To feel it’s a motherhood penalty… AIBU?

[Yudl]

Recently got a new job in which they offered 95k. Unfortunately they would not be flexible on hours despite the fact that in my current role I work after collecting dd. Instead they said they would pay me until 3:30 which means my pay is effectively cut to under 75k (and only a small pay rise from where I am). I feel annoyed as I can do the hours they need but do need to do a pick up in between. We are expected to work some evenings anyway.

AIBU to feel miffed about this? DH is sadly no longer around to help

Time to step up and make adequate childcare provision, use after school. Get wrap round care. Salary is paid in order for you to make adequate arrangements and work core hours. Use after school.

What you going to do school holidays?How will you cover all holidays?

You’re getting £95k and you want to step back? This is what the £95k pay covers, you making adaptations.

Thats literally what a salary is, financial remuneration for your time and expectation you arrange your commitment to fit around work
I mean really, what did you expect with a pay rise ? Less responsibility and time to do school run?

Time to step up
Time to not cut your hours in new role

They want to reduce your salary by 20k. Would it cost less than 20K a year to hire someone to pick your kids up for you or to attend an aftershool club?

I hear there’s a particular number around 100K where single earners get hammered with tax but I don’t think you’d quite reach it, but do the maths and see how much extra you’d take home if you agreed not to leave for the school run.

Is @Yudl coming back? 👀

Things were pretty hard before Covid….. long commutes, road congestion, presentism.
Covid gave single parents and women and disabled people more opportunities. I don’t see why this is a bad thing (depending on your role and training).

there is still a gender pay gap because of the modus operandi of conventional office hours!

Down with the patriarchy!

Yikes 😧not the point of this thread but if that’s true, I find it crazy that a couple on much less between them would take home the same.

I knew the tax system was harsher on singles (parents or not) but didn’t realise to what extent. Sounds like it needs reform.

A lot of people I work with in the City, men and women, log off at 4 so they can pick up their kids, then log in again once the kids are in bed, or their partner has taken over. It's not like they're trying to work while simultaneously whipping up dinner and helping with homework.
None of them were hired on that basis though - it's a perk that has to be arranged once a certain level of trust has been built up and it's only going to be allowed in roles where it won't interfere with productivity. Sometimes it works better than a straight 9-6, because it means the same person in the UK has overlap with colleagues in Asia and the US but still gets some family time in the middle.

It’s not a motherhood penalty. It’s working full time.
You can earn £95k that’s a massive salary , surely you can work out an after school plan ?

We work flexible time and I probably go and get my kids three times a week. They are in secondary though so completely ignore me from the moment we are home and I get on with my work until they are hungry about 6! The issue here is the looking after smaller kids for the rest of the day imo.

Actually someone pointed out that I'd added up wrong - you'd need to earn a little more each to take home the same so its not quite as extreme. The point stands though - that sort of salary isn't as you'd think and a person who is a single parent shouldn't be vilified for making a good salary or wanting fair flexibility.

There’s no pay gap.
There is an earnings gap between people who work full time and don’t take large chunks of leave, and those who prioritize things other than their careers. As it should be. Why should those who work less expect to earn the same as those who work more??

Yes, you're right - my math is wrong.

Ah I see thanks for clarifying.

So you think if a man asked this thry would get it but as you are a women no?

Otherwise how is it a 'motherhood penalty' you are being paid for hours you work aren't you?

Don’t be ridiculous 0P. It’s not a motherhood penalty. Just pay for childcare like millions of other people do.

Sorry but this is bollocks. My partner and I have fully equal responsibility for our children. We used to fit our work patterns together around childcare and a school, it's no more my responsibility than it is his.

And we BOTH never expected our workplaces to let us swan off in the middle of the afternoon for the school run.

It’s not a mum penalty, you’re chosing to reduce your working hours, therefore your pay reduces.

A man would almost certainly work round this one. My DS works from home. In the summer the DGC are with him for half the hols. He has no problem with work - and organises his days in the office around the DC. I would hope this is the same for a woman - but women tend to be the parent who has the DC all the time (ex-DiL has DGC for most of the time, for example).

We need to stop treating workers as if they are all the same. No, not every woman has children, but many do - and those children are the future workforce and future consumers so are of great value to a state, to industry and commerce. So, work practices to be equal to all would accommodate childcare and men would be expected to take an equal burden of that and also of elder care, the trip chain, the domestics on the basis of 50/50 irrespective of earnings. Maternity and paternity leave would be properly paid and nursery placements would be for the benefit of the children, not to turn parents into economic units - so support would be to parents to arrange what childcare suited them: a stay at home parent, grandparent care, nursery, childminder etc.
That society would be equal (not equitable, since not all outcomes would be the same). Childfree or childless men and women would get the benefit of a wider range of possibilities as well - to compensate for not having children e.g. sabbaticals etc, but childfree and childless men and women may have other responsibilities e.g. they may be caring for an elderly person, an ill spouse etc. Just because you have no children does not mean you do not have domestic responsibilities which an equal workplace must accommodate.
Until we treat women as people who have unpaid work as well as paid work, and shift the burden of that unpaid work so that it is seen as of equal value (because society won't function without it) and to be equally shared, there is no equality. And, since women bear most of the burden of unpaid work society is sexist. Thus treatment of OP is sexist - she mostly would not have this problem if a man because men do not usually become children's full-time carers, so work does not have to accommodate them.

Excellent post, @Grammarnut 👏👏👏

I actually think in many ways when workplaces do accommodate this, it's not good for women really. It sounds like it should be but I dunno that it really is.

It sets an expectation that women can somehow literally do everything at the same time - hold down a senior role and also look after their children.

When done properly, logging in early, working through lunch, logging on in the evenings are really unhealthy habits and I think lead to burnout much more than just using wraparound care.

I also don't think it's great for children to get home and be told not to disturb mummy because she has an important meeting. Not against children entertaining themselves and I know all children of mumsnetters who do this do worthy activities and never look at a screen but I do think it's different when you know a parent is available to you if you need something.

And of course my experience TBH is that the vast majority of parents (it's been men and women in my workplace) don't do this properly - I am currently performance managing one who does both school runs, looks after 3 children under 7 after school, and takes a full lunch break, she basically works 4 hours a day which does not get the work done and is unfair on everyone else.

It also - though it doesn't for me personally - lead to people being unwilling to allow WFH across the board because that is a simpler way to police this and I think that's bad for women and disabled people. I do use wraparound care (obviously I know most mumsnetters live very rurally and have no childcare or running water) but lack of commute from being be able to WFH helps immensely and I will be really annoyed if my employer ceases to allow it because of the pisstakers.

It also makes wraparound care harder to make sustainable which is tough on typically lower paid women who work in roles where they can't WFH.

It might not be great or ideal but what is the alternative poverty for single parents kids. People do the best they can. It’s not the 1950s. Flexibility is good!

You’d be absolutely right if we lived in Utopia @Grammarnut. The approach you outline would cost an absolute fortune and require businesses to reduce their profits. Meanwhile, here in the real world where a generation of women fought long and hard to be taken as seriously as men in the workplace - your generation if you have grandchildren - this kind of demand for special treatment is making women of childbearing age the least desirable recruits.

I agree.

and I’ve never understood this idea that people (which usually means mums!) should be paid to stop working and be at home. I mean, being a SAHP is a perfectly valid choice, if you (or your partner) fund it.

A lot of this comes down to the partnerships that we choose. Dh and decided from the get go that we wanted things on as equal footing as possible. We both worked and both took equal responsibility for housework, nursery drops etc. And this was 30 years ago.

the OP is earning decent money. She has the choice to either accept the flexibility offered by her employer to not work core hours but to stop at 3:30 and collect her child from school, which would mean earning about 75k. Or she can work the full core hours and earn 95k, using some of that extra money to pay for a childminder or other form of care for the pick up and after school hours. Like millions of other people do (on lower incomes too!)
it’s really not a bad choice she has there and it’s a bit pathetic to see a woman in the 21st century whining that they want to do school pick up every day while still retaining the same salary as if they worked the full core hours

The way the birth rate is going, looking after children will be a generational problem that will end with the next generation.

OP, you'll get a lot of people saying "you chose to have children" and all that guff.

It's hardly unsurprising that women are increasingly choosing not to have children. And many of the same people who go on about "small state", "personal responsibility" and all that are now becoming quite upset about this. Certainly, everyone will be when income tax goes up to deal with the economic consequences of a declining birth rate.

People end up single parents through no fault of their own too.
we have technology now which we can use to break free of 9-5 working paradigm. What someone did 30 years ago is not relevant

You can work well flexibly just as well as someone hanging out in the office during core hours. People are not working solidly 9-5.
people need to move with the times!

I don't the birth rate has anything to do with this.

Availability and quality of childcare, especially wraparound which is now available in the majority of schools, has never been so good. The ability to WFH for many people makes a huge difference even if you're not simultaneously looking after your children. Yet the birth rate is still coming down.

The birth rate was at its highest in 1920 when you definitely didn't have women earning top 1% salaries asking to nip out for the school run.

It's the economy and particularly the housing market that is the real issue