To think this is a case of sour grapes?

[Diaria]

Woman believes that childless women pick up the slack for working Mums….

Reading this, she sounds bitter, sour and traumatised by her prior fertility battle and failed relationship.

She worked in retail; it is of course mental and draining around Christmas time.

Essentially, the argument is that childless women are forgotten and mothers get all these perks along the way like total exhaustion but I digress…

She even goes so far as to complain about mothers having a paid maternity leave (often a pittance) and complains about her having to save £500 a month and not being given a free holiday…… maternity isn’t hopping around Thailand and most mothers couldn’t afford to save £500 a month!!

Anyway, I have no patience for this… but discuss.

I quit because I can't bear picking up the slack for working mums

https://mol.im/a/12860533

This always gets brought up. We're all just rolling in it with all the time in the world. Meanwhile, in the real world...

I'm a child free woman and don't have a huge amount of disposable income simply because I'm child free/less!

My DH and I split up because of the pressures of infertility so I have to run a house on my own and pay for a mortgage on a single average salary.

"Huge amount" 🙄😂

90% of journalistic output is designed to promote an emotional reaction.

To remain mentally healthy, it's important to pick up on this as early as possible when reading an article and then continue to read or immediately discard as you see fit. Disregarding shizz like this is overwhelmingly the right thing to do or you will feel wrung out after a very short time.

I agree up to a point. It is wrong that you accrue holiday on leave. How can you accrue holiday if you aren't even there. And working Christmas day and other holidays should be fair and folk with children shouldn't get priority.

I agree with paid maternity leave. But it all should be statutory and not dependent on who you work for. Some folk get not a lot and others very generous.

Women without kids by choice aren't "very privileged" ...... they've just made a choice, as you have by choosing to have kids.

Also saying childless women are privileged as they have free time etc, absolutely insulting, the privilege is to have children (if that’s what you want). To be a parent if that’s what your heart desires, is the biggest privilege in the world so let’s not insult people who are painfully unable to have children by saying they are privileged in any way, and those of us that do have children let’s all just remember how lucky we are.

Obviously the tone of the article and the headline is gross, but I do think there is something in the sentiment.

I have noticed that now my children are adults and I have no caring responsibilities, parents of young children at work rely on me to be the one who can do early meetings, travel to meetings and generally be around and on call to pick up everything should they have an emergency or childcare failing.

I don't know what they can actually do about it, but, the sentiment that you are left to pick up the slack when you have no caring responsibilities is generally true.

I am childfree by choice, and in the majority of jobs I've had over the years the assumption would always be that I would be flexible round any mothers in the team, which I was as much as I was able.

I would be the one to stay late if it was needed as I didn't have to pick up/feed the kids.
I would always be the one to come in early if it was needed as don't have to take kids to school.
I would cover at weekends if it was needed, as I didn't have kids to look after and entertain.
I would take my holidays in school term, 'cause no kids so I could.
I would work over the Christmas period, because Christmas is for kids.
I could rearrange any plans I had, because some mother's child had their school play or sports day.

And it often wasn't the management, or the organisations. The sheer pressure I would get about how selfish and mean I was not letting them take priority ALL the time (including being totally isolated at work as a "punishment" at one place),. In one place I really pitied my manager as if for any reason at all I didn't change my plans for a mother they would pester the manager non-stop, report her (and me) to HR for discrimination in one case (!), go on a "work to rule", and make both our lives hell.

I would do my best to try to fit in around their plans, and usually even volunteered to cover the "awkward" times. But things like spending Christmas away with my cousin & my aunt/Godmother because it was likely to be her last? I kicked back on being asked to change that. And being asked to cancel my (already paid for) holiday away with a close friend who was going through a hard time because a mother "couldn't" miss her child's sports day, and getting pressure from my manager to give them an easy life? That one was the last straw for me.

When I was a manager I would do anything within reason to accommodate parents, as I would with any other requirements like religious needs etc. I arranged meetings so they would never be on a Friday afternoon, as a devout Jew in my team needed to be home before dark. I would allow a mother to take a very short lunch break and an extra long period in the mid afternoon to collect her child from school etc.

And the majority of staff were grateful. But there were a couple who would take the piss big time, both mothers. They would never be on line before 9:30 am (school run). They would log off at about 2:45 - 3:00 in the afternoon (school run) and if I was lucky they would log back on at about 4:15 pm, but would be almost impossible to get hold of (if challenged, would be giving the kids their tea). And of course would log off for the day at about 5:30. And yes that was taken further, but both resigned during their performance improvement periods (one right at the start, one the day before we were going to sack them).

Don't get my wrong, I've worked with some absolutely fantastic working mothers who I would do almost anything for, to make their lives easier. But there have been some who seem to think everybody should fit round them & they should be able to get away with murder because they have children - I'd guess from my experiences that's probably around 1 in 10 who are so entitled.

Yep I think she’s bitter. I hate the argument about women being paid for maternity leave… population growth is really important for supporting older people in retirement! The state pension for example is funded on a PAYG basis. Also the workforce needs to be big enough to support the elderly population - so having a child is actually really important for economic stability etc.

So in fact I think parental leave should be supported even more! My workplace recognises this and allows 6 weeks full pay paternity and 6 months full pay maternity! I’d like to think I work for a forward thinking company! And hopefully other companies will follow suit.

I think the problem is the OP comes across as quite unpleasant in the original post

Samantha Walsh seems to be want to be one of those people who sells every life experience to the tabs (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9338077/Former-party-girl-44-looks-DECADES-younger-ditching-alcohol-six-months.html) so I'm not sure how much weight I'd put on her report.

For the general point, I agree that the current system (without good management) can lead to people without children doing more than their share and that people who have other caring responsibilities can end up short changed. However these are systemic problems that need to be fixed through legislation and decent management, not used as "divide and rule" clickbait setting women against each other (see also SAHMs v working mums etc).

It isn't new. I got lots of criticism for working in the 70s, neglecting my baby mainly. We didn't even get maternity pay, well I didn't.

@Goodluckanddontfitup

Many choose to not have children. I have been through infertility so I realise how privileged I am to have DC, likewise there is privilege to being childless. Advantages and disadvantages to everything.

Re. Childless having extra income; each of our DC costs about 10k a year and that is before you get to increased utilities, food, housing, transport and holiday costs. We don’t pay school fees thankfully.

If you are single and childless you won’t need a big house or have any of those costs. All of my friends without kids have more money to spend on themselves and it definitely adds to their lives. As I say, there are advantages.

Not having maternity cover is down to management not the pregnant/new mother.

Apart from this being absolute horseshit, aren't you then inviting blame if you raise arsehole kids too?

Mangochops totally agree about colleagues and long term sick, been there done it, got the tshirt, and in a few.occasions before and after the maternity leave....all the more galling when the person concerned posted at length on facebook about her trips holidays and days out when she was on 'sick leave'..but this is the underfunded understaffed run into the ground nhs we are talking about, they never covered any maternity leave or sick leave in my experience .... My last job I was the only full time nurse when there should have been 5, there were 2 other part timers. Every sick day left stress in its wake.

As I said, totally support maternity leave but it simply isn't going to happen in the female heavy nhs. I often went out of my way for heavily pregnant colleagues who were suffering in the latter stages before their maternity leave and didn't mind doing so, but when you are dictated to and forbidden you eventually get to the 'hang on a minute' phase and realise your good nature is being exploited by your colleagues, your manager, the corporation and the government.

Women will attack other women, l am widowed with two children, l get a five pound bonus from Widowed Parents Allowance at Xmas, l know for a fact if l were to say this out loud to my work colleagues World War three would break out. That's the empathy women have for women.

I quit alcohol and didn't look decades younger 😡

@WestwardHo1 Neither did she though 😂

There are privileges to having children or being childfree but to call childless women privileged is really horrible.

Hang on a sec, didn’t she think 5 bottles of wine a week might hinder her fertility?!

Also case in point regarding people with no kids disposable income - she was a retail manager - which isn’t highly paid - and still afforded £3,250 a year on booze… and was able to save £500 a month while on furlough…

I don’t know, it is weird she keeps cropping up in the mail.

@Starryeyedsurprises

Read the dictionary - advantaged.

I said child free can be privileged in some ways. Just as people with kids can be privileged in some ways.

It is what you make of it.

I've honestly never felt this way, I do have children now but a couple years ago I was 33 and had no plans to start a family. I work in healthcare and work Christmas Day every second year, same as all my colleagues. It's also an extremely busy time in my job due to all the respiratory illnesses going around this time of year but I wouldn't be asleep on the sofa Christmas Day after doing a few 13 hours shifts in the days beforehand. This sounds like a problem with her energy levels if she's so exhausted after work to the point that her parents are worrying about her.

I am also childless (not by choice) and although the article is designed to have people frothing there is also a valid point. Can you imagine how hard it is for someone like me who would love to have children being told that I should work over the festive season because the mother is more important.

People make a choice when they work about what they are going to do. I work for the emergency services in a 24/7 role. I am working nights Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I actually could have had one of them off but I offered to let the other person due to work nights have them both off because they have young kids. I was not asked to, it was not expected of me but when I told them I would withdraw my request so they could have it they were extremely grateful.

What is also hard to hear/read for the childless is the oh I’m so tired, I don’t have days off to myself etc like the list of things the OP would love. Tiredness isn’t just for parents. I have insomnia, so I know that bone crushing tiredness and just have to function as I have no other choice. Yes my days off might be my own, but I would love for my days off to be at soft play, or doing something fun.

I think if parents stop telling the childless how hard it is being a parent that would help. I don’t react when parents tell me how lucky I am to be able to do my own thing, or how much worse they have it, but maybe one day I will react out of anger, grief of not having children of my own and frustration.

You said there are privileges to being childless, that’s a horrible thing to say. As I said people who are childfree have privileges as do parents, but to say that childless women are privileged is a nasty thing to say.