To be narked by this woman’s attitude? Working parents v child free employees

[SJaneS49]

Not a biggie, at the moment I’ve got a lot going on in the background and am generally hacked of with the world .. but this response has generated a real ‘oh ffs’ reaction in me just now.

Expectations of working parents, especially women as typically (but not obviously always ) we have to date carried more of the childcare burden and been the ones taking the compromises has always been of interest to me & something I think we have got wrong in Britain. I posted something on LinkedIn earlier about how society expects parents to work as if they don’t have children and to parent as if they don’t work. Until I started working from home 14 years ago, that was my experience as a professional working in London, working all hours in the office while also being the sole parent at home, getting in about 7.30/8pm & going straight into helping out with homework.

So I put out a question on LinkedIn, asking parents if their recent experience of working in the new normal had changed what they themselves would be looking for in their next role in terms of flexibility of hours worked when or where they carried out their work. Plenty of employers are currently offering flexibility..but are pretty woolly & vague on what the expectations will be in the longer term. Quite possibly as a number haven’t really worked that out themselves yet! As well as interesting me on a personal level, as I advise my clients on how to make their roles more attractive, I wanted to gauge what changes 2020/21 had made to attracting candidates who if they were parents might not now (having experienced the opportunity to be more ‘present’) want to go back to how it was. Potentially!

Anyway. I have had a reply from someone who is child free who I worked with on a project years ago basically saying special measures should not be made for parents and therefore burdening their childless colleagues. Flexibility if it was being offered should be for all.

While I completely agree with her that parents should not be offered special measures or more flexible options than others, I wasn’t suggesting that at all! Which has me wondering whether this would read like this to others? This particular woman seems to spend a lot of her time writing ranty comments on LinkedIn posts judging by my feed so feeling a bit 🙄 about implications made in her post that the child free ‘carry’ more workload than working parents.

Basically, is she being a knob? Or was it fair enough! Just brought back memories of some of the attitudes around years ago of some of the women I worked with, making bitchy comments about women who had to head out at dead on 5 to relieve the childminder.

A couple of people on the thread have now suggested that if childless people want time off then they should consider the possibility that a parent colleague may lose their job and have to go on benefits. I struggle to believe that this is a commonplace occurrence unless the parent’s absence record is already excessive, in which case whilst I have sympathy, it’s not the fault or responsibility of the childless colleague to sacrifice whatever they want the time off, to help keep that person in a job.

I honestly do sometimes feel like parents think their colleagues have unwittingly signed some sort of co-parenting assistance pact to help them balance childcare and working.

@Readyforthegoodlife

I don’t see how anyone can say that every request for flexibility has the same merit. So, say you’re the employer of a lone parent of a young child with severe special needs and they make a request for flexibility. Another employee, with no caring responsibilities, requests the same flexibility because they want to take up a new hobby. You can’t agree to both requests due to business needs. What some pp are saying is that an employer should view both those requests as equally valid. Surely it would be totally unfeeling and inhuman to toss a coin and potentially agree to the hobby request and turn down the parent?! We live in the real world where there IS (and often has to be) a value judgement of one person’s needs being more important than another’s. Unless we are all robots with no human feeling.

What do you mean by ‘flexibility’? Different working hours? The ability to take leave at short notice?

Real flexibility means that the employee still gets their work done. Giving an employee special treatment because they have caring needs and saying you can’t do it for others means that the manager is either a) too lazy to manage lots of flexible workers or b) going to force others to pick up the slack. And the ‘others’ in b) are often the childless ones!

Those child free martyrs make my piss boil... I am going to read the whole thread and respond back as right now I'm working on a world of inequality in this regard, and I'm determined to make that change

@OverTheRubicon

And you haven't answered my question - what if your entire team was made up of lone parents? What would you do then?

That's a straw man argument. How about if every member of my team was in a wheelchair, how would we reach a top shelf? Or is it more likely that there would be a mix of abilities, and we could share out the work?

There would be very few teams that are actually made up of all lone parents. And even if they were, how many would be (a) totally lone parents who didn't share access so always needed Christmas (b) all with young children and (c) in an industry where Christmas cover is critical. It's incredibly unlikely.

Well in that case there’s no issue is there? You can get one of the other people with children (but not lone parents) to cover. So what’s your point exactly? The thread is about when childless people who are in the minority are forced to be the default cover / give priority to coworkers with children.

@AudacityBaby

Love the German policies referred to by PP.

Honestly, I think the solution to all of this is pretty simple. Either we do away with putting staff wellbeing on a hierarchy according to the status of each employee's personal life, or we continue to do it but those at the bottom of the heap are financially compensated for it.

My guess is that if we did this, there'd be complaints from parents about being paid less to do the same job, but if you're doing fewer hours than me and we're both paid the same salary to be full time, then frankly you should be paid less.

@tailendofsummer It does affect childless men too, but in my department there are considerably more women than men. Can't speak for more balanced organisations.

It’s a binary choice. If a job doesn’t require clock watching (as is the case with lots) then flexible working for everyone is very possible. The manager just can’t be arsed to manage.

If the job DOES require clock-watching and you want to be ‘flexible’ then you’re asking for the same pay and promotion opportunities for less work. Whether you’re a carer or whatever is not the concern of your colleagues.

Reading this thread, I'm so glad that I work in an industry where roster clerks have to be scrupulously fair and where the union reps challenge any breach of the agreements.

There's no weighing up of who is more deserving of leave, block weeks are allocated by rotation (you can mutually swap weeks if not convenient and the other person agrees), individual leave days are first come: first served.

Luckily we only need a tiny handful of staff in for a few hours apiece on Christmas Day/Boxing Day, and volunteers are well rewarded.

Those child free martyrs make my piss boil...

I'm very much hoping that's meant to be tongue-in-cheek/ironic and that you aren't actually saying that the childfree should just suck up having to pick up the slack for other people time after time.

[quote Readyforthegoodlife]@RedMarauder in the size of company where I’m a manager they wouldn’t need telling, it would be obvious.[/quote]
It may be obvious you have given time off for an employee to do a "hobby" but not every employee tells the truth to their colleagues about their health issues.

So the single parent can complain but you just point out you cannot divulge person information about another employee to them.

And you would feel absolutely fine about that? I bring it up because as a manager in the past I’ve been faced with a similar type of situation. You can ‘not divulge personal information’ but people can make a very accurate educated guess. it’s a real dilemma.
As an aside, in my experience, people don’t keep health conditions a secret, I’m often amazed at how much detail is shared of often incredibly personal stuff. But maybe that’s just my industry.

So what happens when the child free had to accept being treated the same as everyone else when they had children, but when children are finally out of the house, they are expected to be flexible for everyone else?

What about when the person worked FT all through the years of having kids, and reach a,point if struggling to continue to do so and reach a point they can afford to go PT. Should they be told no, you have to continue FT so that a new mum can go down to 3 days because she doesn't want to pay for childcare?

It's really sad that working mothers should think their needs trump everyone else. You don't know everything about your coworkers, and even less their past.

Just plain entitled and selfish.

@DdraigGoch

Reading this thread, I'm so glad that I work in an industry where roster clerks have to be scrupulously fair and where the union reps challenge any breach of the agreements.

There's no weighing up of who is more deserving of leave, block weeks are allocated by rotation (you can mutually swap weeks if not convenient and the other person agrees), individual leave days are first come: first served.

Luckily we only need a tiny handful of staff in for a few hours apiece on Christmas Day/Boxing Day, and volunteers are well rewarded.

This is the fairest way. If nobody wants tô work a certain day - pay more for it 😂 then it’s fair not expect some default people to pick up the slack!

That’s the thing that really rankles. Being the default person as if your life isn’t important because you don’t have kids.

I don’t think many of us mind covering in absolute emergencies but when it happens all the time, or people get shitty with you for wanting time off at Christmas/school holidays it gets on your nerves.

@marieantoinehairnet

Those child free martyrs make my piss boil... I am going to read the whole thread and respond back as right now I'm working on a world of inequality in this regard, and I'm determined to make that change

Eh?

@Readyforthegoodlife

And you would feel absolutely fine about that? I bring it up because as a manager in the past I’ve been faced with a similar type of situation. You can ‘not divulge personal information’ but people can make a very accurate educated guess. it’s a real dilemma. As an aside, in my experience, people don’t keep health conditions a secret, I’m often amazed at how much detail is shared of often incredibly personal stuff. But maybe that’s just my industry.

And you would feel absolutely fine about that?

Yes.

My job is to retain the best staff for my project without getting the business in legal hot water.

Though to be fair I work in an industry area where in most cases we can be pretty flexible as work can be done remotely.

@Readyforthegoodlife
However, in the scenario above, would you be prepared as a real life manager to face the parent and tell them that their request has been refused (which might well mean that they have to give up work and go on benefits). But, that the other person’s request has been approved.
Feelings always come into it and there is a moral element without a doubt.

I literally don't care. I mean, sure I'm usually friendly with my coworkers but i don't see a constant need to ALWAYS come second to their wishes. I mean, as a woman (with children FWIW, but now they are older suddenly i don't "have a family" to do things with, apparently) i have to fight to get anything like the perks/promotions the men get. I am not prepared for others not to put in the work that i have to get where they want to be.

I have constantly, here and in RL, said: i really don't mind if they want more flexibility, not to do last-minute-overtime, time off for sick kids* and so on and so on. But i do not then expect the whinging and moaning that i have heard (on here and in RL) about their lack of opportunity.

*as an aside in Germany: sick leave for children (under 10 i think) is 10 days per child per parent

I can see both sides.

As someone who does not have kids I don't have to rush home to look after someone or come in a little later, to allow me to drop someone off at school, so I don't mind being a little flexible about staying later every now and then.

But sometimes it can be frustrating.

In some work situations other people's children can have a big impact on your life. They can dictate when you use your annual leave and your working hours (both as to when and how much you work), and that can be very frustrating.

Yes parents need to flexibility but I also believe that flexibility should be afforded to everyone and not just parents

The parents in my workplace were discussing the future of flexi/WFH working last week, and their preference OP is as follows.

Either they be allowed to work reduced hours around childcare on full pay, as childcare is v expensive, or the government pays the childcare bill for them so that they can choose their hours without the duress of financial constraints.

Someone else pointed out that they’d like this applied to their rent, and the response was that they are raising the next generation and with the declining birth rate they deserve more respect and help than the government gives them.

Just some more data for your survey, OP…

I have never understood all this nonsense about childfree people feeling hard done by, by parents. Before I had my son I wasn't at all bothered if a colleague left early to go to a nativity play or whatever. I felt sorry for them, thinking of a load of tuneless children "singing" etc.

But I guess it depends if you are then asked to do their work as well as your own. I don't remember having to do that, although I might have taken a message for them if someone called, or dealt with an urgent query.

However, I agree that employers should not be making value judgments on who should get leave or flexibility - in my view it's whoever asks first, gets it. So if you are a parent and need the school holidays off, you need to be organised and book early.

Either they be allowed to work reduced hours around childcare on full pay, as childcare is v expensive, or the government pays the childcare bill for them so that they can choose their hours without the duress of financial constraints

Ha ha. In my view you should get tax relief on childcare and maternity pay for one child (or multiples) and then you pay for your own.