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

I agree high school children shouldn't need child care but I see no problem with having to provide evidence of childcare given most organisations have strict policies on working while looking after children. It isn't that much different then providing a sick note to evidence while you're not at work.

And I'm not sure why lockdown is being brought up. We aren't in lockdown anymore and childcare is available for those that need it. And if anything lockdown showed how impossible it was to work while looking after children not to mention the impact it has had on children.

If the shorter hours are still a pay increase on what you’re earning now it could be an opportunity for you to balance working and spending more time with DD while she’s still small. As a former working mum I would have loved the opportunity to have career and more family time. Although you may feel this disadvantages you against full time colleagues.

That's as may be, however I can only ask and they can either say yes or no. I've worked similarly successfully in the past (been a single parent for 4 years now), and can refer them to my old bosses to confirm.

How are you meant to “prove” childcare if there is no payment involved? Grandparents, reciprocal arrangement with other parents, older sibling, them being older enough in your expert opinion as their parent to not need childcare?

(I just mentioned lockdown to be a little tinkerish.)

It's a difficult thing to hide to if they work with a computer too as things like outlook and teams will soon show them as being away and your email app will often tell people how many hours it has been since they were last active!

I think you have two very good options:

1. priorities work-life balance and work until 3.30 for £75k

2. prioritise income, get child care and work for £95k

But generally yes, motherhood is not helpful for our careers. My DHs work life went on as normal while I’m trying to squeeze in a few hours in the evenings and weekends in my freelance business but I’m nowhere near the hours I did before DC and my career and income suffers.

As far as WFH goes, I’m a big advocate of it in situations where it’s workable, there’s no negative impact on the workplace or colleagues and where people don’t take the piss.

the key thing is having a robust WFH policy in place. Where I work, WFH started off as a bit of an informal hangover from lockdown days. It was soon discovered that some people were equally professional and productive when WFH, but a minority never picked up their phone, or took suspiciously long to return calls. Then someone ‘WFH’ was spotted doing their food shopping - not a quick dash to the corner shop but a full on trolley shop at 10am during core work hours. Then a fairly senior guy it turned out on his WFH day was picking his reception age daughter up from school and looking after her for the last couple of hours of the working day!

we now have a firm WFH policy in place. Childcare has to be in place. Our work laptops have trackers. Fine if you’re doing non confidential work in a co-working space, or some other reasonable local place - but if you were found to be on a long weekend to France, questions would be asked! we also expect anyone WFH to be available to come into the office if needed. So for example, just because you usually WFH on a Friday, if the company wanted you in for an in person meeting next Friday, they would expect you to come in. At the end of the day, if it’s a work day, you should be available.

imo robust policies quickly differentiate between those who are genuinely WFH and are just as contactable and productive as they would be in the office, and those for whom ‘WFH’ means ‘a day off while trying to fit in bits of work around other stuff to look like I’m taking it seriously.’

I see on here as on other threads that the husbands career continues as normal with no impact on their working hours or career yet women are frequently saying that motherhood impacts their career, they can't afford to work due to childcare etc.

I don't know everyone's individual circumstances but the bigger question needs to posed is why is childcare not being shared equally between parents. Isn't childcare a shared expense and responsibility for both parents to consider when working not just always fall to the mum to have to organise everything. I see post after post of men who supposedly can't request flexible hours or have to work long hours and can't change anything about their work however the women always seem to can and I can guarantee many of them are doing the same jobs as fathers.

Again individual circumstances apply but for me it is part of the general conversation around parents who work.

Well the OP is a single parent so no conversation to be had for her.

For me personally, childcare has always been 50/50 since I went back after maternity leave - we both work full time, we both picked up / dropped off equally, we both did flexible working to work full time in 4 days and save on nursery fees - and our money is totally shared so it was never a conversation about 'my' salary paying for childcare.

However... my husband started out ahead of me and did get a promotion while I was on maternity leave. So the 2 years out of working + the 1 year with a pretty rough pregnancy + two miscarriages with one requiring quite a lengthy recovery period was all on me. So I am 2 grades behind him (we work at the same place) and I think without all this time off I'd likely be one step ahead of where I am now. But I wanted kids just as much as he did so I will just need to focus on my career again now that our children are older - can't really fix biology!

Shared Parental Leave only started in 2015. So everyone with older children won't have had that.
Childcare support was a lot more limited as well, so more families had to chose the SAHP (usually mother!) As well as childcare cost more than their wage.

So its understandable why mothers careers in the past have suffered more.

@Surferosahear hear.
I’m also surprised that some women don’t seem to discuss these things with their partner before embarking on a family. I knew that I wanted to share things as equally as possible (obviously as the mum I got maternity leave and breast fed) but I was back at work within a few months and dh and I always shared childcare drops and pick ups. Pre- children we shared all the household stuff like dinner and housework equally anyway which helped. I think some couples allow things to slide into one partner’s career being more important, or one partner doing more of the cooking/ housework - and then it just continues from there.

If your child is old enough to look after themselves at home while you continue working, YANBU. Plenty of people at my corporate firm nip out to do pick up and then come back online later, I don’t see what the issue is unless your work is time sensitive. Flexibility results in happier employees which should have a positive impact on the quality of work produced.

@TheNightingalesStarlingcross posts there with yours!

I agree that things like shared parental leave only came about recently, but my point is that over 30 years ago many of us still aimed to keep things as equal as possible. I had only 3 months mat leave, paternity leave didn’t even exist. DS was born on a Tuesday; dh was back in work on the Thursday. So arguably, back in those days in the early 1990s it would have been far easier in many ways to fall into the SAHM Role. There were also no free childcare hours either. But many of us worked. Most of the mums from my ante natal classes went back to work. I think the period of time when SAHM was really common was actually earlier in the 20th century when maternity rights and regulated childcare were non existent. My mum who had me and my sisters in the 60s and early 70s was a SAHM. Neither me nor my sisters were when we came to have our babies.

It seems to be the case in general. I have had to work with several mums who requested exemptions or special work arrangements of various sorts due to childcare reasons. The ones which I had difficulty with are the women who want to arrive at the office late, go home early, and yet receive full salary, full benefits and career advancement when they are only available 70 to 80% of the time. One of them offered to work from 10pm to midnight to make up the hours, but couldn't accept that because she was working in a team, she needed to be around when the rest of the team was working. She thought that because she took care of emails that came in after office hours, her work was more important. She failed to realize that we were not providing a 24/7 service and those emails would be handled by the morning crew. If there was an emergency at night, we would be notified by phone, not email.

I've only had one husband asking for exemptions due to childcare, but he turned out to be a skiver, so his exemptions were iffy, to say the least. For example, his child had to be at school before 8am, but he couldn't make it to work by 9am even though he drove and the travel time by car was less than 30 mins. Turned out he "needed" a leisurely breakfast to start the day. Then he needed a leisurely lunch (2 hours) and also had to leave early to pick up the child. He was very angry when we said the skiving had to stop.

In my organization, if childcare is unpaid, a signed statement from the employee AND the grandparent (or whoever) is required to help furnished monthly. If they are found to be falsified the employee could be sacked. This applies for all children under 13.

One person faked the letters and their wfh privileges were permanently revoked; they were forced to come in 5 days a week. They stropped and ultimately quit. Was replaced by a woman in her 50s and we no longer have that problem.

Do you assume that women in their 50s won’t have younger children? DD was 11 when I turned 50. I know plenty of women in their 50s with children under 13.

Your organizations sounds both ageist and sexist in its approach to hiring.

I am still confused as to what childcare arrangements one could possibly make for a child in high school. There's literally nothing. She comes home and does whatever for a couple of hours while we work - sometimes we aren't even here.

(However otherwise super supportive of this - I have had to have a conversation way too many times with my staff about what working from home 'actually' means and the blur between parenting and working is a huge issue)

It just sounds like a borderline unlawful way to get rid of women of a certain age. Agree that DD had no “childcare” once she started secondary, which doesn’t mean I wasn’t working when she shambled in from school or finally left her bedroom at midday in the holidays.

Most women over 50 don’t have young children. I’m pretty sure you don’t know “plenty”. I personally benefited from the attractiveness of older women to recruiters in the latter stages of my career - past childbearing age, no childcare needs, decades of experience and totally reliable, what’s not to like?

Exactly; same here.

If the average age to become a first time mother is around 30, then plenty of women are having their first child after that age and will of course be older when having second, third and fourth children. Half of my NCT class was 38. None were younger than 32.

You also assume that women in their 50s don’t have elder care on the cards.

Can you confirm what childcare you think is happening for secondary school aged children?

It’s in no way a motherhood penalty. Whether you are a man, or a woman, it would be the same. It’s not even a parenthood penalty really. Surely, for an extra 20K, common sense says use after school club, or get an afternoon babysitter to pick up and mind/do homework/organise their bag for next day for 2hrs leaving you free to work. Then use vacation clubs along with your annual leave. It’s not like there is no solution to this.

If someone has faked letters to their employer claiming they have childcare in place when they don’t, it’s not agist or sexist for them to be sacked.
As for high school kids who don’t need childcare, again, it’s not that hard for a company to suss out whether the employee is genuinely wfh as productively as they would in-person. Do they answer their work phone straight away? Are they visible on screen for meetings when needed? Do they come into the office when requested? An older kid independent enough to get themselves home from school and look after themselves for the next few hours should not impact on any of those things. It’s really not that difficult for a company as long as their WFH policy is robust and fair. Trackers on work phones and laptops in my company, an expectation that you’re as available and productive as you would be in the office. Those who haven’t been have understandably been required back in the office.