Or is this a bit tone deaf?

[glitterdonkey]

I'm in a senior role at a big company. Company is generally good on flexibility and working from home etc, but hours and culture can be quite brutal. Company has a big problem with gender balance. Recently it's had a big push in health and welfare and family friendly. One of the initiatives is that senior people (almost exclusively men) talk about how they manage their work life balance. In many ways this is a great thing. Except when they do, it's very much (in my view) reinforcing very traditional roles and not something I (and from talking to them, some of my colleagues) really relate to. For example " I always make sports day", "I try and make bed time at least twice a week". Not "I make sure everyone has clean clothes, food, I organise play dates, homework, Christmas, all birthdays, sort childcare, medical appointments, classes, on a daily basis etc, etc
.. oh and do my job well." I am on a diversity forum, should I say something or am I being precious and should except the small changes in dialogue ?

I think you do need to say something. My husband is my carer when i’m Not well so does have added pressure. So it is not just from a female perspective.

This is the problem though. Men can say “I go to sports day” or “I read my kids a bedtime story twice a week” and they’re dad of the year. They’re traditionally not expected to even think about the “wifework” - the day to day admin, sorting school stuff etc that so many women are left to do and nobody gives women and praise for all that grinding, thankless sort to stuff.

I hear the same gender stereotypes trotted out again and again “oh women are better at this sort of thing” and until challenged (repeatedly) this won’t change.

These men you work with must be capable adults to have got to a position of seniority so why is so little expected of them at home and in society in general?

Perhaps they do make sure everyone has clean clothes, food, medical appointments, etc, because their income facilitates their lifestyle.

I have a v successful dh. We worked as a team and even when I didn't work many things were sub-contracted such as cleaning/laundry. Now I do and e en though DC are grown up much more is subcontracted: garden, Christmas decs, etc. I also have many successful women friends who even 20 years ago had both a nanny and an au-pair to shoulder the "domestic stuff".

Finally, I can put through a Sainsbury's order in less than 10 minutes to arrive when my cleaner is there to unpack it. I don't discuss it.

I think you need to pipe down and butt out. The detail is absolutely none of your business and yes these people may inhabit a world rather different to your own.

Didn't expect such quick responses. @OhTheRoses I think I may not have been clear. I would LOVE the men to talk about all the mundane things they do for general life admin. I think the broader point is that men and women are treated differently in relation to worklife balance issues, and, if talking to my colleagues is anything to go by, find it very hard to relate to people in senior roles. It's easy to outsource if you're senior but getting to senior and balancing everything else is pretty hard and the majority of that burden seems to land in women. We've chosen to " outsource" to a degree and have a part time nanny and cleaner, but this means my take home income is equivalent to someone three grades below (and yes I know I am lucky in that many people work for nothing when childcare costs are taken into account)

I think you absolutely should challenge it. It’s quite possible those facilitated senior managers have no idea just how much extra hassle a non—facilitated staff member (of either sex) has.

And if you can’t see the issue, it won’t get fixed.

If it's just chit-chat, then I'd leave it, unless it's brought up directly with you. If it's part of a workplace-organized discussion (you speak of an 'initiative'), then I would indeed bring up the perspective of women; as well as men who have significant caring responsibilities.

I am not sure I follow glitterdonkey. Having to pay for childcare to work is part of the equation. Together families need to work as a team to facilitate that. Presumably your partner pays for some of the childcare as well?

Also, and I have a senior role, why on earth would I bore anyone to death about my on-line shop, leaving out the money for the window cleaner or letting the phone ring for 35 minutes to make a Dr's appointment notwithstanding the 7/8 washing loads that happen every week. Don't less senior people appreciate tjese things have to be fitted in?

I vowed 40 years ago that I would never talk about housework like my mother did (a woman of her time) because it was bloody boring.

I think you’ve missed the point ohtheroses - this sounds like it was intended to be a forum for talking about all that stuff you find “bloody boring” and how senior people at work do it alongside their roles - and yet all the men said was “oh I go to sports day” leaving people with the impression that it isn’t possible to do those roles if you do still have to manage proper daily domestic admin/childcare. It would be helpful to hear how they get the ocado shop done on their lunch break while they’re booking kids’ dentistry appointments and managing their enormously successful careers if they are indeed doing all that and not in fact leaving 90% of the real ‘wife-work’ to an actual wife.

behindthescenes if that's what the wife, possibly non working is happy with I don't see the problem. I also don't see the problem if SAHDs pick up the domestic stuff whilst successful women work.

As the mother of grown up DC may I respectfully observe that most couples we know have realised that they can't both be high fliers, working 60/70 hour weeks and maintain a healthy work life balance for all the family. Something has had to give, particularly in the teenage years. Stark reality I'm afraid.

Yanbu, my husband is a “high flier” but his contribution to the day to day running of the household is negligible. He doesn’t even think to ask me before arranging weeks away evening meetings etc because I am there, working full time at a fairly stressful job but making sure all our children’s needs are met. I would like to think that if he were giving such a speech he would acknowledge the huge part I play in making our family work and also acknowledge that for those who had the role of primary carer in the household it might not be possible for them to work the hours he does or progress their career in the same way. I would like to think that giving this sort of speech might actually give him and other partners pause to consider how they could make life easier for the people who are trying to balance both career and family in their firm.

Op, I am with you.
I attended a meeting for a "working families" employee group last spring. Arranged for 7pm with drinks. Attended only by people with a SAHP at home. I am a single parent and had to pay the nanny for overtime as I genuinely thought there will be some ideas/ signposting, but alas. A senior man from HR telling everyone as a case study that he took two days off when his son was sitting his 11+ exams (with a huge success). I asked him afterwards whether they used a tutor and if he could pass the details, and he said - sure, I need to ask my wife, I am certain we had someone.

Hmm. I think my role in DH's success was fundamentally acknowledged by his colleagues, employees and clients. DH has certainly credited it in speeches at events, etc, and many friends and colleagues have noted he has been fortunate to have my absolute and unfaltering support. E works in a field where many marriages flounder due to pressure and work demands.

However neither he nor I would wish to discuss the mundane.

I think it is simple. Families need to do the dross and support the children, later on parents. Families have to findways to make it work. Family responsibilities are not part of the contract of employment and if one needs extra time for them the solution is to reduce hours.

Yes - they are completely missing the point.

Sports day once a year - oh ffs it’s 90 minutes of your life. You take an afternoon off, you go. No big deal. I spend more than 90 minutes a year picking my nose but I don’t expect kudos for it.

Bedtime twice a week - hmmm - no mention of homework, activities, dinner or bath then. Dad just strolls in at 7:28pm and reads them a quick story.

Parenting - proper parenting not just dropping in - while working in a relatively senior job - is a logistical puzzle that involves a lot of compromise and sacrifice. Making sure that your little gymnast’s best leotard is clean before her competition is not mundane. It matters. As does taking her to all 400 practices and knowing which hairstyle works best to avoid her getting hit in the face by a plait during her big dismount.

Saying how you get a good work / life balance when there is a SAHP is slightly cringeworthy in its ridiculousness.

Just thought I'd clarify a couple of points. Yes @behindthescenes you're right, it's a formal initiative to encourage people to think about worklife balance.

So for background, I'm the main earner, so I used my salary as the comparison. Between 50-60% of my take home goes on childcare, but we have the right childcare for us and accept the expense.

I guess what I get fed up with is all these initiatives which talk about mentoring, female only short lists, female focused training bla, bla, bla. . When in reality most women in their thirties will hit a point when their income is almost halved and their doing a full time parent job on top of their career, and most of the time just feeling that they do both badly.

Of course the answer is better childcare/ more tax concessions, equal sharing of tasks across parents, men as visible as women in childcare responsibilities . But I have, what I would say is one of the most involved DHs of my friends and peers in terms of childcare (has a flex working agreement, took shared parental leave) and still all the crap falls to me. I don't think I am alone in this and it feels like we are a million miles away from equality and all the initiatives talk around the issues in the room.

What is really like is for senior management to understand that most women, as well as delivering brilliantly, are doing another job on the side. I'd then like them to take all the time and money they invest in women's initiatives and invest it in shared parental leave and encouraging men to work more flexibly.

So mostly I just bite my tongue and avoid diversity events these days.

Why is the fact that the home "crap" as you call it something your Employers need to take responsibility for? Why do you think it is anything at all to do with them? Why do you think your childcare should be subsidised? Surely you chose to have a child and it is your family unit's responsibility to provide care.

When my DC were small, I worked locally to be on hand in an emergency. I took them to school, sorted the events, did the pick-ups from friends and activities after 6pm, managed the au-pair, organised the house and cooked the dinner. DH got in at 9.30ish.

It's tough, it's part of life. It was nothing at all to do with my Employer.

Oh, and lest I forget, I'm senior management, a woman, mother and wife. I got on with it.

Share whatever you want to say about what you do in your life to obtain the balance you like to have.

What you have to say about your life doesn't have to be a position statement about what others do in their lives or gender roles that staff have at home.

I'm not really a fan of employer initiatives (or MN ones, for that matter) that try to 'change the world'.

yes absolutely raise this, it's completely tone deaf. I'm on the diversity committee at my org and everyone would laugh at this kind of thing, it's like something from 1980. Try to get some women to do the same talk, the comparison will be... interesting. But honestly send out a request for volunteers of men who actually go halves on the school run etc. They're not that unusual in professional environments - around here it's probably 2/3 to half men, especially at drop off.

When I think about life work balance I think it means doing life enhancing things as well as work - not mundane stuff. Perhaps that is why your colleagues talk about sports day and so on? Or it means not letting work encroach too much on home life. For me it would be about not doing unecessarily long hours and avoiding doing work at home. If you want to challenge the comments you could try saying similar things yourself and see if anyone is surprised e.g. 'I never miss my kids important football matches' or 'I make sure I cook a meal for my family once a week' 'I try to have a round of golf with friends regularly ' You get the idea

fruitpastille brilliant idea!

You lost me at “pipe down, OhTheRoses. Such an awful, misogynistic phrase.

But OhTheRoses you are assuming everyone is parenting in a two-parent family.
I work in the public sector, in an organisation totally obsessed with diversity (to its own detriment I’d say), but for a single woman with caring responsibilities to properly progress - particularly a single woman outside London- is a massive challenge.
The biggest challenge is other people’s assumptions about what is possible. They assume you can leave home at 5am to be at a meeting in London, or stay late because a meeting has overrun, or do xyz in the evening.
I don’t do these things because I don’t want to progress, but if I did life would be challenging.
I think the purpose of these initiatives is to teach people consideration

@OhTheRoses
It's ok , we get it, you're just fantastic with a high powered job, a super successful husband and an army of help to get on with the scut work. Also a first class degree in super smug by the sound of it!

OhTheRoses is a prime example of one of the reasons women are discriminated against in work environments. Senior women who assume if they can do it anyone can, and can't grasp that not everyone is in the same situation with the same help available. It's a basic lack of understanding and ability to put themselves in another's place, and it amazes me that such people continue to be promoted despite lacking this fundamental skill.