AIBU to think that as a society we expect too much from mothers?

[NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting]

The 8 month sleep regression is hitting us hard, so I might be more sensitive than usual as I’m exhausted.

However, as I try and resettle my baby, I can’t help but question how women are expected to do it all. How are women expected to give 100% of themselves to motherhood, 100% in their careers, 100% to trying to maintain a social life/being a person outside of motherhood and 100% of themselves to help running the home. The maths doesn’t add up and I feel like along the way of empowering women, things have changed but to just expecting women to do more than what’s actually manageable.

I think the first issue is the length of maternity leave and how long it’s financially supported (plus the ridiculously little amount maternity pay actually is).
Why can women take up to 12 months off, but only paid for 9 months? One of my arguments for a longer, financially supported maternity leave is that our babies need to get their main source of nutrition from milk for the first 12 months, so why doesn’t society support women being off for that long? There’s probably more arguments in the emotional support of babies being raised by their parents, instead of childcare, but too tired to look into this.
Luckily, we saved enough before having our baby to support me being off for 12 months, but baby needs me right now at 8 months and I can’t imagine putting them into childcare at 9 months, or even earlier.

The other issue I’m struggling to wrap my head around is how I’m expected to go back to work and give 100% whilst trying to be a mother. Parenting is exhausting, relentless and I can’t picture my life where I’m meant to give my all to work whilst trying to give my best to my child. Surely something will have to give, but with the cost of living my career can’t slip as we need me working, so naturally it’s seeing less of my child by working full time and having them be raised and looked after by nursery.

So, AIBU to think that as a society we expect too much from mothers? Surely there’s a better compromise than the current set up of maternity leave and more support from employers towards parents?

Do you have a dp/ dh, op? I'm not asking to be provocative and I do understand much of what you're saying. But women who 'want it all' need partners who will support them to achieve that. The daily grind of work, childcare and housework takes two. Before women get involved with and eventually marry someone, they should be having open conversations about children. If their ambitions and aspirations are incompatible, then one partner inevitably ends up 'settling' or otherwise getting burned out from trying to do it all.

But yes, even if you do have a partner who shoulders much of the burden, there are still many challenges for women. I truly believe that it isn't possible to have it all, every day and every week is about trying to achieve as much balance as possible but it is always an imperfect fit. The choices you make personally can make that easier of course. And things do get easier again once the children are older, the key is to keep your career from stagnating while they're little.

In the UK we're actually pretty fortunate - paid mat leave, shared parental leave, flexible working arrangements, 30 hours of free childcare etc. Compare this to the US.

Women who want to have it all need to make the right personal choices first and foremost. And accept that for a while at least, there is no perfect fit, only best fit.

As for part time work and the impact on pensions / career.

I became a mother in my 30s. My child is now 15, and has a local group of friends I’ve know all through the primary years - and their parents.

Out of 8 mothers, I am the only one who works full time. These kids are 15 - this is not a childcare issue 🤣 We all went back to work, I was 4 days for a year then up to full time again. They all kept their 2,3,4 day contracts permanently. Most are in well paid jobs, two of them are quite senior. Several have been promoted. Several were previously the higher earner. All have husbands (first or second) so have some protection in case of divorce. There is no SEN - they’re all still part time because as a family they can afford it, and they simply bloody love it!

That is only one (very lucky) section of society.
But don’t go around thinking that all women are forced into career-wrecking pension-decimating part time roles because of childcare costs or sleep deprivation. Or because “society” told them to. Some of them are happy as a pig in shit!

Honestly you probably feel like people are hopping on you, and I know you are exhausted. But most of us are a little further down the journey. You can't change teh world but you can change you. And the main thing is make him do half. Even if you don't want to go back to work full time or WFh, do not become the parent who knows everything because you'll be stuck like that. It creeps up on you - you finally send him to the doctor with the kid and he still rings and says 'does she have all her jabs' because you 'know' stuff like that. And so it continues. You are at the very start, you can make that change now! Your OH is a teacher, wonderful. That's all your school holidays sorted. Many women opt for teaching specifically so they can cover the school hols. So tell him to step up. Do not WFH during the school holidays, go into the office footloose and fancy free knowing there is a primary parent in the house. For all those weeks a year you can be the employee who doesn't have to rush off, what freedom! Make sure he does some of the doctor visits, the getting up at night sick, the reading the back of the Calpol box. Hey, even the surfing mumsnet to see what car seat to move up to. If enough people did that then we'd see a change. Good luck. The baby years are horrendous but they pass. And kids are great ;)

While I agree largely with the OP, I do think there has been a large switch in expectations since maternity leave was extended in the UK. I also think the current baby-led trope is somewhat the blame too.
I posted on another thread yesterday about how young mothers are running themselves into the ground to accommodate a baby instead of taking control and trying to get things to work for them. The whole ethos needs to change back to what's best for the mother, not what's best for the baby or we are heading IMO for a mental health crisis. This post sort of illustrates the issues.
The long maternity leave makes things worse, because there is now no hurry to deal with sleep etc as there used to be.
Although the emphasis is on the baby not the mum, new mums are so revered now, as if they have done something special and amazing, that they lose sight that there are many babies born every year. To the family, a new baby is amazing and a joy but to an employer, not so much. They see the new family as one of many.
It is absolutely not the employer's responsibility to fund more time off so women are paid to do the job they are not doing. That's ridiculous.
Social media is also to blame for feeding the line is all about milky cuddles, making memories and mumma bear. It's not.
Women are putting ridiculous expectation upon themselves. Based on social media (including MN) it is implied that it is possible to be a CEO, have a perfect home, be the best mother ever and always be immaculately groomed. It's crazy

Oh I dunno @NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting ! Because women have been talking about this for generations? Because you’ve met another mother before? Because you don’t go around with your head up your arse completely unaware and unempathetic of what other people’s lives are like? 😂

All fair points.

BUT…

When women say, or post on here, that they need more from their baby’s father how many of them mean that they want him to stop work, or take a long leave? How many of them want the father to go part time or not further their career (by which we all just mean: earn more money)?

How many women actually want a SAHD or for dad to be the one that does all of the above, instead of them?

Definitely some! But honestly, if you took 1000 mothers with 12 month old babies and told them they and dad had the same salary and progression opportunities, and 150% earnings was enough - and they could choose to be full time, the only part time 50% parent, or 75% each… how many do you think would choose each?

Personally: we both chose 100% long term and banked the cash, and used childcare.

Interestingly, I work in a European team. Whilst no-one asks the dads if they’re coming back, they don’t ask that of the mums either. They do ask what parental leave they’ll take - when they are German and Swedish. (that’s not a full survey, but from my team, that’s male colleagues who have been off for 2-6 months)

But honestly, if you took 1000 mothers with 12 month old babies and told them they and dad had the same salary and progression opportunities, and 150% earnings was enough - and they could choose to be full time, the only part time 50% parent, or 75% each… how many do you think would choose each?

Oh, interesting. I would think choosing anything but 75% each would be weird in this scenario. Neither of the other options are better, after all?

Not strange at all. We certainly planned on mixed feeding so I would be more than source of food and sustenance for baby, be able to rest and so my partner could experience feeding/baby experience father feeding him and their bond benefit from that.

as it was, I didn’t produce any milk so FF but that was the plan

I never expected to parent 100%.

I'm not a single parent.

I also don't think parents have to do everything themselves. Takes a village and all that.

I think a years mat leave is excessive and would much rather there was better paternity leave

I absolutely don't agree with the parent as if you dont work thing.

It is possible to do both.

I have a great work life balance with time for everything

@NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting it's interesting that the solution you suggest is to make paid ML even longer. In other words, you want to place responsibility for children even more on the mother rather than both parents.

Even with the advances over recent decades, women still lag behind men in earnings, despite the fact that at all levels of education, females outperform males. Suggesting that women have even longer out of the work place would be a retrograde step. It will make things worse for women in the long run.

As I said, I think the balance now is about right. Up to a year's leave is available, childcare is heavily subsidised from age 3 with plans in place to subsidise it from even younger. Mums can transfer leave to the child's father. If you made ML any longer, you'd probably have a situation where women were taking full leave, returning to work for a month or so and then embarking on another ML for child number 2. Businesses can't sustain that. It's not about saying business is more important than children; it's about understanding that for society to function effectively, all aspects need to be considered.

I also think the bf is a red herring, particularly with the length ML is now. Even if you only take the paid 9 months, the child will be on solid food too, not totally dependent on bm. And thousands of women continue bf long term after returning to work anyway. The correlation between education/ social status of the mother and bf is far more significant than whether the mum works. I'm not saying that in a judgemental way, it's just a fact. I worked in a professional role and continued bf when I returned to work with a 12 week old baby, as did many of my colleagues. Conversely, there were women in my hospital ante natal group who didn't return to work and didn't bf. It's disingenuous to use the bf argument as a reason for women not to return to work.

@NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting it does sound like you're feeling overwhelmed right now and god knows, the baby years are tough, but the solution is not to try to heap even more responsibility onto mums. It's to acknowledge that every child has two parents and if you want an equal relationship where earning/caring/housework/cooking is shared, then it's up to you as a couple to make that happen.

Yes, I agree on the whole. I think the issue is that some/a lot of men haven't stepped up in the home to make things more equal, and also arguably employers still make it harder for men to be part time or to work flexibly around kids. There is still an expectation that it will be the woman doing this. Which is also rather heteronormative too. Partly it's because of biology and who becomes the primary carer to start with. But we should really be working towards a society where everyone can do paid work for fewer hours for a good salary and make ends meet. This would allow more people to be economically active whether they are parents, carers, or have disabilities and health conditions. At the moment due to the cost of living crisis, and crisis after crisis meaning the super rich acquire more wealth and everyone else has to make do with less, society is going the wrong way and people are having to do two or three jobs to make ends meet. And what should be good professional jobs such as nursing or teaching have fallen way behind in terms of salaries.

The childcare is a fair point, but how do you finance the rest? And do childless / free people have to retire later?
And it's not anyone else's concern how shared parental leave works out financially.

Tbh, I think the 'shared parental leave doesn't always work out the best financially' is sometimes used as an excuse by mums who simply don't want to hand over any of the leave to the other parent. There have been comments from some posters on other threads actually being quite up front and saying 'no way am I sharing any of my leave.'

Even if financially it might mean a little less money for a few months, tbh, some things are more important than cash. Imagine a scenario where the mum transfers the last 3 months of ML to the dad. Dad gets to fully experience being the sole carer. Mum is eased back into work with the other parent at home, which is undoubtedly easier than getting everyone out the house and starting nursery drop offs at the same time as starting back at work. And, most importantly imo, I suspect that there are long lasting advantages to the family when the dad has had a period of time as the sole carer. When he's had a few months of doing all the caring, making meals, changing nappies, playing, doing to baby classes, he's going to have real insight into the role and is far less likely to slip back into just seeing himself as the 'earner.' It's a win win for the whole family. If transferable leave had been an option when we had kids, we'd have jumped at it, as even if there was a very short term financial downside, I believe the benefits I've described far outweigh any downsides

But you specifically said he can't be tired because he's a teacher!?

Honestly, I think you might be sleepwalking into a situation where he's great at "helping" but you're the one taking on all the actual responsibility and mental load and you'll get more and more stressed as a result.

Where I live parents are entitled to 480 days of paid parental leave when a child is born or adopted. Each parent is entitled to 240 of those days. Fathers average at least around 30 per cent of all paid parental leave. Works well. If need to take days off to care for a sick child, there is compensation and the days are basically unlimited but a doctor’s certificate is required after one week. So there are ways for society to do it, but it’s based on taxes which is absolutely fine.

And childcare/nurseries/schools are basically free as well, nurseries are £80 a month but with very good home cooked food and uni educated staff.

Your mistake is to think someone designed this system. Women have found their way into work by claiming they can do it without detriment to the family unit. There was never a moment where women said 'we are dropping half the domestic load and demand men pick it up' - we said 'modern labour saving devices mean we can manage the house and have a job outside the home'.

No one ever sat and created a system that's best for women and babies as well as men. Men just said 'ok, give it your best shot' but most of them didn't say 'ok, I'll do half the laundry and cleaning then'.

I had a Czech friend who moved home and got a mat leave cover position. I said what would she do after and she said she didn't need to worry as mat leave lasts up to 5 years there and the woman has the right to return after that. You get the same amount of money however long you take off - but can spread it across up to 5 years.

If 5 years was the default then our 9/12 months would look puny, right?

If you're not keen on nursery, childminders can be a good option - home-based care that's more similar to you taking care of the baby.

I'm afraid the stinger comes with school hours which are 9-3.30 ish, it can be a shocker if you're used to wraparound nursery and there aren't enough school breakfast/afterschool club places.

That’s the UK though. It’s absolutely not the norm where I’m from. There are also not many SAHM and I don’t know anyone who would want to tbh, equality means equality both ways.

I agree, OP, and it's part of the reason why women are increasingly voting with their feet when it comes to motherhood.

In the past, women had little control over either their economic situation or their fertility. But if you look at what happens when you give women this control but maintain sexist and outdated societal structures, the birth rate drops dramatically. South Korea, Japan and Italy are arguably even more pertinent examples of this than the UK, and it is viewed as a big problem in these cases with, surprise surprise, single women being condemned as "fussy" and "selfish", including by politicians.

Not to mention that who’s gonna hire women anymore?
There would be fear of after being hired women would just get knocked up, take a long - fully paid leave, maybe come back, realize work is hard/moved on/lost talent, get knocked up again and again just go for a long paid leave.
Who would risk that?

@ilovesooty I’ve no idea what the percentage difference between our taxes and somewhere like Sweden, but if they are similar then surely we could model our society on theirs which seems to work quite well in offering cheap childcare (@Neandertallica mentioned it’s £80 per month there) and longer parental leave which would solve all these issues.

Maybe this is down to me taking on more load and I know people have said “well most teachers are women” and I think that’s not fair for them to be exhausted either. There’s some jobs you can definitely get away with being more tired with (I could nap on my lunch if I WFH if needed), but we shouldn’t just be expecting mums to be exhausted and get on with it because that’s just how it is.

I know I’ve mentioned mums in this post more, but maybe it’s just my experience so far as I’ve taken on the nights and broken sleep of parenthood so far because it’s my job atm. I’ve given up work to be home, but my husband will be taking over during the summer holidays and he will do any night wakes as he’s off work. Once we are both are work, we will definitely split this if it’s needed, but I know I can take on more tiredness with my job as I can turn off between meetings.

I think this is very insightful. It's lovely that we have such long mat leaves but there is definitely a huge pressure on mothers alone to do 'baby led' everything these days. Keep bf even if it's killing you. Keep getting up every hour through the night even though baby is 6m and perfectly capable of learning to sleep/connect longer stretches. I think there's a lot to be said for having a baby and finding ways to fit them into their new family rather than everything having to revolve around them for their entire infancy and beyond.

@Squamata that’s interesting about maternity leave in Czech Republic as I didn’t know they had so long off. I would agree with you that my idea is floored @CantAskAnyoneElse but if other counties are doing it, surely we can model our systems on something better.

nice to read lots of different input into this. I still think society and expectations unconsciously fall onto the mum from my experiences so far and I do think there’s room for improvement.

hopefully my baby will go back to sleeping through the night and I won’t have to even consider how tired I am when I do return to work!

@Kolakalia as a FTM who is BFing, I do think there’s lots of pressure to ‘do it all’ and be baby led. I’ve been blessed with an easy baby who only woke up once, maybe twice for a 5 min feed between 4-6 months and then slept 11 hours straight from 7 until now.

Maybe I’ve been going wrong by being baby led, but you see so much advice on the potential negatives of not being baby led and trying to make a new baby fit into todays society (for example sleep training, wasn’t a thing years ago when you had more SAHM).

But longer leave comes with drawbacks. A pp mentioned her Czech friend who gets 5 years' leave with the right to return to her job. How on earth can society function if a women can take 5 years off, then return, then take another 5 years off for baby number 2....? And of course when a mother has the right to return to her job, it prevents the employer offering that role to someone else permanently. And of course that has implications for the person covering the role... how can they take out a mortgage if they don't have job security. Or consider starting a family of their own?

Systems have to work for all stakeholders in society. I wonder how those women who claim a year's leave isn't enough would feel if they were the one running a business, trying to recruit and retain the best possible workforce yet had a constant revolving door of women dipping in and out of the workplace on consecutive maternity leaves, and preventing anyone else from taking the role permanently? And of course the upshot of that scenario is that employers are put off hiring women of child bearing age so will favour men... oh hang on, we're going backwards to an era where women routinely didn't have the same opportunities.

It's about balance. Systems need to work for everyone. I'd say a year's leave with the option to transfer some to the other parent is a pretty good deal.