To think we say we want both parents to make changes to work patterns after baby but in reality workplaces don't want dad's to actually

[LostShepherdsPie]

It’s 2025 and I would like to think that we expect dad's to be fully hands on, especially on those early years and so if we do see a dad needing flexibility to do drop off etc it would be supported. When I returned from mat leave, I went part-time through a flexible working request so I thought it's only fair my partner is uses flexi-time to do nursery drop-offs and hybrid working to help with the one day when I'm at work and we don't have a nursery space for that day but it’s been met with frosty reactions.

Today, while WFH and juggling care after family support fell through, our 16-month-old briefly appeared on camera. Even after giving a heads-up and apologising, he felt judged.

Funny how women doing the same get asked, “Isn’t your husband around?” as if to say can't they help out? Yet, here my husband is doing just that but he's telling me he's getting strong hints it's frowned upon.
For context he is working in the charity sector / public sector and I thought they were all, 'were fully supportive of flexible work patterns / blah blah ...not quite huh.

Btw He’s doing a great job at work, with glowing feedback so it's not a case that any of this is actually impacting his work.

Yes of course it is, but it’s not the norm for men to share maternity leave, or be the ones who have to make compromises like collecting sick kids etc. It’s getting better - but until it’s seen as an equal commitment and not just woman’s work they’ll never be true equality in the workplace.

She says she manages but what would her work say? I just had to step in for an hour earlier today whilst OH was helping our electrician and I only watched half of the e-learning course I thought I could do whilst multitasking my 2.5yo.

i work 5 days in 4 so I get a day at home and reduce nursery hours, my partner works 4 days. We then only have to have 3 days of nursery.

until all men start asking for flex working then there will be a culture of it is a woman’s place to sacrifice their career and earnings. More women need to set this out as an expectation to their partners pre baby!!

They allow parents to ask but most won't consider it from the father. My husband's male colleagues were treated the same way.

There's a nominal "40% of your hours in the office" rule at my employers, but it's really not enforced. It may be different for those who work in central functions, like HR and finance, but it wouldn't work for those working directly with clients.

Most roles require a certain amount of time with clients out in the community or in mental health settings. My team still do a lot of our work over the phone now, which wouldn't be practical in the open plan offices. It's enabled us to have much bigger caseloads, because we're not spending loads of time travelling.

If we went back to face to face appointments, our productivity would go down at least 50%.

I think this is shocking. It's a real discrimination issue imo.

I'm very pleased that I work for an organisation that doesn't just pay lip service to equality and has agreed to flexible working arrangements for many male staff.

You can't WFH whilst looking after a toddler, COVID taught us that! It is flexible but if I had a toddler at home, unless an emergency which I probably would have taken emergency leaves, my boss quite rightly would pull me up. Older children less so but I organise childcare for my children when WFH because I'm still working.

Nursery drop offs they shouldn't be judging.

This has been my husbands experience too. If you confront it and make too much of a thing then they will nudge you out in other ways.

Why are so many women expected to do it then? Countless times people have told me I should just get a WFH job so I can look after my kids at the same time

We're not.
Neither sex should be trying to WFH and look after young children at the same time.

I think you and your partner have taken the wrong message from this incident @LostShepherdsPie .

It's not that there's a problem with dads being more hands-on. It's that your DP got to experience the career-damaging impact that millions of women who balance motherhood with a professional workload have been experiencing for decades. It's just more noticable to him because he wasn't expecting it. I hugely applaud both of you for your efforts to spread the parenting workload equally. Well done. Many workplaces will only become less sexist in their recruitment if it starts being the case that they can't predict or infer whether or not someone is going to need flexibility for parental responsibilities, simply based on their sex. You are helping to build that happy future. Thank you.

The stuff about WFH/childcare combo is a side-issue to this important point.

Great post, rare goals

Same. It really depends on what sort of organisation you work for.

The biggest issue is low pay. The people in my team who struggle with childcare costs are those earning too much for childcare help via UC, but who earn upper 35-40kish in London/se, where they simply don't earn enough to pay 5 days of childcare. They often get into debt to pay for any, because they also simply can't afford to stop work. They tend to be reliant on a precariously balance of debt, family help, stretching the limits of "flexible working" and trying to make government funded childcare hours go as far as possible when they do kick in.

The only real answer is

• honesty from government that "free hours" are not free, they are funded, term time only and typically only cover about half what you need to cover full time work.
• if your budget is tight before kids, you need to save everything you can beforehand to afford children

- for a lot of people they will have to make financial changes to survive - going interest only on a mortgage, borrowing for childcare, cutting costs on subscriptions, moving to a more affordable area.

i read it. Only once was required. I think you are being somewhat unreasonable... if my nanny was sick one day we would have to scramble as anyone would-that's life! pre pandemic/wfh days the company would be one employee down with whatever the consequences for the customers etc!!

I'm not saying that it is a competition. I am saying that taking time off work to look after children affects people's careers regardless of their gender. Given that fact, why are people talking specifically about the obstacles for "modern fathers" rather the obstacles for working parents in general? It's almost as if you think it's more of an issue when men are affected rather than just when women are affected

I agree.

He is being paid to work not be a nursery nurse.

Do you seriously believe that workplaces are rejecting men's claims for flexible working but are fine when women ask for it? They are probably either being difficult to everybody or the men are just telling their wives they are because they don't want to sacrifice their careers to look after children and they want their wives to pick up the slack.

It's funny how on this thread people's husband's workplaces are apparently much more reasonable towards women than men when it comes to flexible working but no one seems to have first hand experience of this. I have certainly never worked anywhere where only women's requests were accepted. They are either reasonable to everybody or unreasonable regardless of gender.

Continuous WFH mixed with childcare isn't really possible unless you're able to strongly flex (ie basically be freelance) - I know, I do it and have done it.

But the occasional emergency day should be accommodated for a good worker - the alternative is they take emergency parental leave.

You don't really see it in overt policies. But, my ex officially had flexi-time, but when it came to us splitting drop-offs he was warned off using it (this was for a big company you will all have heard of)

You also see it in general attitude - I've been in more than one call where men were congratulating themselves for having a late meeting, so their wife had to do dinner/bedtime, and there was no judgement of their poor parenting (and husbanding) vs. the 'whipped' comments with men that did pull their weight.

The same men are probably telling their wives that they've been warned off using flexitime and that it's the same for other men (but not women) in their company.

I'd like to know who these "countless people" that have said it's okay to you are...?

I work for the public sector and men even at very senior levels are putting school pick-ups in their public calendar, and making no secret of taking time off for childcare reasons. Where your DH went wrong was in not asking for time off when your childcare failed.

Agree with everyone else that it is impossible to WFH and care for a child, and that would also be a disciplinary where I work. As a committee member on our Parents Network I had to tell someone who had recently come back from Mat leave that it was not OK to not bother with childcare and try to do both and explain that she was really on thin ice. She thought her manager was being unreasonable.

1. Anyone would frown upon wfh and taking care of a toddler at the same time

1. Plenty of women get push back and criticism for flexible working, part time etc. Women have just learned to take it on the chin and that our careers are negatively affected by children in one way or another. Men need to learn they are not special.

My staff, who WFH, are expected NOT to be childminding at the same time.
I have given the ok in an emergency, and they’ve always asked, but it’s only been for a few hours until childminders have arrived. I also give last minute requests for holidays in the circumstances where no one’s available to childmind, except my staff member!
I am paying my staff to do their job from home not childmind!
If I thought they were not WFH then this “perk” would be removed.