To think work isn’t compatible with being a mum

[Ori1]

Not until they’re about 6. The system as it is requires women to basically do the hardest job going (birthing/parenting through the early years) and work a job. I do both, and quite honestly it’s a fucking shitshow - I’m permanently tired, I feel like a Jack of all trades & a master of none, I also feel like a fraud at work because I’m constantly comparing myself to colleagues who don’t have kids & who seem to have boundless enthusiasm/energy.

I just think the way society is does nothing to benefit women and everything to complement men. Why don’t women get any slack whilst doing the most important job there is; why haven’t we thought of ways. they can be more supported so they don’t have to work during the early years and raise a family?

If employers had to give 6 years mat leave (longer if you have more than one child), they wouldn't hire women

If child benefit was high enough to support you staying at home for 6 years plus, then we would all have to pay ££ tax

The solution is affordable/ free childcare and, in a 2 parent home, both parents pulling their weight

The "Mr with his Big Job" and "Mrs with her part time school hours job" approach does the rest of us no favours. For as long as many Important Men have women holding the fort at home, they will continue to say that you have to eg work late to be taken seriously

When more men are leaving work promptly to collect kids from childminder, then we will start to see more equality

@SarahDippity I appreciate that’s your personal situation but you must realise there’s many people with children that also can, and do, do those things. There’s a huge scale of income and wealth in the UK and it’s wrong to say having children means you can’t have any of the things you listed.

Being a mum is not the most important job. I hate this attitude and it frankly does nothing for equality.

And it’s very alienating to women who don’t or can’t have children.

I'm glad you still feel this was the right choice now your children are older - this is exactly the set-up we have now with a 4 year old and a 1 year old and generally feel it's working well but still good to hear from someone with experience!

I understand why it's hard for many couples to share as equally as this, and that lots don't want to, but I do think it's a shame it doesn't happen more often.

Indeed what about the men ?

Why do they not find that their career impacted by their parenting and housekeeping responsibilities?

Let's start there for change within society.

I'm a single parent. When I had my first child (24yrs ago) I could have had income support until my child turned 12 and had no pressure to work from the government. Over the years it's dropped lower and lower until you're expected to be looking for work after your child is about a year old.

Regardless on how you feel about this from a benefits view point I think it does represent the shift in expectation from society as a whole towards raising children. Children are very much an inconvenience to our society, it seems they should be raise away from the home so parents can work and add to the economy. Sadly this expectation isn't given support through adequate funding of early years provision.

I think investment in early years should be there through financial support for a parent to spend time home until a child starts school - if that is their choice - or that same financial support to go towards early years child care. While it is a choice to have children they are also the next generation of our society who will be looking after us when we retire so investment from society should be in place.

You’re not wrong OP. This is why I started my own company, so I could set my own rules around working.
and now I employ three other mums with school age children, on a part-time flexible hours basis, with 8 weeks holiday a year so they can cover the majority of school holidays without extra cost.

" Less nagging"
WTAF!!
Nice bit of internalised misogyny there.

yeah it's especially hard but it does get easier once they get to 7/8 (still not easy!). Because it's tough working with kids. And oftentimes not only are women expected to work, raise kids etc but also to do all the shit that comes with running a home, cleaning, organising etc and the entire mental load too with little support from fathers.

IME it gets more difficult once they turn 6 as then you have the inflexibility of school including those homework projects like building a 3D bridge or a model of a garden

What is this “support” that people want - how will “recognition of the benefit of SAHP” be achieved? In monetary terms, I assume? As a state benefit?

Have you seen the funding crisis for existing services? Do you vote at general elections for parties that will increase taxes?

Being a working parent is hard and exhausting. We all agree. But we already have maternity leave for 12 months (which can be shared parental leave now) - yes women need to recover from birth and breastfeeding can only be done by women but it is possible to work and breastfeed past 6 months (much harder before that) and there’s no reason at all, biologically or psychologically, that a father can’t be as bonded and committed a caregiver 1-1 in the early years. All the studies show is that a caregiver 1-1 is better for children under about 2-3, then nursery shows great outcomes. That caregiver does not have to be the mother.

I think raising children should be valued by society - but it isn’t ignored. As a PP points out, you can accrue child benefit as NI contributions securing state pension until your child is 12. That’s putting a status on it as ‘work’. Until your child is 3+ and eligible for state-funded childcare you can claim benefits without a work-seeking requirement- that’s recognising parenting as ‘work’.

Women in the workplace feel disproportionately judged and effected by parenting. That’s what makes it harder for mothers than fathers. Any guilt is socially constructed - men don’t have as much of it simply because society gives them a free pass. We need to tackle that. And we won’t do that by making it “easier for mothers not to work during the early years and raise a family”. We’ll do it by making sure fathers take their share of the early years parenting and demand flexibility in their jobs and make themselves more visible as working parents.

@ snoredoevre Is it not obvious that when both partners are stressed and feel they have too much on their plate, they can easily resort to 'nagging', blaming, being less kind and supportive? For many couples, taking the pressure off, be that by reducing/giving up working hours/buying in help/leaning on family/networks will allow them to be Kinder to each other, and their dc. Some people might be able to handle stress and pressure on all fronts and remain calm saints, but most commentators on mumsnet don't even manage to be kind to each other, so I would wager a guess that there is quite a good amount of discontent going on in their personal relationships - except maybe mumsnet is their way of letting it all out, fair enough 😀

When I was very small, pre school, in the 1960's I remember going to free nurseries. My mother kept having nervous breakdowns so i was sent to nursery to be looked after for most of the day. I think she did a bit of cleaning for pin money too.
Does anyone else remember free nurseries in the 60's?

What is not compatible is having the woman taking the whole responsibility of raising the children, house chores and work full time while the husband just goes to work and plays with the kids for a total of 2.3 hours a week.

I don’t think this is going to be sorted by any policy or legislation but by showing with our own example as mothers what a 50/50 spread of responsibility is.

There’s no point of talking about equality when what both our boys and girls are observing at home is that mum’s job is to slow her career to do everything for the family while dad gets an easy life.

Not all mothers have a choice. I was widowed with two babies - I had to go out to work to support them. And even if there had been prolonged maternity leave, I would have then needed retraining. As a hospital doctor in anaesthesia and critical care, I couldn’t have been let loose on patients while out of date and rusty.
Yes, being a working (single) mother is tiring, but one just has to get on with it. They grow up eventually and you get your life back.

We need to support working mums at all levels of pay grade

Of course there is round the clock top quality childcare available. But at a price. Our local nursery which is just about affordable shuts at 6 and I cant always get there by then and the baby room was pretty scruffy and the girls working there pretty unbothered and unhelpful. We have a nanny instead which not worth it really as one of us might as well stay at home but doing it because it's an investment in my kids future and also I really like going to work.

Ideas that might help improve the situation:

-equal paid paternity leave (separate to the mother's leave, not shared). So that those who chose to could care for their child at home between them for the first 2 years

• statutory right to take a further unpaid career break and return to your position, for each parent (2 years?)

Totally agree

@NellyBarney Your set up sounds very nice and comfortable. Out of reach for a lot of people though.

Young children are tiring anyway (lovely as well of course!) but pretty full on .Add a FT job into the mix and you are pretty shattered. Many women work but often are tired too .I also think some women (and men!) tend to be type A people who can multi task with ease ,the type who got A grades with ease ,ran the hockey team and so on .Many (inc me)! need rest and a less full on lifestyle .Can you drop to PT at all? Maybe downsize .Society has evolved to expect women to work outside the home ,increasing Taxpayers at a stroke making lots of dosh for Mr J and his govt .Feminism was supposed to be about choices .Now it is very few women who have an option to stay at home .Very sad .

I always worked from a few months in, and late into pregnancy. But actually I agree with you, OP. It's bloody difficult and often stressful when they're small. And don't even get me started on childcare, which can be pretty variable, and definitely expensive (from the parents viewpoint, out of post tax salary).

This^

Lovely post.

Being TATT is a rite of passage for mums who don't work during the early years. Adding work into the mix adds further risks on top of being TATT.

I'm not one, but from what I see being a full-time SAHM to preschool children is pretty tiring in itself - and doesn't seem to be a magic key to marital bliss, either! I know some really happy SAHMs but also some very knackered and resentful ones. I'm not sure that there is an 'easy' way to do the early years, really. Being a SAHP to school-age children does look bloody lovely, though...

They can be, by a good husband, if we prioritise it, or get very lucky.