AIBU to be frustrated at flexibility being given to parents but denied to others?

[BojoKilledMyMojo]

I've been generally musing after conversations with a few friends over the past week on working arrangements.

It seems to be very common for parents to be given as much flexibility as they need to accommodate kids being home or to allow for drop offs / pick ups / appointments / sickness etc during non covid times.

All that is terrific, but why is the same flexibility not routinely granted to others? And why are non parents expected to pick up the shitty end of the stick all the time by being in early, staying late, working Xmas, getting last dibs on holidays etc?

It depends where. You are correct that in some places parents are given a priority they have no right to have.

If it makes you feel better, many companies are not going with this nonsense, and people are treated fairly and equally.

There's an equal amount of parents who scream that they are treated unfairly because they got passed over for promotions and bonuses, by colleagues who actually did the extra work, put up with the extra hours - and basically deserved the pay rise and promotion.

EVERYONE has a life and is entitled to have the same flexibility and same holidays. It's nobody's business if it's about childcare or something else.

I'm also infertile so won't just go and have some kids for parental leave, but thanks to the poster who so eloquently suggested it.

If you mean me, I took care with my words and said become a parent. I deliberately did not suggest you 'just go and have some kids' .

My post is merely asking why flexible working shouldn't be afforded to everybody for them to use as they need or choose.

Well, as the government state, here, "[a]ll employees have the legal right to request flexible working - not just parents and carers.".

So this is what? Hearsay? Your mates moaning? You've started a thread having a pop at working parents because your mates have had a whinge? Tell them to sort their shit out instead of coming on social media to attack women

And you thought posting this on a parenting website was a good idea because....????

The OP can ask whatever she wants to ask, surely?

I get where she is coming from. I don’t have children of my own and I do sometimes resent the expectation that I’ll just cover for the people with children when they want to be off, eg during half term. However, I regard it as part of the social contract.

I might feel differently if I had a family member who required a lot of care though, like the OP’s friend whose wife has MS.

Well COVID 19 is food news for ya then ! As everyone (key work aside) are flexibility WFH for the medium to long term future

There's an equal amount of parents who scream that they are treated unfairly because they got passed over for promotions and bonuses, by colleagues who actually did the extra work, put up with the extra hours - and basically deserved the pay rise and promotion.

There was an Ally MacBeal episode about exactly this (showing my age now!)

If someone doesn't get it they should request it, if they have a need for flexibility. If they don't get it they have two choices, end of. No need to discuss...

Well I am self employed so not an issue for me but as a Lp with a child with Sn’s if I was working for an employer with no flexibility I would just have to claim careers allowance . Then you would complain why don’t lp’s work and sponge off the state.

BojoKilledMyMojo do you understand the difference between need and want?

Do you need flexibility due to caring responsibilities for your elderly or disabled or terminally or chronically ill family member? Then put in a flexible working request. You are as entitled to flexible working as someone with caring responsibilities for children. As entitled means that your employer can pretty easily turn your request down if it is "not in the interest of the business". This is the same for parents.

Do you want flexibillity because you think it isn't fair that a parent you know, or theoretical parents who might exist have it? Do you want it because you see it as a luxuary and you want to grab it because nobody should have anything you don't have? Do you want flexibility because you want to sleep in and work late or start at 6am and finish at 2pm? Put in a flexible working request if you want, you never know your luck... but you don't need it, you just want it, so of course you're not the priority if only some employees can work flexibly.

I think YANBU. As a parent and a teacher myself I have thankfully never had to call in a favour at work related to my children as we have a nanny. I have seen many of my colleagues get time off for child related issues that other staff would not receive.

flexible working requests would generally be for a longer period of time rather than one off's.
I have no kids and over the years have been given time off for taking cat to vets, asked to leave early when my mum was down in london, left early for trains etc, in later after dentist, worked at home when something needed fixing.

Thats due to having good employers and give and take.

Where do you think workers come from?! You all started off as children and you had parents who brought you up as well as working (usually). Most non parents will one day be parents. Parenting is a huge responsibility and one that keeps the human race going. When you're old and infirm the chances are you'd rather be looked after by someone who had a decent childhood and a good parental bond, as the quality of care is likely to be far higher. So give the parents in your workplace a break and reap the benefits of their parenting in decades to come.

There is flexibility and flexibility. Before children, I was in roles where I had the flex to work from home, go to appointments workout taking leave. However, I worked bloody long hours and was hungry to progress. Now, I need much more flexibility and at the moment, my employer is being brilliant. My requirements for flexible working are very different than when I didn’t have children. Everyone should have the right to request flexible working. For annual leave, I don’t think there should be a blanket priority for parents and everyone should get a fair shot but I do think Christmas Day is tricky. That is the one day I probably would prioritise parents of young children but then you risk others never getting Christmas off or perhaps missing out on a last Christmas with a relative etc.

Mothers, specifically, generally suffer career wise if they make the slightest concession to having children.

Fathers tend to be treated as heros if they put parenting before work occassionally...

A mother who asks for Christmas off or takes time off with a sick child is usually regarded as a "mummy martyr" or a "part timer" or uncommitted. A mother who asks for flexible working or part time hours is usually seen as no longer career minded.

If parents - especially female ones - are granted flexibility for childcare there is usually a very hefty price to their career.

I have no more flexibility than my peers who dont have kids but I HAVE to leave on time to collect him.

Poeple need to stop starting early, working through lunch breaks and staying late, if we all had kids what would happen? Many people I know without kids dont stay late etc.

But yes employers do need to be more flexible but they cant keep expecting to stop their lives for a job every night.

This is probably not the best place to voice these opinions OP. However I do understand what you mean.

I worked in the same room as the events department. One of the managers was very clear that she couldn't do some weekend/evening events because she had a child, and palmed off all the events on the junior colleague who didn't have kids. The junior colleague used to get very angry at the lack of fairness, especially since she was paid less, to do more. She missed birthdays, nights out on weekends with her friends etc because her spare time was deemed less important than the manager's. The junior colleague then left.

Funnily enough later on, when they were trying to replace the junior colleague, the manager said she didn't want to hire anyone with children because she didn't want someone who was unable to host all the events - the SAME events she couldn't go to herself.

So give the parents in your workplace a break and reap the benefits of their parenting in decades to come.

I am a working mum (of 4...), but these very entitled statements really make me cringe.

Everyone needs and deserves the same breaks and flexibility. Enough with making parents feel like second class citizens, but equally, we must stop pretending non-parents should be treated like that.

It depends where you work really. Most places have been fair, I did used to work somewhere though where you couldn't take anytime off at Christmas, summer holidays, or Easter because those with children took priority; which okay I get, but I wanted time off with friends and family too sometimes. Also I had to take DB to medical appointments as no one else could, even if I was leaving 30 mins before the end of the shift it had to be taken as leave, no option to make it up during the week as everyone else had. It does get grating, and any additional work, weekend working, evening working, travel based work got given to me which also got teedious. Thankfully others have been different.

My workload and my husband's are exactly the same as everyone else's, we have a young child and no childcare sure to the pandemic how are we being treated favourably? My organisations policies around annual leave, medical appointments etc apply to everybody in the same way. No one is allowed to book Christmas leave before it is agreed as a team, having children does not give priority to this or school holiday leave and I work in the public sector! I would be allowed to use toil to go to a Nativity play for example but I could also use it to take an extended lunch, get my hair done , go for a swim. The time is agreed or not without you giving a reason

So give the parents in your workplace a break and reap the benefits of their parenting in decades to come

Not sure if this is serious or not

Flexible working is a request anyone can make to their employer. It’s up to individuals to request it if they need it.

But your request is far more likely to be granted if you are a parent. IME anyway.

I agree with @AllIMissNowIsTheSea in that it seems sensible to grant those with greatest need the flexibility they require ahead of those who would just like more flexibility. It extends far beyond having young children (although this is probably the most common scenario that most employees will encounter at some point) and encompasses people that need additional flexibility to care for family members or as a result of their own health conditions.

For lots of people, their need for flexibility will ebb and flow as they pass through the different stages of life and they may move from being young and relatively responsibility free to becoming parents, carers for their own parents and then becoming older themselves and face the potential health challenges this can present. It's incredibly selfish and shortsighted to demand the absolute same level of flexibility for everybody at all times as it will inevitably mean that those in most need will receive less flexibility. For all you know, someone without children could end up needing more flexibility over the course of their career than someone with kids who needs a great deal when their children are young.

'For annual leave, I don’t think there should be a blanket priority for parents and everyone should get a fair shot but I do think Christmas Day is tricky. That is the one day I probably would prioritise parents of young children but then you risk others never getting Christmas off or perhaps missing out on a last Christmas with a relative etc.'

This is completely unfair. Why should parents with young children take priority? I could argue that they see there children every day whether parents with university aged children only see them in the holidays so they should have Christmas off to spend time with them whilst they can. And how young are you talking? Because actually you to a certain age a child has no clue about Christmas and it is really for the parents. And even for afew years after that a child might understand the concept of Christmas but not understand dates so it would be easy for a parents to 'push back' Christmas to another day and the child would be none the wiser. No one has more priority to time off at any time than anyone else.

Everyone should have Christmas off on a fair rota. E.g. they work it every other year/once every three years etc depending on the needs of the workplace. If something happens like a dying relatives last Christmas which can't be planned for as it comes out of nowhere then the person with said relative has every right to explain the situation to a colleague and ask to swap shifts that year (probably in exchange for them working that colleagues next Christmas shift) however that colleague has every right to say no for whatever reasons they want. Management should not get involved because, despite how horrible the situation is, it would unfairly leave someone else having to work more Christmas's.

Flexibility is a pretty new idea.

Even 10 years ago taking time off for emergency child related reasons, asking for a later start time to accommodate school drop offs was frowned upon. I got told to find another job when I was 5 minutes late one day (despite working my lunch hour and until 7pm most evenings) as I clearly couldn't manage being a mother and working; on another occasion when my DC was a baby and our nanny called to say he was unwell, my employer said I shouldn't go home because what was I paying a nanny for? So parents have historically had it pretty hard. I've been openly asked about children in interviews, passed over for promotion or other opportunities because I was a mother and it was assumed I couldn't cope or wasn't interested, paid less than male colleagues (who were of course feted for anything child related they did and allowed to leave early for school sports day whereas I had to take it as annual leave).

It does boil my piss a bit sometimes when my colleagues with young children play the parent card at any given opportunity, take maximum advantage of every last drop of flexibility that exists, because 20 years ago when I was a young single parent it was completely different - I had to work harder just to rebut the presumption that I was going to expected an easy ride. That said, I think those who are sensible do appreciate the efforts employers make to ensure the flexibility required by parents is provided, and the fact it hasn't always been like this.

I understand OP. I worked in education admin about ten years ago and asked to drop my hours to term time only/term time plus 2. The first thing my manager said was: “Why? You haven’t got children!” My reply? “And? If I want to spend the holidays sat on my couch doing nothing then that’s MY decision.” It was actually because I was paid a crap wage and hated having to be there in the holidays, they were so inflexible that they wouldn’t even let me move my lunch by 15 minutes.

People who were parents were allowed to leave to pick up etc. One even admitted to me that her husband could do it as he worked evenings but if the school called then she would leave. AFAIK, the hours didn’t have to be made up.

I actually agree op. In 2 of my old workplaces i was sick to death ofbeing asked to cover extra shifts all the time for spurious reasons like "oh my kid has an assembley ive known about for 2 weeks" or them calling in sick on vitally important inspection days because they had to go to school for something instead of arranging school meetings around work same as appointments. But what really got my goat was the demand for every holiday off. Oh its ok you dont have kids so you dont need to celebrate christmas or easter.