treatment.

Special treatment not equal treatment is absolutely right. I have a lot of students who are learntitled at the moment-they would like me to reply to questions sent by email at 1030pm and can't see that I have other important things to do in an evening...

I thought I return your deliberate obtuseness at you.
Ha ha - when you have kids of your own you'll see your being obtuse is intrinsic not deliberate.

No need for kids to be deprived of their parents at Xmas time so that grown ups can hang up their stocking.... just saying

Again with this pathetic judgement that my dh and I spending Christmas together is less like a proper family one than yours because you have children and we don't.

It isn't feasible to get in agency staff in many workplaces, hospital doctors being an obvious issue.

I think with hospital doctors you do get bank staff !?!

Its not really the 'rights'/'entitlements' of grown adults (whether parents or children) that is important here [xmas] as those of small actual children. Children's 'rights' to a xmas trump adult's every time imo.

I'm glad we've got some cracking examples of mumtitlement on this thread. All this needs is "just sayin" or "end of" on the end, and it would be perfect.

I was a hospital doctor. No way are there enough locums or experienced enough people to cover Christmas Day so every person who wants not to work can not come in.

purple
Where I am inexperience seems fairly normal. I don't want to disparage the work of the NHS but i have experienced a load of headless chickens and endless waits. I reckon a fair few locums are already being used.

This thread is loopy though -

no properly managed work place pits colleagues who do the same job against each other to fight out a battle of worthiness for specific desirable holiday dates. If a "mums" (not dads?) against everyone else culture has developed that is a really shitty situation for which whatever management decides who gets what annual leave is 100% to blame.

There should be a clear system in place for allocating leave - it all falls apart when people (people, not people who have female reproductive organs and offspring but any employee) circumvent the systems or when the system is crap in the first place.

Mind you people (people, regardless or sex, gender, relationship status or being parents) will complain about any system if it seems not to be working in their favour even if it is as fair as can be possible: I read a thread on here not long ago in which a work place had a first come first served system on annual leave, and somebody was complaining (and being agreed with) that those bloody entitled mothers were booking up school holidays months in advance leaving those who decided at the last minute or a couple of months before that they fancied an August summer holiday unable to get time off - how very dare those Mumtitled Mums be so Morginized and snap up the times when they would have childcare issues if they didn't book leave through the official system open to everyone regardless of whether they had children etc. - apparently weeks in August should be open to all and booking them well in advance is unfair on those who might be struck with a whim to pay inflated school holiday prices nearer the time

There are a number of clearly misogynistic men lurking and posting these days.

It's getting on my tits, which I'm sure is what they want.

Where I am inexperience seems fairly normal. I don't want to disparage the work of the NHS but i have experienced a load of headless chickens and endless waits. I reckon a fair few locums are already being used.

Locums are routinely covering shifts because there are huge gaps on the rotas. They aren't always vey good. If all the doctors on Christmas Day were locums it would be a really bad day to get ill. Anyway-this is not about the specific problem of the NHS. There just aren't enough qualified people to cover every single person from every single industry who wants to take a day off for Christmas to a safe level. It's a simplistic plan. Workers in places that stay open over Christmas have to take their turn to work.

You haven't addressed why my dh and I's Christmas together is not as good as your family Christmas together.

'You haven't addressed why my dh and I's Christmas together is not as good as your family Christmas together.'
I think that's the wrong perspective - it's not about one upmanship. The formative years of children are a priority.

Purple nobody is judging the relative virtue of your Christmas as far as I can see - people are allowed to book leave to have a really shit time, their colleagues surely don't get to decide that their Christmas will be better and therefore they get the leave (maybe that is what my colleague thought when she changed the rota so I could do her weekend without asking me - her plan to attend her mate's wedding was "better" than my plan just to slob about at home so as not to leave my 5 and 9 year old home in the sole care of my 11 year old for 8 hours two days in a row, so I could suck it up...