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.

Childfree by choice here Also teetotal and never been drunk Im 45.

Sweetcarrie. i was asked at a job interview years ago whether or not i planned to have children. I said no i wasnt and that motherhood was not for me.
He replied "Why not Dont you like responsibility"

Previous retail job a year before DHs heart attack, i mentioned in passing at work that DH wasnt/isnt a well man and the deputy manager said it sounded like he was putting it on and said he was a "malingerer" But when someone mentioned their child was sick they automatically got believed. One was even allowed to abandon the till and rush up the road to Sainsburys car park because her DH couldnt work out how to put the buggy down while i was hummed and hawed at when i needed to nip up the road for a 5 min PRE booked appointment for my contraceptive injection on the day of the app. even though it had previously been agreed to

Re. the attitude towards DH i did wonder aloud sarcastically at what age they thought genuine illness stopped and malingering began. 18? 21? 25?

The employer that treated people most fairly was in my sex chatline office job. There it didnt matter whether employees had kids or not.

Yep the one that was the most fair IME was a sex industry job!

You are definitely NBU but I think that irrespective of company policy it is often the line manager's attitude that has the biggest impact. The company that I work for supports those returning from mat leave (80% hours for full time pay for the first 6 months back) but equally supports those who may need to work with more flexibility for other reasons. As an example, I dropped to a 4 day week to help care for elderly parents. Company policy allowed this but it was my line manager's support that made it possible.

Not really sure what point I'm trying to make, other than that some companies do try. BTW, I'm not naive, I get that adopting these policies is primarily to retain staff rather than to be nice. It does work though, I don't know why more companies don't do it if they can.

When I worked as a secretary I never encountered anyone with children being treated differently but then I went into retail. Told you are working every Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, New Years Day etc because others with children want to spend those days with their families! Well I wanted to spend them with DH and our families (parents, siblings, nieces, nephews etc.)

One job we all had to have our days and hours changed. It ended up that me and another female who didn't have children were to work every Saturday and Sunday and all the others with children only worked 1 weekend in 4.

I spoke to the Manager about it (she was in her late 30's and didn't have children) and she just wasn't interested. As far as she was concerned all the ones with children needed the weekends to spend time with them. I got 2 days off in the week although not usually consecutive days but my DH worked those days. I left that job