Women working out of the home condem other women

[restofthetimes]

....to caring for their children. For low pay. (Albeit very expensive childcare for the end user? ie a working couple one of whose wages possibly only just covers childcare fees.... leaving them with effectively one income again)

This is the reality. The number of men caring for the children hasn’t gone up as the number of women working out of the home has.

In an ideal world, would there be an equal number of sahds to sahms? Or should we force more men into paid childcare jobs. I don’t know the statistics, but it seems men just don’t want to work in that area. So women bear the brunt again.

It all seems weird .

upsideup wtf? I had 2 children knowing they would go into childcare when I returned to work after maternity leave. Both my children (boys if it's relevant) get to see that their parents work hard in good jobs, share their care after hours, share the housework and we have plenty if time to 'make memories' (urgh).

No need to feel sorry for my children, thanks - who by the way won't need to support their parents in their old age thanks to their parents both working and having good pensions. Good luck in your retirement.

If it helps I was condemned by my colleagues for returning to work after having my first baby. Some of them were very judgemental about the fact I returned full time.

When I was pregnant with my second I was told that “obviously you’d go part time with two children” because apparently working full time with two children is beyond my colleagues comprehension.

I’m on Maternity Leave now, preparing to return to work in 5 months on reduced hours, dropping from 37.5 hours to 25 hours.

When I was in work yesterday to discuss it with my Managers done if my colleagues were quite shocked I was going back at all. Choosing to be a working mother with young children is obviously horrifying. And neglectful....

Whilst discussing with my DH the option of me going back on reduced hours he was a little bit scepticsl and made sarcastic comments about how he wishes he had a job where he could reduce his hours. Following this I suggested that maybe we could both drop our hours then instead of just me but he soon backtracked and listed off all the reasons why him dropping hours wasn’t the best idea....

In general I don’t think dads want to be a SAHP as I imagine they don’t think it’s the masculine thing. A lot of men probably wouldn’t feel comfortable being the SAHP whilst the mother is the breadwinner. Until attitudes change about equality of the sexes I can’t see the rise of SAHD’s happening anytime soon.

Rumpled they won't be worse off in the short term ie the period when full time childcare is needed but long term they likely will as it's much harder to get back on track career wise after taking a number of years out. Many women who go back to work after being a SAHM struggle to get a job paying anything like what they were previously earning. Longer term, it's the woman herself who is worse off because of lower pension contributions and lower earning potential.

How can we increase the wage of those looking after children, we'd have to increase all low paid wages, so that people could afford to pay it.

I disagree that men can’t choose to work in childcare. My’s DS’s key worker is male and is fantastic. Yes there are more females working at his nursery, the last time I checked there were 12 female staff and 5 male. Two of my colleagues have male nannies, and there are two other males in my office currently on 6 months shared parental leave and one female on mat leave (it’s only a smallish office). So I think things are changing and becoming more equal.

People choose to go into childcare (they aren’t ‘condemned’)

Also yes for about years I “only” made a couple of hundred pounds a month after childcare. BUt that is to ignore the £600 a month going into a pension (between mine and employers contribs) and then fact running a car for work meant I also had a car for leisure use. and the fact I have climbed the career ladder.... so now I have zero childcare costs (because I work around school hours) and a much higher salary

"Paid care workers aren't serfs. but they aren't paid a lot."

Yes. Direct payment workers for ds get £9 a hour and this doesn't (officially - although I include it) include travelling time. This is demanding role including managing challenging behaviour and a high risk of getting hurt. His school taxi escort gets minimum wage.

Condemning women to look after the children?

By that logic, if you buy a car you're condemning men to service and MOT it.

Women who work in childcare have chosen to work with children knowing that it's low paid, no one has condemned them to anything. I'm one of them. I've chosen to do it because it fits in with what I want with my own children as it means I can be available to spend more time at home with them than I could if I'd chosen a higher earning career with longer, less flexible hours. I feel fortunate that I've been able to make that choice because the man in my life earns enough to make up my shortfall.

I don't see it as 'bearing the brunt' at all. It's the opposite, I get to do a job I love and have more time with my dc so it's the man that gets the shit end of the stick here. He works more hours and does a harder job. I know which position I'd rather be in!

Judging by the numbers of men I see in the playground after school or at nursery pick ups, I think more men are doing more for their own children than they have done in previous years. It's not equal, but I don't really see why it has to be.

Can’tsleep I know I would think that and feel bitter about it. I’m happy for people who love their jobs enough to work for little pay but I’m not one of them. I’d feel used and unhappy where as raising my children I feel I’m doing something purposeful even if I’m not paid for it. That’s why I’ve not returned to my weekday job. It’s quite a number if years you’ll have to sacrifice to low pay especially if you have more than 1 child.

Education, health and contraception are free in this country, nobody needs to be forced into doing anything.

There will always be a steady stream of (mainly) women taking these sorts of roles because you don't need any special qualifications to do it.

And if the wage goes up why will others bother getting into £27k of debt to become qualified lawyers, accountants etc? We'll all apply to work in childcare because it is easier.

RB68, actually in our household it's the other way around. DH's job offers parental leave and he has a generous holiday allowance, so it's him usually the one that takes most of the time off when any of the children is unwell, or the childminder goes on holiday. I am self employed so any time off I take is unpaid (or better said, I need to budget for it) and sometimes it's totally not possible to cancel certain clients. However, I have the flexibility to arrange to be free for school/nursery events during the day, dentist or doctor appointments so between the two of us, we manage fine.

Men don't work in nursery jobs because it is very low pay for the level of responsibility and skills asked for.

Or should we force more men into paid childcare jobs.

That ^^ did make me laugh

How do you think we should do that, OP?

I’m 54 and so I know a lot of women of a similar age, who have been in the workplace for over 30 years. A lot of them were at Oxbridge.

Very few of them have chosen to rise to the upper levels of running big companies. Not because they don’t have the experience and qualifications, but because they are really completely turned off by big company/organisation politics. They don’t want to put themselves through it. They value work, but as long as they can make enough money and engage their brains they are happy to leave being MD or CEO or senior partner to the men, who seem to have more relish for it. Some work for charities. Some have started their own businesses. Some work part time or as contractors.

I think a lot of highly qualified women have little appetite for top-level jobs. Of course, many do, but not all. Women seem to take a more holistic view of life. It’s not enough for them to spend very long, combative days at work. And to be fair, in the case of my friends, husbands and partners sometimes seem to find those kinds of jobs more to their liking.

This may be just my generation, though, the one which graduated in the mid-1980s and found jobs fairly easily and bought affordable property. No question that this has given us some of us a degree of freedom to make certain choices. I know it isn’t like this now, and that my own daughter will find life very different.

But when people keep complaining that there aren’t enough women in the highest-level jobs I can’t help thinking it’s because women don’t want the jobs because of the consequences for them as ‘whole’ people.

My DD's keyworker is a man. Her dad drops her off there every day.

HTH!

I disagree that men can’t choose to work in childcare. My’s DS’s key worker is male and is fantastic.

In my area a make nursery worker was arrested for sexually abusing one of the children after that child went home and told his parents what had happened. This gentleman was then found to have 180 child pornographers images on his PC.

This news bulletin will only enforce the notion that men can’t be trusted around children.

This is why men won’t go into childcare because there is always a stigma attached that men who want to be around children are somehow doing it for perverse reasons.

We’ve seen plenty of posts on MSN over the years of mothers not letting their children go on play dates because it’s being hosted by a single father, or at a home where only the dad is there because the mom will be working etc.

Some people in society generally feel uncomfortable about men wanting to be with children.

I think that’s another attitude that won’t change anytime soon.

How can we increase the wage of those looking after children, we'd have to increase all low paid wages, so that people could afford to pay it.

Fairly easily- government subsidy. There is £1bn to give to the DUP. There's millions to be spent on refurbishing Buckingham Palace. There is money there to roll out a state-funded childcare programme that enables men and women to combine career and home life while their children are being cared for safely by people who are paid properly. We just have very odd priorities in this country. We prefer to bail out banks and ensure that rich people still get a bonus rather than putting the money towards health care or child care.

Well, first of all, if working women are "condemning" other women to take care of their kids for low pay, then surely their DH's / partners are culpable of the same offence, what with the DC also being theirs and all?

Apart from that though, yes OP you have a point and I think it's a scandal that staff in nurseries are so low paid. For instance, I once had a Polish cleaner (in her early 20s) who I used to pay £13 per hour, I think. This is the going rate for cleaning and it's fairly easy for cleaners to do say 35 hours a week (e.g. she also did another 10 hours for my neighbour etc). So it's easy to get over £400 per week - and that's cash. She dropped out of her childcare NVQ because it dawned on her that she couldn't afford to be stuck doing fixed hours for the minimum wage?

Then her husband (who was a builder) said he'd clear our garden. He charged £25 per hour to her £13 when really unspecific gardening is no more skilled than cleaning. It's just that it's traditionally "men's work" whereas cleaning and childcare are not.

There is no point waiting for men to suddenly decide they want to work in nurseries or as nannies. If that was ever going to happen, it would have happened already. It won't happen because a) men are less biologically or psychologically inclined to be interested in this kind of work. In general it comes less naturally to them. b) many women do not trust men around their children in the same way as they do other women (unfortunately, but it's true).

It's exactly the same thing as waiting for a sudden momentum of women to go into construction jobs, building the motorways, working in heavy manufacturing and so on. It won't happen because most women would not want to do these jobs anyway.

Childcare always falls to women in general and the proportion of SAHDs is very low. Even where nurseries or nannies are not being used, it's it's grandmothers who step in - and do it for free! How many dads would think of asking their fathers to step up and look after their kids while they were at work?

Women and men will naturally gravitate towards different roles and there's no getting around this. We don't need more men in childcare - we just need to value female childminders more. Without them society cannot function. No job is more important than raising the next generation. Parents who put their children in childcare are putting their children's safety and lives in the staff's hands - literally. As a SAHM, I know it only takes a second for a child to put lego or something in their mouth etc. What job is more important than that and bears more responsibility?

Not all women want or have careers and the jobs women do have, have generally been underpaid and low status. This all needs to change structurally. We should be ashamed about what carers get paid.

On a personal note though, I wouldn't return to work if childcare outstrips my wages or when being left with a fraction.

Pension accrual and career mean less to me than being at home with my children. I also didnt and dont gain independence or self esteem from working. I gain my self esteem and independence from liking myself and my life.

Even an enjoyable job is just a job to me but everyone is different so its understandable when people say they gain sanity from working but i hate it when people say self esteem and independence as if a sahm has no self esteem and no independence.

I have never understood why people tie up self esteem with work, i can understand being proud of having a job or of having a certain job but beyond pride in your accomplishments, what self esteem do you gain?

Do i like myself more just because i work and do i like myself less when i have no job? Seems a funny thing to base my view of myself on.

Queen But that man did have photos of children being abused.

I have worked in childcare including with male workers.Men will work in nurseries. But very few. It is very low paid for the level of responsibility. There are jobs that are much easier for the same amount of pay.

...to caring for their children. For low pay.

No. It's up to women to find a job they like and that they're qualified for and that they want to do.

Childcare is all about supply and demand.

I dont see why you're saying that all childcare somes out of the mum's salaruy - why would it? Much better to think of it as coming from family money -

Salary A + salary B = C
Childcare = D

C - D each month. What's left, the couple share as family money.

And there are many more reasons for women working than money - to stay in a job they love, to keep up professional knoweledge, for a sense of self-worth, to keep their brain active, etc.

and the unpopular view that I feel that my DD is more stimulated and gets more out of being in childcare than staying at home with me glued to the TV or at the odd playgroup.

good grief, why do some people decide to have kids in the first place I'll never know.

Childcare workers wages won't increase. People already find it hard to pay for childcare, and wages are a big part of this.

Also agree that it is grandmothers expected to look after grandkids and provide childcare, not grandfathers. The truth is many many people still see looking after young kids as "women's work".

I left childcare to get a much better paid job than in some ways was much easier. When I worked with kids I came across the attitude all the time that it was an easy job. It is an easy job if you don't do it properly, but if you do it well it is not easy.

The increase in women returning to work full-time has not been sufficiently compensated for by men reducing their hours or assuming more childcare responsibility.

So any social progress in terms of women's financial independence and career opportunities have been offset because far more babies and young children are being raised, for a large proportion of their waking lives, in institutions. They may be all very lovely, happy-clappy, highly inspected and reviewed institutions, but institutions they are nonetheless. No staff member can love a baby like it's mother. The bond and the instinct to anticipate the baby's needs will not exist. Yet nursery staff are trying to fill this gap, across multiple children. There is no room for error with babies. They are more precious than anything in the world, yet childcare staff are paid a pittance in relation to other professions where the potential risks are insignificant in comparison.