to be fed up of the attitudes towards women without children

[heuiwp]

NC. I realise MN may not be the ideal audience for this, but let me say this isn't a dig or jealously at working mums. It's more a rant about bosses and the attitude towards women who don't have kids.

Everywhere I've worked, bosses seem to think if you don't have children, you don't have commitments or a life. They think you're the one they can ask to stay late, do overtime, go to conferences etc etc, as you don't have kids to go home to.

AIBU to think this is bloody unfair? Even if we don't have kids, that doesn't mean we want to be slaves to the job with no work/life balance. It seems if you have children you're allowed to put your life first, but if you don't, you have to put your work first without question.

My employer is introducing a new shift system, and the working mums have been granted all the 'nice' shifts, whereas us without children have been given the more unsociable ones. It winds me up.I have a partner, hobbies, things to do outside of work too.

And please don't say 'have kids then'. I would if I could, but regardless, I'm fed up of the way people think childless women have no lives.

YANBU it's always mothers and not fathers too so it's also sexist.

But as a child free woman do you find you progress faster at work?

And so the snide comments start about women.

Why not compare women with children with men with children? That’s where the real unfairness lies.

??

I asked the question the op answered. In some workplaces extra effort and going the extra mile is rewarded. In ops workplace it doesn't even sound like that is the case so doubly unfair imo. That's really all there was to my question.

YANBU, I think it amazing when employers are accomodating btw- but there is a balance. My last job there was a blanket ban on leave during school holidays unless you had children; I have also worked somewhere which was 24/7 365 shift work, and it was done via a ballot so everyone had an equal chance of getting Christmas Day etc off. Most people offered to swap with those with children, but it was fairer.

I've come across that attitude once in my working life (I'm 47) and he got pulled up on it.

I work in academia/science.

I totally hear you OP

we've got one dept where there's only one person without children and he's clearly pissed off right now at the expectations - I think he's going to talk to HR about it. In theory we have policies to cover this but when it comes to team level, odd things happen.

YANBU

I do have children but have never assumed it gives me grounds for any sort of preferential treatment and I’ve always taken more than my fair share of crappy shifts etc. I did work with plenty of women who did assume the world owed them a living cos they had kids and I found it a bit cringey tbh when they thought having kids entitled them to the pick of holiday time/Christmas off etc.

I’m not saying it’s fair but (if I have read your post correctly op) and an employer springs a change of working hours a non- parent 8/10 will be able to adapt more easily. That being said I think you equally should be able to object not forced into it.

School pick up time is no excuse. Most working parents pay for childcare on take on part time hours to accommodate this. It’s not up to the employer to fuck everyone else over to ensure someone can pick their kids up every day.

Well exactly. They can do what other people have to do and pay for childcare. Or get the child’s other parent to pick up.

Your employer probably risks loosing the mothers if he doesn't guve them the good shifts and knows it. If you are willing to find a different job then you should negotiate shifts on the same basis.

But as a child free woman do you find you progress faster at work?
Yes I did. Because I had to learn my colleague's jobs because I had to do their work when they weren't there. Did they have to learn my job to do when I wasn't there? No, because they never had to do my work. Did I get shit because I got promoted because I had more experience, having learnt and done their work for years? Yes I did.

Just to add - they worked school hours term time only, I worked full time all year round. The work didn't stop just because they weren't in the office.

YANBU even though I've not had the same experience. I work in a male dominated industry and about 10-15 years ago I noticed more companies allowing flexible working so people could deal with their personal lives. It means those with hobbies could arrange to do them while those with kids could sort out dropping them off at school/sort out childcare emergencies.

There are companies who tend to employ people under 35 but they don't retain workers for long as their working practices are bad (and illegal in some cases).

Btw the NHS is the biggest employer of women. If they tried to give all the nice shifts to mothers they wouldn't have any staff available. Plus in years gone by when shifts were more regular some mothers preferred to work unsociable hours as their husbands did the childcare.

We have one who expects days off at the drop of a hat. There is a one person at a time holiday rule as there are only 3 of us plus 1 part time worker. She asked me to re-arrange my wedding so she could take her son to a non-essential medical appointment, when told no she bitched about colleagues not helping each other and surely I could shuffle ‘things’ around....that thing being my wedding which was planned and books for 6 months. She also has time off when he’s poorly regardless if it leaves us with just two staff. He also has a father and a 17 year old brother who is willing to help, plus grandparents, aunt and uncles etc but they only step in when it suits her to actually come in.

Depends on the whole situation. If the childless mothers are treated the same as fathers (who generally are not as affected by having to provide childcare) YADBU. Where we work there are movements to give fathers the same right/opportunities to providing childcare and have a better work/family balance. As it should be. Some allowances have to be made to allow the parents who have children to manage these responsibilities, its not just as case of giving them the nice shifts, there are reasons, obviously, why a parent would need more school/nursery friendly shifts.
If your AIBU had been to be fed up of the attitude towards people without children, it might be worth considering. But as a childless woman, why should you be treated any differently to the working childless men? Even so, what would you propose, if paying for wrap around care is too expensive to allow both parents to work?

Thing is it's not the responsibility of anyone's colleague to manage childcare needs. I once worked somewhere where a colleague's childminder stopped being able to do Monday's and just expected the rest of the team to work round it. Luckily our boss wasn't having it.

This irritates me so much.... my current employer is great because EVERYONE gets the equal opportunity for flexible working. It is totally irrelevant if you had kids or not. My previous one, not so much
They made my life difficult because I worked flexibly (i.e. core hours) but it was never questioned for those with kids!!

Your life outside of work should pretty much be irrelevant. I don't give a monkies if you have sick kids or childcare issues. That is your problem, you chose to have kids . It is good employes are flexible ao long as the rule applies even if you don't have kids.

I've never worked anywhere that has treated me differently because I've got kids. I guess it's different types of industries

Exactly tired pony! If you do more stuff and are more flexible then imo it should count for something.

As a manager I always gave priority to anyone with commitments they couldn’t get out of. That meant childcare, caring for elderly relatives, hospital appointments, invitation to a wedding etc. That doesn’t mean a blanket policy of treating people with children better but it does mean acting like a decent human being and making your staff’s lives as easy as possible. I don’t believe good managers treat everyone the same, I think a good manager talks to their staff to find out what they want / need and try to accommodate that. Some ppl prefer short hours, some prefer paid overtime (if that’s an option). You can’t assume without speaking to your staff. So in short YANBU (but don’t underestimate the importance of short hours for people with very young or disabled children who need adult care).

YANBU it’s called prenatal privilege. I’ve lost a valued colleague this week, part of the reason for leaving was that every flexible working request he made was rejected - no partner or kids but he had a long and horrible commute travelling to work for our core hours and wanted a better journey, better work life balance, and time for his hobby, by starting and finishing earlier.

I later made the same request for my return from ML which has been granted - while I am grateful this seems incredibly unfair.

*Pronatal privilege

Also men with children. My DM is a teacher and my DF was once refused half term leave, even though he applied first, because two women with school age children and "needed" the time off more. They weren't single mums and did have other options.
We had planned a trip away as a family and couldn't go. I still resent them 20 years later!