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.

The issue with having childcare commitments is that unless you are earning enough to afford a live in nanny (and therefore have a house big enough to accommodate them) you are tied to your planned childcare hours - although with notice it might be possible to make additional arrangements.

The same does apply to other caring commitments but there is more scope for arrangements not to be tied entirely to the ⁷.45 - 6/6.30pm hours that exist for all but a very few (hospital linked) nurseries.

As for the Christmas period and bank holidays, for people without family support there might well be no legal childcare options, regardless of budgetary constraints! Given the big push for people to move away from support networks to get jobs, it's foreseeable that people might not have unusual hours childcare available to them.

I've had to limit my job options severely because having moved away from family we cannot sustain two jobs which require weekend working, and DH already works some weekends (standard for his profession). So many jobs now ask for full flexibility including weekends (on zero hours/minimum wage) that parents are severely limited.

The other problem is that culturally, in a business type (legal, consulting, accountancy) role working 4 days a week/80% generally leads to doing almost as much work as those on a 5 day contract just over 4 days.

DH has worked many Christmases over the years, now he runs the rota. For some people working odd scattered days between Christmas and New Year works well, (brief escape from family staying, splitting time off with other parents), for others, often child free or single and living a long way from family it would be better to have a good chunk of time to travel - we always prefer to travel avoiding the peak travel days. Either way he discusses the situation with those involved and does his best to balance the various preferences, although everyone does have to take a turn with the "big" holidays.

Yes work-life balance should be for all. Contrary to what some seem to believe, life without children is still life!

Parent attending a child sports day is no more important on a societal level than a non parent attending their french class, arguably the french class is more important here as money will be lost out on if it's not attended.
That's not a good comparison as sports day is once a year per child - missing the french class final assessment would be a better comparison. Sports day doesn't come in a block of 10 instalments.
Parents obviously get something out of attending these events too but they are primarily for the child, who wants to have someone there to cheer them on and notice them. My (current) lack of work life balance isn't primarily a choice between things I want /things work wants from me but between things work wants from me and things my dc want from me. And that leads to the feeling of being pulled in 2 directions (to the point of tearing, some times).
I think we all work too hard, actually.

When childcare isn't physically available - Christmas day for example, what are people suggesting lone parents do? Its ridiculous to suggest child free people need the same flexibility

I think they just need to tell their kids that said kids are a lifestyle choice and then leave them at home on their own on days when there's no daycare.

Pretty much everything we do in life is the result of a choice we've made.

If you're a lone parent with absolutely no available help, this is something you're presumably aware of when you take on a job which requires you to work at times outside of the standard nursery hours.

Ideally, this would be a discussion with some compromise somewhere between the individual and the employer. What gets people's backs up is when the individual just expects that it shouldn't be their problem to solve.

@Willyoujustbequiet So I'm supposed to work at Christmas to support your choice to have children?
Why should I? They're not my children, therefore not my problem.
You chose to have children, it doesn't give you a free pass over every one else.

Some non parents get a bit weird about it all, like you just mentioning your parenting commitments is some unacceptable act. I usually think there's issues for them when they do. Like maybe infertility or something. Having legal responsibility for a child isn't really like anything else and it's ok to discuss the particular logistic/practical problems that involves in the context of working and providing for your family. But it does seem to bend some folks out of shape.

I spent years when my DC were young trying to make a career and "working as though you're not a parent" but some times i had to miss things, mostly fun bonding evenings out but sometimes team building weekends etc. Got called a fun sponge for asking that at least some of the dinners be moved to lunchtime. 10 years later when one young woman in particular had got married and had a PFB and suddenly it was all "wah wah wah I'm missing out because of going on ML, part-time, having to be home, it's ok for you, you don't have small kids"

when in the background, as our boss knew, i had been fighting for her promotion despite ML and part-time, and reiterating my earlier pleas to have at least some functions moved to lunchtime. was she grateful or did she even thank me? not a bit of it. She also made a song and dance when i requested particulr individual days off for exams (I was studying and working full time at one point) because - well, no reason as it happens.

And it is that kind of entitlement that makes people cross. Yes, dear, you've had a baby. Millions of us have. But if you don't advocate for parents until it suits you, don't expect everyone to smile and indulge you.

And now caring for elderly parents is becoming a New Big Thing (it isn't but people are finally taking note) the same will happen: those who don't see a need will bitch and moan until they need it.

It was ever thus. A good employer ignores all that and makes good, fair decisions.

I do always think that the 'people with children can have Christmas and people without can have New Year' that's often suggested as a compromise is shit and unfair on people without children. There has never been a point in my life where I'd rather work at Christmas that New Year's Eve and I can't imagine that there are many people who would for more than, perhaps, a very short period in their early 20s. I also don't get the point upthread about little children needing to have Christmas on the right day - very little children don't know either way and once they're old enough to know the date they're old enough to understand that we're having our Christmas on Christmas Eve so mum is here for it or whatever.

@Willyoujustbequiet you choose a job that means you don't have to work Christmas Day.

There are child free people who are carers of older children and adults.

So you should expect the same flexibility you want may apply to other people regardless of whether they have their own children or not.

When i was in the army anyone with children was given priority for Christmas, anyone without was assumed to want to go to a New Years piss up and it was a real struggle to make anyone understand that my parents wanted to see me too (mostly due to my dad having always been away for Christmas with the army when i was growing up). Best bit, of course, for female soldiers was that at the time we were out on our ear before 12 weeks of pregnancy so we'd never get priority for our own offspring. But that's a side issue.

Aye exactly. If you don't pick your kid up it's a £25 late fee and a referral to the welfare officer if it's bad/persistent. Someone's got to look after the kids.

I paid THROUGH THE NOSE to make sure i had someone to pick up my DCs if my DH couldn't do it (mostly he couldn't) because i sure as hell couldn't get back in time. As pp have said: it's only a short time. Suck it up like the rest of us did.

And yes, someone who loves their garden who wants to make the most of the daylight should absolutely be given flexibility as much as someone who wants to watch their offspring wobble down the egg and spoon race course.

What won't help anyone is (even seemingly, as OP seems to have done on LinkedIn) is to pitch parent against non-parent, or carer against non-carer. We are all human and our lives are as important to us as everyone else's are.

How it currently seems to work in my team is that the parents start very early (we're all pretty much still working from home all the time) and finish at a reasonable time, and those with no children start later and finish later. Except for the absolute career driven woman with primary aged children who works until 3, does child stuff until 7 then works until past midnight. But she'll be a partner next year and she thinks it's worth putting the time in.

When childcare isn't physically available - Christmas day for example, what are people suggesting lone parents do? Its ridiculous to suggest child free people need the same flexibility

Not a problem that your child free work colleagues have to cater for.

@DillonPanthersTexas

When childcare isn't physically available - Christmas day for example, what are people suggesting lone parents do? Its ridiculous to suggest child free people need the same flexibility

Not a problem that your child free work colleagues have to cater for.

I very much hope, then, that 'child free work colleagues' and the like are happy to pay for benefits for the many parents (mostly women, many lone parents) who wouldn't be able to work without some level of flexibility.

I very much hope, then, that 'child free work colleagues' and the like are happy to pay for benefits for the many parents (mostly women, many lone parents) who wouldn't be able to work without some level of flexibility.

I very much hope that parents in the office would more readily accept that childfree people have commitments and responsibilities outside the workplace too. Like others here I have been in far too many work places where it is assumed without even asking that you have nothing going on in your life and therefore should by default come in early, work late and only get the crumbs from the holiday calendar.

so feeling a bit 🙄 about implications made in her post that the child free ‘carry’ more workload than working parents

But throughout the pandemic, this was sometimes the case. And I'm not talking about the double load of work and domestic/caring responsibilities undertaken by parents in lockdowns.

There were at least two threads in here about overt discrimination against those without children and in favour of those with children, of workplaces & management which allowed parents to cut their workloads (by up to a half) be paid the same, and expected colleagues without children to pick up that entire extra workload.

It was and is outrageous. And happens more than parents realise, sadly.

In an ideal world, parents shouldn't have to be put in this position. Work should be organised so being a parent is not relevant to one's work. But the workplace was organised around men, with the assumption that they had wives at home dealing with children & domestic arrangements. And these sorts of assumptions about the workplace now are just wrong, and the system is creaking at the seams.

However, everyone has the right to a private domestic family life, whatever their family circumstances.

Really I've had it the other way around. I got sacked when I took maternity leave. That was just the start of being disadvantaged at work and therefore financially by having a child.

I've had a boss who quizzed me heavily about childcare arrangements, implying that I didn't have a robust set up, because I took a call (and I do mean one single phone call) from the childminder during working hours. Another who went on a petty targeted campaign about NO EATING AT DESKS EVER EATING IS FOR LEISURE TIME after I spent my lunch break running around doing jobs about town that I literally couldn't fit in any other time and returned to my desk (in an office with one other person in, with the boss's adjoining it) with a sandwich that I ate quietly, in bites, for a couple of minutes when I sat back down. Oh my word that guy. And then the one that only grudgingly agreed to me taking unpaid leave after I'd used up all existing leave when DS had a spell of ill health and was in and out of hospital and off school for months.

But yeah in the end I guess it was my choice to have a child and also my choice to work for arseholes.

We all have horror stories. I was fired when pregnant. I had to take my DCs to the office on a Saturday for quarterly closing (nearly got fired for being disorganized although only told on leaving Friday at 9pm that I'd be expected in next day), had holiday denied so parents could have holidays - this getting no holiday with DH who had to take his during factory shutdown, etc etc

What we should all be doing is too fight for better conditions (flexibility) for all of us.

@Tailendofsummer

Parent attending a child sports day is no more important on a societal level than a non parent attending their french class, arguably the french class is more important here as money will be lost out on if it's not attended. That's not a good comparison as sports day is once a year per child - missing the french class final assessment would be a better comparison. Sports day doesn't come in a block of 10 instalments. Parents obviously get something out of attending these events too but they are primarily for the child, who wants to have someone there to cheer them on and notice them. My (current) lack of work life balance isn't primarily a choice between things I want /things work wants from me but between things work wants from me and things my dc want from me. And that leads to the feeling of being pulled in 2 directions (to the point of tearing, some times). I think we all work too hard, actually.

The trouble is, it isn't just 1 sports day a year. It's sports day, prize giving, Nativity, 3 other random events during the year, 10 times the child feels anything other than perfectly well (this can last more than 1 day each time. Then double up this for more than 1 child, especially if they are at different schools. Then double it again for the OTHER parent in your team of 3.

I don't honestly care whether it's for the parent's sake or the child's, it just means yet another day I work late to get a job finished on time because somebody else can't finish their share of it. Another day off for me cancelled at very short notice whatever plans I have .

Do I sound bitter? Well yes, because I am. 40 years of always being last can really sour a person's view. On the other hand, I currently work in a team where 2 people have school age kids and though we very rarely have any urgent stuff that HAS to be finished that day, we are all pretty flexible with each other. Probably because they don't think it's their right to always come first.

What we should all be doing is too fight for better conditions (flexibility) for all of us.

Hear, hear, @Brefugee !!

@Willyoujustbequiet

When childcare isn't physically available - Christmas day for example, what are people suggesting lone parents do? Its ridiculous to suggest child free people need the same flexibility

The same thing they would do if every other member of their team was a lone parent! Flexibility means the business allowing you to shift hours as long as there’s mutually agreed cover. Not deciding you’re the most important and dumping the work on other people.

IMO if the same person isn’t allowed to take any time off the festive period then the others have to ‘pay’ them in extra annual leave.

Also - since when did ‘flexibility’ become a byword for ‘everything my way’?
Flexibility works BOTH ways. If you ask for accommodation you give something back. You can’t just take, take take your life circumstances aren’t your colleagues’ problems.

I’ve worked with lots of people with flexible schedules and with the hardworking ones I knew no matter how much time off etc I gave them work always got done to an appropriate standard. If not possible it was passed to a colleague with clear instructions and they were always happy to make it up. Most people TBF were like this.
The entitled ones just came up to me, demanded and expected me to just give it to them. No solution, no expectation of getting their work done at all. When I did give them time off you guessed it work got dumped.

@Willyoujustbequiet

When childcare isn't physically available - Christmas day for example, what are people suggesting lone parents do? Its ridiculous to suggest child free people need the same flexibility

No, it really isn't. One of your other posts quite rightly mentioned other caring responsibilities. Childfree people are just as likely to have ageing parent care responsibilities, for example - or responsibilities to their own self-care in the case of things like chronic illness. Your earlier post sounded understanding of that, but 'It's ridiculous to suggest child free people need the same flexibility' on the other hand is a really sweeping and inaccurate statement.

Its ridiculous to suggest child free people need the same flexibility

Um, no it's not. Just because some one doesn't have a small child needing childcare, doesn't mean they don't have caring commitments, obligations, or responsibilities.

The reason why the question is still relevant to childfree people is that often flexibility in the workplace is limited and NOT available to everyone, and so childfree people would quite rightly like to make the case now that if parents are going to start increasingly demanding flexibility, it will often come at their expense, and therefore they would like those same parents to consider that when forming their opinions on the subject.