'I do all these things AND work FT'

[Bumpitybumper]

I see this on Mumsnet a lot but have just experienced it in real life. I have two friends (A&B). Friend A is a SAHM to school age kids and Friend B works FT in quite a stressful job. Friend B was just lamenting that they don't understand how Friend A fills her time as she manages to work FT AND do everything Friend A does.

The thing is, Friend B has a much smaller (yet lovely) house that is pretty chaotic in fun energetic way. It is never the tidiest or cleanest but it's not disgusting either. Friend A on the other hand has a much bigger house that is pretty immaculate most of the time. Friend A does all the school runs and volunteers at school. Friend B needs wraparound care in order to get to work so drops her kids of at 8 and collects around 17:30. Friend A cooks amazing meals for her family, has her children's friends round for fun playdates and activities and is generally incredibly on top of everything. Friend B is understandably more stretched and isn't in the position to cook lavish meals every day of the week or have friends round when she's at work. Friend B's husband does a lot (of course absolutely fair and right) so she doesn't have to attend every parents evening, sew all the badges for extracurricular clubs or assist with all the homework etc. Friend A does pretty much all of that as husband works such long hours.

I actually think both are amazing and very productive people that channel their energy, time and talent in different channels. I just struggle to understand though how Friend B can't appreciate that she isn't doing the same as Friend A or at least doing it to the same standard. Before people suggest I'm Friend A, I have my own business so don't really fit in either camp but used to be a SAHM so I guess can see Friend A's efforts more.

AIBU to think that Friend B is a bit deluded?

I will say this out loud - as an exhausted working mum I’d love to have a SAHW to do all the life admin, shopping, cooking, cleaning, maintenance, gardening and general wifework so I didn’t have to think about any of it. I think it would be lovely.

Your second to last post I find sexist, insulting and utterly wrong in premise. I think parents who can prioritise are better employees so if a man or woman is so focused on their career I think this will adversely affect it.
I also think the higher paid and more professional you are the more freedom you have. Male headteachers do leave early and pick up primary schools kids. Male lawyers do the morning school run. Dr's organise their shifts around childcare and them dropping off.
I'd think if they can't focus on both they are just less competent tbh.

Well you can look at it on a macro or micro level or whatever you want, but ultimately, people will do what they want. It is a fact that women - not all, but in general - feel differently to men after children come along. Some of this will be societal conditioning, but it's also biological. Some women do not feel a maternal urge. That's fine too, what are you going to do about it anyway? Just do what you feel you need to do - why did people need everyone to feel the same as them. Just accept variation and different priorities.

I think you are reading something into this paragraph that hasn't been written. I was writing the post in response to someone suggesting that the family didn't necessarily benefit from what A does. As A's DH desperately wants to maintain his career, then of course he is a direct beneficiary of her facilitating this. Whether the situation is right or equitable is a completely different question.

Of course it would be a huge sacrifice for anyone (man or woman) to give up the kind of career that A's DH has. The reality is though that the career isn't very family friendly and requires extremely long hours, lots of travel and he needs to be extremely flexible to go into work at the drop of a hat. All of these things are completely incompatible with family life so he just wouldn't be able to do his share at home and maintain this career. Put simply, if A did what B does then A's DH would have to change careers. You can argue about whether he should anyway and if this would be a better situation overall, but that doesn't change the facts of the matter.

Then his industry needs to move on from the 50s. I call bs that any profession is so incompatible with family life.

I'd bet thousands all the senior women manage to parent perfectly well. Outsourcing cleaning etc of course.

Exactly.

Like I've already said, I work in a male dominated industry in a senior role and several of them have wives at home facilitating their career because it is a ''big job''.

It can be flexible, especially in a senior role but those men aren't expected to be flexible because society expects mothers to be the default parent.

On this, the stats around women in their thirties leaving teaching are telling. I wonder what tends to happen when women are this age… 🧐 I have worked with many a talented teacher who secured great outcomes for hundreds of kids to then find themselves on capability measures or a step towards it after becoming a mother. After the evening and bedtime routine, they planned lessons and marked books and did all the family admin. No wonder they were frazzled and didn’t have time to do all the bureaucracy that comes with working in far too many schools.

I will be using my next vote wisely for many reasons.

Call BS all you like, this is the reality of his career. It won't move on from the 1950s whilst there are lots of childfree people willing to do what's required and desperate to fill his shoes.

There are actually quite a lot of roles that are difficult to manage with a family. My friend (not A or B) is an air stewardess and would not be able to do her job without her DH working for himself and being able to dictate his own hours. My other friend works for a maintenance firm and has to be on call one week out of four. These calls can be at anytime of day or night and it is expected that you just drop everything and go in. They ended moving the grandparents closer as they couldn't maintain both careers and family life when one of them basically couldn't be relied upon for a large chunk of each month.

I am with you OP. I have been both A and B at different points in my life. A is probably lucky in that A has some choices on when she can do what but it doesn’t make her lazy or not as busy as B. In my experience when a woman is not in full time work then the lion’s share of all the chores, childcare, holiday planning, investments, grocery shopping, other life admin land on her. So while B might have a cleaner, after school childcare etc. A would be doing it all herself. These things take time and I find it idiotic how people think those things have no value when you do them yourself but if you outsourced it you would have to pay minimum of £10 per hour to get the work done. Also if A’s partner is a high earner he probably puts in very long hours and has a stressful job which means A would end up doing everything other than going to work. While in B’s case her partner would be splitting chores with her since they both work full time. So NO, B is definitely not doing the same as A and working full time. Both are lifestyle choices and both are fine. We need to learn to respect and appreciate each other. Women need to lift each other up and not put each other down!

They do. I know senior academics, medical consultants, surgeons, architects, curators, who all manage to mother their children perfectly adequately.

Honestly, only a certain type of person thinks that sewing on Scout badges or doing your own cleaning is morally superior to the alternatives. Sure, living in a reasonably clean house is a good thing, but it matters not a jot how that is achieved, assuming you pay a cleaner fairly if you employ one.

@Bumpitybumper

I think you are reading something into this paragraph that hasn't been written. I was writing the post in response to someone suggesting that the family didn't necessarily benefit from what A does. As A's DH desperately wants to maintain his career, then of course he is a direct beneficiary of her facilitating this. Whether the situation is right or equitable is a completely different question.

I get that and obviously yes the role that A plays undeniably makes life easier for the broader family. (Although I question the degree to which the children specifically benefit from having a SAHM as opposed to a working mum. It's a topic for another thread).

But I just find it so frustrating, as a woman who is forced to work, that these Big Job men invariably have a "facilitator" at home. It's not the job of women to facilitate other women in their careers and a SAHM should be a SAHM if she wants to. But it's hard to get across to people how hugely this setup disadvantages working mums like me. It makes our lives ten times harder at every step that we are constantly competing with "facilitated" men who basically never have to worry about anything other than their jobs.

Teaching can be too. Not always if you work in a school with sensible expectations and their priorities in the right order: teaching great lessons instead of pissing about with paperwork with zero impact on outcomes. But they’re increasingly rare.

As a teacher, I qualified through having my first 2 18 months apart. Never had a problem. Worked pt then ft left just after the kids worked in the evening. Nursery was great. 3rd went back, by this time at another school ft, again no problems. Then my current school, 0.8 choose my frees so can do pick up etc, been promoted, never had an issue taking a day if kids are ill. Yes some men make out it's impossible but more like they never tried, asked or planned in the flexibility.

But I just find it so frustrating, as a woman who is forced to work, that these Big Job men invariably have a "facilitator" at home. It's not the job of women to facilitate other women in their careers and a SAHM should be a SAHM if she wants to. But it's hard to get across to people how hugely this setup disadvantages working mums like me. It makes our lives ten times harder at every step that we are constantly competing with "facilitated" men who basically never have to worry about anything other than their jobs.

I work by choice and I find it incredibly frustrating too. But you know, we have to put up and shut up because raising it means we aren't supporting other women with their choices. 🙄

It could at least be acknowledged that whilst it may be beneficial to the Indvidual family, it certainly isn't beneficial to equality within society or women who want or need to work.

It sounds like you work in a great school that’s supportive of parents. I’m genuinely happy for you. It’s great when this happens. Among the friends I trained with, many of us have worked in schools that would never entertain choosing free periods or doing nice things like letting a parent go to see a school play during the working day. Indeed, in an academy, I am contracted until 5 and there’s not a chance I could miss the training and meetings that take place after school to pick my kids up.

I just find it so frustrating, as a woman who is forced to work, that these Big Job men invariably have a "facilitator" at home. It's not the job of women to facilitate other women in their careers and a SAHM should be a SAHM if she wants to. But it's hard to get across to people how hugely this setup disadvantages working mums like me. It makes our lives ten times harder at every step that we are constantly competing with "facilitated" men who basically never have to worry about anything other than their jobs

Not sure who said this, but I totally agree and have often pointed this out. The "Man with a Big Job / SAHM" model is terrible for equality

This. I'm friend A and I steer clear of people like B. Always undertone of jealous and bitterness. It's not a competition but so many women make it into one .

I find this interesting. Of course someone working (man or woman) will have a competitive advantage if they are unencumbered by family responsibilities and commitments. This is true of the childfree, those with SAHPs and even those with adult children. I think you can acknowledge this but the extent you look to equalise things out or blame these groups for society's inequalities is questionable. Why should a childfree person not be able to exploit their flexibility to further their career? Why can't someone with a SAHP look to make up the lost income of having one partner working by doubling down on their career? Is there really anything ethically wrong with any of these scenarios?

@SouthLondonMum22

It could at least be acknowledged that whilst it may be beneficial to the Indvidual family, it certainly isn't beneficial to equality within society or women who want or need to work.

Quite. And that it specifically disadvantages many women in providing the financial support that they need to give their children.

I'm a single mother and I am constantly being downgraded from things and missing out on things because I can't basically drop everything at the drop of a hat to do things with clients, because arranging childcare is like 3D chess. I just about make it work but it's a constant, hard and thankless slog and I can never get the edge that my single or facilitated male colleagues have.

It has hurt my career and this ultimately impacts my child as it impacts the advantages and opportunities available to her.

Women obviously need to prioritise their own families over a broader notion of what benefits society (and they have different views on what benefits society anyway) so I don't judge or blame any individual woman for making the choice to prioritise their families. But it would be nice if people at least recognised that the key beneficiary of the "facilitated man syndrome" isn't necessarily the children, its the man, and men more broadly. And that by the same token this syndrome is also damaging to women in society more broadly.

So before we all rejoice at Friend A and her higher "standards" (as per the OP), lets consider that the playing field is massively stacked against Friend B in keepin anywhere near these "standards".

I'm quite lucky that I have friends who are type A and they don't prattle on about 'how busy' they are amongst those of their friends that have less optional commitments.

@Bumpitybumper

Of course someone working (man or woman) will have a competitive advantage if they are unencumbered by family responsibilities and commitments. This is true of the childfree, those with SAHPs and even those with adult children. I think you can acknowledge this but the extent you look to equalise things out or blame these groups for society's inequalities is questionable. Why should a childfree person not be able to exploit their flexibility to further their career? Why can't someone with a SAHP look to make up the lost income of having one partner working by doubling down on their career? Is there really anything ethically wrong with any of these scenarios?

There's nothing "ethically wrong" with maximising your competitive advantage, no. Is there anything wrong with exploiting your facilitated man status to make more money? Good question. I suppose I might do it if I had a spouse who didn't want to work. Is it fair? No, it's not.

But it's also rarely necessary. Almost no jobs these days actually require that level of facilitation. And the fact that this built in advantage is still pursued by many and celebrated by many is directly damaging to many women.

It's a bit like observing that if you were gifted a billion pounds you wouldn't share it with your neighbours. Well maybe not and maybe you can't be blamed for taking the money. But isn't there an obligation on us as a society to at least look at why these inequalities happen and ask ourselves if there is a fairer way to organise things?

I might start describing my house as pretty chaotic in an energetic way… it might make me feel Better about only scratching the surface a couple of times a week!

I always find competitive living / mummying whatever a bit strange… sounds like friend b is a bit jealous… I despise housework so wouldn’t be for me and I also don’t want a high flying job so I just bumble along trying to look like I have my shit together…

@Thepeopleversuswork you are right I have the same experience, male dominated job where many either don't have children or have another parent that seems to take on a majority caring role. One of my colleagues was commended for work that they had done (as they should have been) when I spoke to them and asked them how they did it, they were nearly in tears about how many extra hours they had put in to get it done. The company doesn't allegedly approve of this culture and I said to that they should feel no expectation to do that amount extra because people like me simply can't...but I know who will be getting all the bonus and plaudits.

Exactly. I'm going for a promotion at work next year and have been explicitly told it involves a lot more networking and by way of comparison I was offered the example of a (male, childless, facilitated) colleague who is basically out four nights out of five boozing with banker mates.

There's just no way I could do this, even if I wanted to. It's not surprising that this happens and you can't really blame the individuals who take advantage of this but its just very very unfair.