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)

Yes it is unfair that your company is always the one that has to compromise.
Yes it does prevent some employers from employing women ostensibly of child bearing age and yes that is very unfair on those of us who, for whatever reason, will not need to ever ask for that flexibility.

YANBU.

My dp works 8:30am to 5pm Monday to Friday and is basically responsible for ensuring the shaved monkeys running a chemical plant don't explode anything and gas everyone in a five mile radius.

Flexi time isn't really option (the odd late/early start/half day in an emergency is ok).

He earns twice what I do.

My job is by nature shift based, so I do more short shifts and less long days.

I like doing the lions share of the childcare and wouldn't swap with dp for double his wages.

I find full time hours far more exhausting than part time plus childcare.

But really none of that is any of your business.

I agree. I also have a partner who pulls his weight when it comes to childcare. I've found employers are surprised that he does as much as me - but why wouldn't he? Having a penis doesn't mean he's incapable of looking after and being responsible for children.

YANBU

Make sure you ask all the men working for you if they need time off for school holidays, sick days etc. Guilt them into doing it and you'll make a difference.

(You probably can't do this, but it's the employed men who need to step up. I'm sick of hearing about DH's who won't do it).

As the employer, you don't have to just blindly accept flexible working requests though. If their requests don't enable them to complete their jobs, surely you can push back and negotiate something with mutual benefit?

For example, what are the 'out of hours' requirements and is there flexibility in how these can be handled? E.g. can people log on from home for late hours? Can you give more notice on events?

I do agree with your point though. I know so many couples where the default expectation is that the woman manages the childcare, takes the emergency leave, takes the career hit etc. But equally, I've seen plenty of men being afforded less flexibility than their female colleagues when trying to take on more.

My point is that you can offer flexible options, make it easy to access and flat out encourage flexible working where possible...it doesn't mean men will take you up on it. Any member of staff can request flexible working, men just don't seem to be interested.

Right, and what relevance does that have to the men who ask for it? I asked OP if she would be as supportive of the male staff taking on equal responsibility. You’ve basically come here and said “no point”. How is that helpful to the ones that actually want or need to?

Why don't you ask some of the wonderful men in your workplace who is doing their share of the childcare while they are outworking all the women.

But you won't.

You have improved your life, but instead of supporting your own (women) you have skipped over to the side of the clueless male employer. After all, if you can do WHY CANT THEY!

Take a minute to remember you with that 1st husband. If it was so easy to leave why did you put up with it at all?

Interesting...i like my job but I love my children and they always come first. As I said if they are too sick to go to childcare then damn sure I'll be there looking after them. I reckon that poster's husband was at it.... no way would a decent school question a parent of either sex if the child was taken ill.

My DH does all our childcare drop offs and pick ups because it’s on his way to work but I used to do them before the CM moved house as it was on my way to work. If DS is ever sick, we chat about who’s got what on at work and decide between us who needs to take the day off.
However, we are both lucky that both our workplaces are flexible and understanding. We also earn a similar amount. If he earned significantly more of if his work were less flexible I would assume to need to take on more of the responsibilities. I do agree that women shouldn’t automatically take on the responsibility though, that’s very 1950s!

No you’re not and I totally agree with you.

There’s always a reason why the job done by the man can’t be compromised!

Very true.

So many women stick themselves into traditional mummy roles but would probably describe themselves as 'progressive'

If you really want to encourage more equality of childcare responsibility across your team, then what will have more effect than anything else is to champion these women. Praise the work they do while they are in the office. Promote them based on how well they do their work, not for how many hours. Focus on efficiency and effectiveness, not on hours. Hold meetings at hours they can always make, and finish them on time. Never praise workers who are there for longer hours for the hours they work, only for the quality and efficiency of the work they do. Talk equally to those who work flexiblym, and those who are always there all the hours ('water cooler chats' at the end of the day can be really divisive, because those who have to leave on time are left out of an important opportunity to network / have access to 'the boss')

If everyone on your team, male and female, sees you being fair, and flexible, and valuing productivity and ability over hours, they too may feel it is possible to ask you for flexibility. Make a point of asking dads within the office whether there are any school or nursery or family events that they need to, or would like to, attend. If you happen to find out that a child is ill, make it clear that it is your expectation that they as dads are very welcome, indeed expected by you, to take their fair share of caring duties.

Model this yourself. Take time for childcare, and special family events, and make this common knowledge, and equally comment when you are in: 'OH has today off to look after the children, so i can be in'

If you model, within your team, a workplace in which it is assumed that both male and female parents have caring responsibilities, and that carrying out those caring responsibilities results in no loss of status, promotion, visibility within the office and that you carefully arrange things like meetings to make caring responsibilities easy, then you will rauise a large team of people who see this as the norm, and will spread this to their partners, and perhaps on to their partners' workplaces, and into their own management careers.

YANBU and I also totally agree with you!

DH has one of those jobs it’s really difficult to get time off from so I do most of the childcare.

He also earns 3-4x as much so I would sacrifice my job for his if needs be!

Thankfully my employer understands the predicament.

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!

I’m a single mum. My daughters dad is very involved in her life.

But I work closer by to her nursery, it makes more sense for me to go if she is ill.

My childfree boss is an absolute delight about it. I was late to work once because of a childcare miscommunication between me and her dad and her comment was “you need to sort that out, I won’t have your personal life impacting my working one”. I was 15 minutes late. I am made to feel less committed than my childfree peers when actually, I am more so - it’s not them bending over backwards to make sure that childcare is covered across unsociable hours so they can get to work.

The company I work for has recently been all over LinkedIn bugging up how brilliant an employer they are for working mums, encouraging and supporting progression etc. It is nauseating virtue signalling.

But there is a business impact of senior role team members not being able to work flexibly. And rather than women getting stroppy with their employers, they should be working with employers to manage that impact, and that may well mean they have to insist partners (where available) do their fair share.

There's too much acceptance that the women will pick up the childcare issues, and if we don't acknowledge that that has an impact on the employer then we won't get to a position where men take on equal roles.

I allow my team to work very flexibly as we can accommodate that and still deliver what we need to (one recently needed to cut an on site day short to sort out the puppy). But I also know that if there's a real need to work extra then they will do so. Male or female doesn't make a difference. But I would really take exception to someone who just expected me to provide flexibility because they had children without any consideration of the business impacts.

However, I would say that generally where I've had people working for me with very strict start/end times (regardless of whether they're men or women) they tend to put in 100% when they're there, no long chats at the coffee machine!

I think you need to mind your own bloody business to be honest. You aren’t privy to your employees home life and circumstances, nor do you know what their partners do for a living (or indeed if they have a partner to help out). If flexible working is an operational problem then you say no (with the reasons to back up your decision) otherwise you keep you beak out and your opinions to yourself.

I agree that all the reasons sound a bit like the reasons why women ‘have to’ change their names etc

However

It is really really hard to walk the walk 100% of the time in challenging patriarchy

It’s everywhere and has been forever

That’s not to say we should give up, but shaming individual women about their choices isn’t the way forward, especially in the context of an employer-employee relationship where there is a power imbalance

YABU

For most people, all things are not equal. One partner may earn more, or work nearer to home, or be better able to shift things around, or their absence will cause fewer problems.

Your lack of imagination is staggering.

Right, and what relevance does that have to the men who ask for it? I asked OP if she would be as supportive of the male staff taking on equal responsibility. You’ve basically come here and said “no point”. How is that helpful to the ones that actually want or need to?

I'm not saying 'no point', I'm saying 'there a systemic issue'!

In nearly a decade of management at different levels and in 2 different companies, I've had 1 father request flexible working. What the heck is so wrong that in all that time, with more women requesting flex than I can remember, only 1 man has ever asked (I authorised it).

I'm not OP, but I've asked myself the question she's asking - why it always the woman's employer? My response was to try and make it 'mainstream' for men, starting with fathers because paternity leave requests made it easier to get hold of them. I have got nowhere. OP may never have had to think about how supportive she would be of men asking...she may well have never been faced with a man making the request.

OP would you question a lone parent doing all pick ups and drop offs?

YABU - what about trusting your staff to manage their own family situation? No two circumstances are the same. Lots of examples on here of intelligent decisions being made by parents to facilitate both working. Nobody's business but their own.

Question really comes down to whether your business is prepared to offer flexible hours. It's a definite incentive for any prospective employee.

I absolutely love how more or less every single of those answers is explaining at length why MEN can’t possibly do more childcare...

Their job isn’t as stable, they earn less/more, are ill etc etc

But somehow not one of the posters has a job that is like this. Nope. Everyone has a job that is stable, they earn less/more, WANT to do all the childcare etc.. on the top of a full time job paying 4x more etc....