Why is it usually the woman who gives up work?

[Firedoll]

I'm on mat leave and have been asked 30+ times if I'll be going back to work and, when I say yes, if I'll be part time.

My DH has never once been asked about his working hours since our DS was born.

And if I say yes I am going back to work I get "oh, will your DS go to nursery/will you get a nanny?" The idea that my DH could look after DS for some of the time while I'm at work just doesn't even enters people's heads.

I don't blame people for asking because they're just making conversation. And it seems they are making a reasonable assumption as if one of the couple is going to give up work/reduce their hours, most of the time it will be the woman. In my experience at least.

But why is this? I see so often on here people saying that their OH couldn't go part time or is the higher earner. But all the latest reports suggest women in their twenties are now out earning men so that can't be true for the majority.

Is it just a cultural thing?

You're using very emotive language there roundabout... 'surrendering care ... strangers... stressful to all concerned.'
It doesn't need to be like that. Distancing yourself physically from your child is a natural transition - parents who don't work are often quite happy to leave their child with a relative/ babysitter/ crèche .... Of course there is variation in when people choose to do this and for how long, but essentially it's the same thing.

I don't know any parent who has left their child with a stranger- if you are using childcare you spend a lot of time and thought establishing a relationship with the cm or key worker. Apart from anything else it's so damn expensive - everyone I know (apart from people on very low incomes who are forced to use relatives for free care) has spent ages visiting various childcare provisions and making well considered choices.

having children is an emotive thing though. It's expensive, and never as caring as you'd like it to be. Just the numbers - 1:4 ratio for 2 year olds, 1:8 for 3 year olds, how much caring can you expect?

Rushing between things havent RTF but had to post after this bit -

surrendering care of their offspring to strangers stressful to all concerned

It is this kind of language, subtle, emotive langauge that - word for word - is not a lie - that percolates through the working parent/WOHM world. It can always be defended as "oh but I did not mean it in that manner/its just your reading of it/thats you being defensive" - but this sort of language isn't helpful at all. It is not even correct in the vast majority of cases. But my experience is that people who use these words or "sending away to childcare" or "leaving him to a stranger" - they see it, indeed, that these expressions are not helpful, and yet, they keep circulating.

I'm not moving any goalposts, just exploring another issue. How natural is it to remove a baby from both parents and put it in a nursery with multiple other babies and several different carers for 10 hours a day? Would it be most people's choice if they had an alternative? Are they conditioned not to favour that choice, or is it natural for this to seem a bit alien? Was it natural for both parents to be sent to India for years and leave their children behind, as per Rudyard Kipling's childhood, or was this an unfortunate necessity?

Konyaa it could also be that this is honestly how it feels for some parents, however it is put. Both my DH and I have felt like this, despite being strident pre-DC about both forging ahead in our careers whilst being parents. Not all pressure is external or due to socialization. With the best will in the world, I leave my DC day in, day out in the work week with almost exclusively young daycare workers in their 20s where the staff turnover is high as it is in most nurseries - they look exhausted at the end of the day, not like they are skipping through meadows whilst cuddling small children.

Then why did you conflate what I said in relation to one issue (my comments about women's economic output potential) with a new issue of your own? It's not honest discussion.

yes i think i was trying to make the point round made, that leaving children in childcare doesn't feel natural to me, as an experience I've lived and would've scoffed at pre-DC.

We are sliding down a much spoken about route now to bashing working parents with "calm, quiet, just-wondering" style questions, complete with rhetoric.

Is it most natural to do A or B or C? Take your pick. Any aspect of modern life. Do we as a society progress simply by doing whats most natural? Is that the route alone where progress lies?

My grandmother's life may have been most natural. Breastfed her babies till ages 5 or 6 each, had 5 children, left school and worked in the fields as was most natural. Everyone had a lovely time.

That is not quite the only option for having a lovely time. And that does not mean everything else is an "unfortunate necessity".

How wonderful you are making working parents feel with your beautifully chosen words. But you know precisely what you are doing.

I leave my DC day in, day out in the work week with almost exclusively young daycare workers in their 20s where the staff turnover is high as it is in most nurseries - they look exhausted at the end of the day, not like they are skipping through meadows whilst cuddling small children.

Interesting. My nursery has a relatively low turnover, and I'm always amazed and how bubbly and full of energy the staff are at half five (much more than I am after a day in an office job).

I'm lucky enough to have a nursery that treats the legal ratios as an absolute maximum, and in daily practice have much lower ratios, though. And I take your point about how it feels, regardless of the outcomes for the kids. Perception is a big thing.

It's always hard to know what is natural. The Romans left children they didn't like or want on hillsides up to the age of 1 to die and plenty of people in jungles do stuff to chidlren who look different from other children and even twins just as many ancient societies have had siblings and the village looking after the babies.

Now men can have half the leave it will improve. Also in our case I earned 10x more so obviously I was not going to give up work and the immense benefits which have flowed from my full time work continue on and on. It's been absolutely marvellous for us all that I always worked full time (took 2 weeks off)

If staying home doing domestic stucc and providing sex and domestic services for men in return for being kept were such fun men would be clamouring to do it. Your chidlren won't thank you for changing 20 nappipes a day rather than 3 when tehy grow up but they will definitely thank you if you help them graduate debt free and help them buy their first house or can buy them the phone their friends have when they are teenagers.

Well a lotlikechristmas, that is your experience. That is not, for example, mine, at all. DS does indeed skip in meadows with two other kids and his awesome childminder, in our tiny little sparseley populated village.

But look whats happened here - this discussion has become about working parents and the de/merits of childcare (shall we start calling them Day Orphanages now?) - this discussion was not about that.

But it will now be derailed into this oh so very relevant critique of parents working.

ah I see, because the question is why it's women that are working less post dc not why parents are working less post-dc (for the latter, the quality of childcare provision seems absolutely relevant). Fair enough! I'm glad some people have access to better childcare options than I've been able to find - big cities have their downsides.

Maybe to move this topic back away from the frequently trolled out cirque of nurseries and day care, we should focus on why so few fathers stay at home, even part time. Its likely economically driven in many cases but I know of many many situations where both parents earned about the same, both working in relatively family friendly govt roles but the woman is generally the person who takes the full year off / goes part time etc etc. Why not both parents reduce to a 4 day week to cut down the amount of nursery and both be involved in the childcare?

I think raising the value of traditionally women's work might make more difference than making more girls do stem. As I've said I did stem but doing it is not a panacea to inequality in the workplace. Childcare is an interesting one and should be more valued and better paid. However, it's already really expensive and a real drain on most families. Paying a sahp should definitely be a consideration too, society benefits so much from children being brought up with lots of opportunities and experiences which can be offered by well funded childcare or a sahp with access to funds.

It's not about whether both parents work or not, though, it's about how much time they spend away from their children and by whom and how they are looked after. I know I wouldn't abuse my children. I know my parents wouldn't, because they did not abuse me. I don't know that about anyone else. Therefore, I understand the reluctance when a child is tiny and unable to talk, to make the leap of faith and trust someone else. I'm not saying it is healthy for society, or that doingmwhat feels natural results in progress - just expressing what I think is a fairly natural feeling of extreme protectiveness towards my genetic offspring. There is little in modern society that is particularly natural.

Bread, it's an interesting one. I was struck by a comment earlier in the thread about a poster knowing a number of men who wanted to take shared parental leave but their partners wouldn't let them. To me, that's understandable, counterproductive and terribly sad all at the same time.

DH and I shared parental leave both times. First pregnancy was unpleasant but manageable, the second was absolutely awful, so I do believe that recovery from pregnancy and birth is vital.

Did I feel quite ready to go back to work when I did (6 months with DS1, 8 months with DS2)? Was it the right thing to do for everyone concerned? Absolutely.

DH and I both work the same compressed pattern, we share pick ups, drop offs, sick days, holidays, and traditional 'wife work'. My brother and his wife each do a 3 day week.

I know a lot of men don't want to cut their hours to do childcare, or don't feel they can. But I know of others who want to, but their wives insist on doing all the part-timing the family can afford. I think refusing to let fathers share care equally does a terrible disservice to those men and their kids,as well as to the women in question and women in the workplace in general.

Parents cannot be sure others wont abuse their tiny defenceles child
Working parents are surrendering their offspring to strangers
Removing children from their parents
An unfortunate necessity

No harm meant, not one bit. You do not see what these words are doing. It is all so innocent.

To those who think their child carers will abuse their children. Well, I guess you shouldn't let your child play football, or any sports or dance or music then. You never know they won't be abused by their coaches even if they are a big 12 year old boy.

I'd rather believe that most people are decent and aren't paedophiles.

It was a wonderful thing to just chuck in the mix wasn't it, around about the time kids are picked-up from childcare - the abuse thing.

Just as a working mum may be wrapping up her work, looking forward to picking up the little one and planning their evenin - nice to read those (innocently meant of course...) words about you-never-know-if-anyone-is-abusing-them...

I am done with this thread. The original strand was carefully, with logic, evidence and historicisation, wrapped up and sorted. This new theme that has been intriduced with very innocuously chosen words - I am not engaging with. Life is way too short.

X posted. But head dreamer - thats different - a 12 year old can speak. But a poor, tiny, defenceless little 8 month old? They wont ever be able to tell you will they if they have been abused? Where is yours right now? At a childminders? What is they are too little to speak? You succumbed to an unfortunate necessity and left them with a stranger, but you dont know if they have been abused...

I am off to pick up DS now. Roundaboutthetown has ensured that at least one person who countered her every argument on this thread with evidence and well-sourced, professional critique - has felt a little sick this evening. Well done.

For me it was both an emotional and a financial decision.

Primarily I wanted to. I know I wanted to be able to look after my child as much as possible. For us, that meant I reduced my hours and went PT.

Additionally, it made more financial sense for me to be the one reducing hours. My salary was much less than DH's salary.

However, we have known a few people where financially its made sense for either the father to reduce hours, or for the couple to split the hours equally - it is just been a question of who was earning the most or if earning similar amounts, and then tied in with each person's preference.

If you won't acknowledge people's fears, konyaa, you are not going to change them. Give me a choice between childcare I am unhappy with and either myself or my husband cutting their hours at work, or even potentially giving up work, and I know what I would want to choose. Good childcare is incredibly expensive. Cheap childcare does not allay my fears.

Maybe I would feel it was less instinctive to be hugely protective and untrusting if my first child had been a laid back, confident baby, rather than one with gross motor delays, needing physiotherapy, tested for neuromuscular disorders and extremely clingy and neurotic. But when your experience is not of a child who trots off merrily to childcare, maybe you are less inclined to be trusting of society's goodwill to all men and more inclined to suspect, particularly in the current political climate, that actually some people think we should go back to the Roman practice of leaving difficult babies to die on hillsides.

I agree roundabout, I'd rather me or DH cut hrs/gave up work than used inadequate childcare. I also have a lot of time for the psych evidence which indicates that being with a parent is the best thing for the under 3s. I think what the original focus of the thread was, & the issue I grapple with is why do we usually assume that person will be the mother?

A lot of posts have offered some answers, its complex no doubt. Based on my own experiences I feel that for the more middle class educated woman, there's bigger challenges around attitudes towards masculinity than mother hood. I have experienced no negativity and only support from both work and others in terms of me working full time, but when people find out my children are cared for by their father rather than paid child care the annoying questions often begin. People assume that my husband must hate it, be bad at it, be depressed & unemployed. Very few even consider this could be an active choice, and something that works well for us. It does work for us and my husband is great at being a SAHD but a lot of the time the external attitudes mean I doubt this.

Just as a point of interest i didnt know any parent who used nursery 5 days a week for 10 hours a day. Of course nurseries are open for long hours to cater for all the different variables but if you negotiate picks ups between parents and BOTH take responsibility then it's often very doable. I had two friends with babies round the same time as me where they and their husbands both did work extremely long hours in high pressure jobs - but they used nannies who lived in and became part of the family, 1:1 ratio, doing all the same things a parent would. A childminder can also be a more home from home alternative.
Now I can quite see that many parents might not want to hand that degree of care over to a nanny- I would certainly be too selfish! - but no one can say it's sub standard or harmful to the child. Those babies are now adults btw and perfectly well adjusted lovely people. As are the adult children of my other friends who worked full time, part time or stayed at home