To ask my employees why their DH’s aren’t pulling their weight when it comes to childcare?

[TheHoneyHunt]

So I know that my DH and me are fairly unusual in that we have a very equal approach to childcare and household chores. To be fair I wasn’t born lucky. My first H was an abusive freeloader, and I swore never to make that mistake again. However, I’ve now got so used to this way of living that I now find it normal.

I’m now lucky enough to have got to the stage in my career where I manage a large team. These are well paid jobs, paying £40k+, but do require some out of hours working.

Two of my team are on maternity leave. In discussing their return to work they both seem to be assuming that they will do all the childcare. Every pick up, every drop off. Their DH’s don’t seem to appear in the equation. As the employer of the mother, I am asked to accept all the flexibility required. And yet they are still talking about wanting to be treated as equals with their male counterparts.

If the want to be treated as equals in the workplace, AIBU to question why their childcare arrangements aren’t equal?

(I know there is an official “HR” answer to this...which will definitely go along the lines of “don’t even go there”....but what I want to know is am I being unreasonable to think this)

I think the OP's point is valid. I manage a team of 6, currently all female with primary school or Nursery aged DC.
When I started the role (with slightly different staff), all worked more or less 9 - 5 and took their 30 days annual leave. If there was a problem, one or two - and sometimes the whole team if it was really bad - were prepared to pitch in and stay a bit later to sort it out. Now, all of them are on some sort of flexible arrangement except one who really comes in at 9.05 and leaves at 4.58 and this year all have taken at least two days off for sick DC and, as well as taking time off for their own Doctor's, dentists etc appt take time off for their DC's appts, nativity plays etc. Before, they would have made time up by staying late or working in their hour long lunch hour but now they can't stay late and most of them are on a 30min lunch hour anyway.
It does mean that, as a department, we feel more pressured that we used to. Four are the same hours but compressed or an earlier start time; one is doing 4.5 days over 5 and one 4 days over 5. That only gains by 0.3 of a full time job and then there are the additional costs of another member of staff so, so far, I have tried to manage as we are (we weren't previously at capacity).
We're a fairly social team so I do know quite a lot about their husbands and what their jobs are. A couple must earn multiples of the woman's salary, others, though, earn around the same or less. One of the mega earners travels a lot but the other works from home a lot. None of these men seem to have any role in day to day childcare. The DP of one of the woman works for another department in the same organisation in a similar role and yet he still does the hours he did before and there never seems to have been a discussion about whether he would be even remotely flexible.
I just find it baffling - and frustrating - as DH and I have always split drop offs and pick ups, sick days etc. It's not 50:50 each week but it will work out as that across the year. The comments I get from my team if I mention one of my DC is sick and he is at home with them. My team seem to think he is some unique creature and it never seems to cross their minds that their DH could perhaps do the same next time one of their DC is ill.

OP if will hearten you to know that on our last big project at work the dads cried off with excuses about childcare while the mums showed up for the extra hours and got the job done. There are families that get the balance right out there.

Maybe all these men who out earn their partners are capable because they have no childcare duties and employers view them as such.

Yep, which I guess brings us back to the excellent “facilitated men” debate there was on here a few months back

I understand where you are coming from, but you cannot ask them about it, it's their choice. They won't be treated equally, they will probably miss out on promotions and pay rises because of it. I can see both sides, these are their children and will always be the priority, and if you employ someone you expect them to do their job, and don't want to be stuck with staff that are unreliable.

I do think your point is valid. Obviously a lot depends on the nature of the business and what requests people make.

I'm a manager in the care sector. All carers work every other weekend. You wouldn't believe the amount of staff trying to drop their weekends after a few months! Or saying they can no longer do late shifts. Like the residents in our care don't need assistance during these times.

Yes I understand it's low paid but it certainly isn't less important than their husbands job. If you can't work the shifts our resident need then get a different job! I can imagine if it was their loved one or themselves living in a care home, they wouldn't be happy waiting until 11am to be assisted out of bed because half the carers "can't work weekends".

If people accept a job of work then they shouldn't expect to bugger off early to sort out their families, male or female, it makes no difference.

I worked in a nursery and was paid minimum wage, so of course I was the one that was going to be taking time off for sick Children. It's annoying but just how it is. I felt bad but there was nothing I could do about it. My dh could call in sick, but he is in a position where pay rises and promotions are not going to happen if he is off sick with kids.

If people accept a job of work then they shouldn't expect to bugger off early to sort out their families, male or female, it makes no difference.

Well, no. But what about generating goodwill, raising morale, increasing productivity, attracting the right talent (which, just may be a woman! Of child-rearing age...)?

It isn't just about what employees can do for their employer.

As their employer you have a duty of care and a legal obligation to be as flexible as possible as long as this doesn't negatively affect the business.

As a woman though, you should know better! Yes, part of it is until men are taking equal responsibility for the home and children there will never be true equality in the workplace.

BUT also as an employer - do/would you provide flexibility to male employees for childcare reasons? Because if you don't - you're part of the problem surely? And a hypocrite!

In addition, here in the uk we work among the longest hours in Europe if not the world. Rather than employing more people (which would of course incur cost to the employer) uk employers EXPECT employees to work longer hours (often without extra pay or even appreciation), are extremely resistant to job sharing, part time working, home working and other methods that would give their employees flexibility - often citing 'the needs of the business' without this actually being true. They pay poorly knowing the taxpayer will pick up the tab in the form of tax credits and other benefits, pay women less than their male counterparts, women dominated jobs tend to be lower paid generally, penalise women for having DC, for taking maternity leave, discriminate against them as potential employees, especially when they are 'of child bearing age'.

The fact women are usually paid less is one BIG reason why THEY are the ones most likely to take time off when it's necessary. Short term - it makes sense to lose a days pay of the lesser paid person, long term it makes sense to keep the better paid person in work.

So...when you moan about men not taking responsibility for their DC (when really you're moaning about YOUR employees taking time off for childcare responsibilities) what are YOU doing to change things for the better for your employees? For other women?

If your employees are REGULARLY having to do overtime you should be employing more people, not overworking your staff.

I dread to think what op's and certain other posters attitudes to Lp are!

Chickenliverz - I'd ban zero hours contracts.

Knotsinmay - are you paying your employees as much as their partners are paid? If not why not?

Scoobyd, wingingwonder and similar - examples of not only good employers but good employees! Supporting staff means they will be loyal to the company, better able to do their job, more likely to go above and beyond for their employer. I think a lot of employers have forgotten (if they ever knew) that you get what you give! I bet your retention rates are better than most too (which of course reduces recruitment and training costs).

I too think believe the reason men don't ask for flexibility is because they (often rightly) think

A they won't get it
B it ends up being a 'black mark' against them as employees, costing them extra work or promotions
C makes them an easy target if redundancies come round

"She is highlighting the sexism that still exists in parenting." I disagree - that's what she CLAIMS to be doing, she is in fact reinforcing sexism in the workplace.

Cantkeepawayforever - excellent post. I've worked with other women who did longer hours - but did less or poorer quality work - but were the bosses favourites because they did longer hours! Also worked alongside men where this was the case - they were supposedly doing longer hours (actually pratting about chatting or playing sodding solitaire!), but doing less work and their work was poor quality. Yet they were seen as better employees. I now recognise this also meant those bosses were shit for not realising this! A good boss knows the difference between presenteeism and actual graft.

"It may have been said, but 'oh darling, can you just tell the OC you need to pop back from deployment for school pick up to let my boss know you're an active parent' may not have been feasible!" Yep, my ex was army, for 8 months in dds first 2 years of life he wasn't even in Europe! My brother is a police officer, he can hardly go "oh shifts over, best I stop chasing this thief, or giving evidence or negotiating with this guy holding his ex hostage" but then equally when I was a nurse I couldn't go "oh shifts over best I stop performing cpr, dressing this wound, listening to a patient during one of their rare lucid episodes where I'm finding out crucial information"! But then that's partly why I quit nursing, with ex in army too it would've been a nightmare to manage a family with us both in such inflexible jobs.

Semper - is there any way you can contact LinkedIn to let them know this info is essentially false

XingMing - what a pile of bollocks AND ILLEGAL too! He has no right to be in business with that attitude and I'm shocked (though not surprised given the amount of women apparently so susceptible to such internalised misogyny) that you accept this state of affairs! I hope one of those applicants reports him! The 'small businesses can't afford flexibility/maternity leave' bollocks is just that! If you can't afford to run your business fairly and legally then don't run one! Be an employee elsewhere or be a sole employee self employed business only responsible for and to yourself. Shame on him and shame on you for supporting him.

"your husband is acting illegally and I'd be embarrassed to post that, even anonymously" absolutely!

"so you'd ban small companies? From small companies, larger companies grow!" In my experience poor owners like your husband don't do that well.

"It's not illegal to choose whom you want to employ, surely?" Actually yes it is when it involves discrimination. It's illegal to discriminate against women which is what your husband is doing, he's ALSO being ageist which is ALSO ILLEGAL.

"Quite often, we send people to the other side of the world, to remote and dangerous locations. There's no chance of getting back for an unscheduled school run pickup or not within 48 hours."

"but I assure you, they are handsomely compensated for needing a bodyguard to go to and from work."

And? What the hell has any of that got to do with his being a sexist twat employer? There are women, inc mothers, in the armed forces who are sent for months at a time to the most remote and dangerous parts of world.

"Our people go to sea" oh and that inc women even mothers in the navy too!

"hence our emphasis on recruiting the right people." Jesus! 🙄

"I just wanted to explain that there are valid reasons behind our recruitment rationale." Except they're not valid at all they're ILLEGAL.

"in almost 30 years as we headhunt rather than advertising." Any HR people about? Isn't this illegal too? I think it probably is even if only because of the intent behind doing so - ie to avoid receiving applications from women (particularly mothers or those of child bearing age).

"Also come on, surely you can see that it’s shit for small businesses to have to deal the disruption" nope! If they can't bear the cost of employees needing LEGAL time off work they've no business being in business and frankly given the additional information XingMing has given frankly I don't believe that's the case. If they're able to pay their employees SO WELL they're probably doing very well and CAN afford to cover their LEGAL OBLIGATIONS but choose not to out of sheer greed!

"Part of the contract is to have your passport and be ready to travel without long notice to parts of the world which may be A dangerous or B very remote without telecomms. The work requires heavy engineering experience and the stamina for 15 hour shifts, sometimes in very hot climates or alternatively in sub zero temperatures, often for eight weeks without a break, on a crew deck without much privacy." Again something which MANY women in the armed forces (and civilian contractors attached to the armed forces) do regularly - AND for longer than 8 weeks too!

"UK employment regulations don't apply." Yes they do as you are recruiting, based in and presumably classed for tax purposes as a British company? Though frankly even if it were somehow legal it doesn't stop it being disgustingly discriminatory and immoral!

"Even in the UK, women are not technically permitted on commercial fishing vessels, as far as I know." Wrong! I'm from on one side of my family a fishing family. Women have been on commercial rigs for several years now.

"I am as much of a feminist as anyone here" you're really not!

Great you've put so much identifying info though - hopefully someone in a position to do so will read this, report your company and it will be dealt with appropriately as a result. Hopefully starting with a nice big fine.

"You are back-pedalling" I disagree, she's actually becoming more sexist with each post! Apparently according to her and her husband women are too weak, fragile and incapable of protecting themselves to do the job. Also too stupid to realise 'it's not for women, especially mothers of young children', I suspect she judges any woman who did apply for the job despite 😱 being a mother to young DC, as bad mothers too.

"How would you even do this? People don’t put their children or their wedding date on job applications." They could also be gay with no DC and no plans to, infertile/sterilised with no previous children. But I suspect that's irrelevant as I suspect Xing is basically JUST managing not to say that actually they only employ men!

I can easily see how Xing and her husband THINK they're weeding out 'unsuitable' applicants - names tend to give away sex, date of education info/ work history tends to give away age. It's not hard from a CV to get such info. Personally (and larger companies do this to an extent) I think applications should be anonymised. At application stage all an employer needs to know is what qualifications and work history/experience which doesn't need to be dated. Simply what qualification and what grade and how long in each position is suffice.

KickAssAngel - exactly! Excellent post!

Op conspicuous by their absence I see?

WaterOffaDucksCrack - that's my previous area of work but I was a nurse working in private residential care. While I understand what you're saying about carers need to cover 24/7 it's also appalling that the pay is so low. Especially in the private sector where the owners of residential care/nursing homes do very well thank you! Pay in women dominated sectors is woefully low and needs to be seriously addressed. In care it IS an important job one of the most - so pay your employees appropriately in recognition of that!!

I hope you know all about the childcare arrangements of any dads you have working for you and are insisting that you give them flexibility for their share of the childcare arrangements.

So you ask and the answer (in my case ) is because “the moment ds was born, oh morphed into weird 1950s man, expecting house kept, shirts ironed, all nursery services provided, to the point I have left him.”

Or that some of your employees put their children’s needs before their career.

And that gets you where? Asking will just involve you in all the domestic arguments that you experienced in your first marriage.

Our children are older now but we had a very similar set up to you OP, in that we shared earning and caring responsibilities as equally as possible so that we could both maintain good careers. Neither of us wanted a set up where one career was prioritised hugely over the other, with the knock ons which often happen as a result: ie one partner (almost always the man) doing very little in the way of pick ups, domestic chores etc

However, you can’t possibly raise this with your employees; surely you can see that would be completely unprofessional.

All you can do is lead by example, and offer the same opportunities to Male and female employees and hope that they can see the benefits to aiming for an equal footing.

It is really interesting how many nurseries seem to be chosen to be near the mother's workplace rather than the fathwr's. This just embeds the practice that op is observing and impacted by, the implicit assumption that a man's work is more important and less flexible than a woman's. I work in a team with a number of women who have relatively young dc and work part time. They are all hard working , committed and manage the juggle. To a person, they all speak about their husbands' roles and work pressures in tones of reverence. Even our boss buys in to it - oh Sue can't take that project because her husband is traveling that week.
The fight for equality starts at home as well as at work. Women need to be having the conversations with their partners and both men and women need to have the conversation with employers.

People don't understand how entrenched roles and views are sometimes.

I have a female colleague who has split with her partner. Early finishing, days off for sports days etc, last minute carers leave as child is ill..all accomodated for and 100% never commented on. Everyone views her as a single Mum doing her best.

Male colleague in the same position is always sniped about as 'taking the piss' with his flexible working. He couldn't come in for 2 days in March as the children had snow days (and it was his days to have them) and there was even a 'well why can't their Mother have them? She only works part time' comment.

I'm a woman who is the main earner by far in my marriage. Dh works part-time, term time only (more or less) so he can do childcare around school. I need to do business trips abroad or work late sometimes so this works for us. When people ask me how do I manage my career with young dc and I say dh is at home with them some people are amazed. As it is we discussed careers and children when we were first dating to make sure we were on the same page and we have it the way we like it.

Graphista This OP was about the imbalance of women taking the bulk of carer days off.

Of course as a boss I am prepared for men in the workplace to have the flexibility afforded to women. Do you really think it is female bosses who are the ones most guilty of criticising men for taking carer days?

And of course men and women are paid equally the good going rate for the job / sector . I can’t regulate whether women's Partners are in higher paid jobs or not.

So on this thread we have:

Women employers commenting that they as employers of women make more accommodation than the employeers of fathers. Which however we feel about it dies out an added pressure on the workplace.

Women saying ‘yeah, why should my DH take time off for reasons x, y and z, he can’t be flexible and it suits us as a couple to prioritise his career but I fully expect you, employer, to prioritise my right to flexible working, sudden carer days etc.

Women bosses (several of whom say they have established parenting equality in their own lives) are blamed for being ‘part of the problem ‘

I 100% support and facilitate the needs of parents in the workplace.

What pisses me off is that many women have partners who have no intention of taking any time off and as this thread demonstrates, many mothers are prepared to make use of flexibility afforded them without expecting their childrens’ fathers to ever do the same.

Women bisses who support a family friendly workplace are not ‘part of the problem ‘, they are competing against bosses who don’t support family friendly practices and those who employ men who always leave it to the mother to sort childcare.

Equality for women in terms of pay and career progression cannot happen while their jobs are treated as a lesser priority within the household.

Seeing a distance, yes that doesn't sound right, unless maybe her dc are at the same school and are old enough to hang around at the beginning and end of the day.

I find it odd that people are saying it's none of the employers business. They can expect their employee to make reasonable efforts to cover childcare emergencies. Reasonable efforts include the other parent pitching in. The employer of say a female nurse does not and should not care that her male husband is a high flyer earning multiples of her salary. What rot.

"This OP was about the imbalance of women taking the bulk of carer days off." Which happens largely because women are paid less, therefore making it more practical for women to take time off.

"Do you really think it is female bosses who are the ones most guilty of criticising men for taking carer days?" No, but I KNOW there are some who do. And who also criticise and penalise women for doing so. It doesn't matter who's 'most' guilty no boss should be doing this.

"And of course men and women are paid equally the good going rate for the job / sector" now you're being disingenuous. You KNOW that the 'going rate' is largely influenced by whether the majority of employees in X job/sector are men or women. Traditionally male jobs are better paid than traditionally female jobs. Regardless of required qualifications/experience, risk involved or effort required. The recent Tesco case illustrated that and that's far from the only example. You also know that many employers are still not paying female employees the same pay for doing the same job, but escape detection by not publishing pay publicly, by using underhand tactics eg giving female employees different job titles to male employees even though they're doing the same job.

"Women employers commenting that they as employers of women make more accommodation than the employeers of fathers. Which however we feel about it dies out an added pressure on the workplace." And yet those same employers are generally not answering:

Are you paying your female employees adequately? (I'd posit that a good test of this is whether you get roughly equal number of applications from male and female applicants)

Are you encouraging your male employees to request flexible working/time off for caring responsibilities?

Are you investing in having additional staff to ensure that "added pressure" is kept to a minimum?

"Women saying ‘yeah, why should my DH take time off for reasons x, y and z, he can’t be flexible and it suits us as a couple to prioritise his career but I fully expect you, employer, to prioritise my right to flexible working, sudden carer days etc" because those women are living in and trying to operate in a patriarchal society, the cause of reasons X y z usually.

"Women bosses (several of whom say they have established parenting equality in their own lives) are blamed for being ‘part of the problem ‘" sometimes they are. If they don't pay a decent wage, don't expect male employees to work flexibly, don't recognise their fortune in being ABLE to establish "parenting equality in their own lives" or considering why they have that - then yes they are part of the problem.

"Women bisses who support a family friendly workplace are not ‘part of the problem ‘, they are competing against bosses who don’t support family friendly practices and those who employ men who always leave it to the mother to sort childcare." women bosses who support a family friendly workplace AND who value their employees are not part of the problem but I've yet to truly come across one.

"Equality for women in terms of pay and career progression cannot happen while their jobs are treated as a lesser priority within the household." Actually I'd say treating women as truly equal in terms of pay and career progression BY EMPLOYERS would lead to their jobs being treated as a greater priority within the household. If women's jobs were paid better and subsequently gained greater status in the wider community, couples would for practical reasons place greater priority on those jobs.

Personally I think shared paternity leave should be enforced for starters, I bet that would make the likes of Xing start to change their appalling attitudes.

. The employer of say a female nurse does not and should not care that her male husband is a high flyer earning multiples of her salary. What rot.

Interesting point. I'm a midwife and dh earns significantly more than me. When dd was younger he did the majority of childcare pick ups and drop off due to my shift times.

He also did every single emergency carers day if dd was ill. His job may pay more but my workplace will suffer more by being a person down.

If people accept a job of work then they shouldn't expect to bugger off early to sort out their families, male or female, it makes no difference.

So parents, of either sex, shouldn't be in employment? Because if you're a parent you have a moral and legal obligation to look after your child. If your primary aged child is sent home from school due to being sick/power cut at school/adverse weather etc you can't just say 'no, I'm not picking him/her up, I'm at work'.

I am lucky to work somewhere that flexibility and time to look after children is a given and actually it's mostly men with children who come in late / leave early / take time off for sickness etc. So there is definitely a cultural element to it. Once one or two men in senior roles do this others feel comfortable following.

We live in an unequal society. The question you, as a senior manager, should he asking OP is what you can do to change that. Blaming your female employees is not the answer.

How would you even do this? People don’t put their children or their wedding date on job applications.

Actually seafarers tend to put ludicrous amounts of information on their cvs; photograph, age, marital status, dependents, religion etc.
I worked in oil, gas and shipping for 10 years, some of it doing recruitment and yes I did employ women and none of them ever took time off for mat leave or dependents leave. I had a lot of guys taking time off for paternity leave or weddings etc though.

Yanbu, OP. It perpetuates the cycle. Women appear less committed so don’t get the promotion, or the help up the ladder. People also forget they have a choice over where they work and what they do. In my latest role, I negotiated two early finishes so I could do school pick up. As did DH.