Being labelled unreliable as a working mum

[Positivegirl]

I am absolutely working as hard as I can. Because I have to pick my child up from school I am now labelled as unreliable. I work extremely hard and I see colleagues at work completely slack, turn up late and not meet deadlines. I have been labelled as unreliable because I am a working mum. I don’t have another choice but to work, I let work know it’s half term but I still go hard I work 200% while my child is in half term and never miss a meeting or deadline. I do school drop off/pick up and run back to work. I travel for away days at work I run back to get my child and run back to the desk.

it’s never enough I’m doin the best I can and it’s heartbreaking to have people who don’t have children to tell me I’m not doing enough and that I am not reliable when I know I’m performing more than others. My project manger is always late, canceling meeting last minute and not meeting deadlines for us as a team to continue working. But I am unreliable as I leave to go pick my child up (in the hour that would be my lunch break as I don’t bother having lunch)

I feel like giving up I work for me and my child to give us a good life but I’m not doing enough there. Then in motherhood I’m working to hard.

im drained to the bone with judgment from both sides from people I know could not juggle what I do as a working single mum. Im fed up

Well that's certainly another answer to what's going on with kids starting school in nappies. Instead of the usual SEN, kids that would previously have been in special schools.

It's impossible to care for preschool children and work. Something or both get neglected, done half hearted.

Like 1000s of others trying it during covid nearly broke me. And that was when employers were sympathetic to the senario. I ended up doing my job in the evenings, with just the odd phone call during office hours. But that meant no down time for me. I was either child care & teacher or working.

I did notice a difference between the 2020 lock down with 3 yo and the 2021 lock down with 4yo. What an achievement 4 yos can work the telly flicker, not having to change the telly for them.

I work FT and DS was potty trained at 18 months. He goes to nursery though because trying to work with him at home wouldn't be fair to him or my work.

You're meant to be available until your hours end

@Lourdes12 wasn't having a dig at working parents who use childcare.

She was having a dig at working parents trying to scrimp on childcare. And do both when in reality you end up neglecting something or giving both half hearted attention.

Reports are saying numbers of kids in nappies starting school has risen since covid. What else has changed their can't be that many more SEN kids, so it has to be something else, could it be the half hearted attention from parents who can't afford or don't want to afford childcare?

Aren't more SEN kids in mainstream schools now?

Has that really increase much in the last 5 years?
15 - 20 years I'd 100% agree.

Op you are mentioning the CEO being fine with it but your line manager not fine with it. So if you are clocking off at 3pm every day or having lunch break between 3 and 4pm each day- has your CEO approved this in writing? Because if they haven't..I can see why your line manager is worried.

Op please also think of your DD. She should have your full attention when she is awake..think about reducing your hours or increasing childcare for her benefit. I know it's expensive. I basically earned nothing when my kids were in nursery as almost my whole salary went on childcare but it gets easier when they get to school and you've only got after-school club to pay for!

There’s a difference between bums in seats and being paid to look after your two year old.

It is clear you have a manager problem.
Can you engineer a move away from this person?
No one is saying quit and go onto UC.

Some people are saying, like me, that it is very hard to change people's stances when something is 'set' in their brain even when all the evidence says otherwise. There is very little you can do.

I would make sure that you are not self sabotaging yourself. You've interpreted some points on here pretty bizarrely/extremely and this is obviously a hypersensitive area for you. It's understandable, I used to be a bit like this when my DC were young. I wanted to make sure to be 'seen' I was mucking in. I just don't care anymore. I do my work in the agreed timeframe. I am very lucky that now I work in a place where flexible working is common.

Are you sure you can't claim UC whilst in work? As a single mum you may well be entitled to some help? Have you checked?
As your DC goes to preschool, what do you do over the summer holidays?
You should get 30 hours childcare in September so that should help a bit. You should start looking into a nursery or childminder who covers your working hours.

I understand this however @Positivegirl keeps saying she can't afford any childcare so she only appears to use the 15 hours a week, which means for the remaining 25 hours of her working week the toddler is home with her.

She is avoiding the question of school holidays, as her preschool does school hours, so is presumably closed.

There's sitting at your desk for hours doing nothing because you work efficiently and you have to be seen, and there's having a 40 hour contract and spending most of it caring for your child instead.

Op are you absolutely sure you've been totally honest about your arrangement to your employers?? On here you keep saying school which actually it's a nursery aged child etc, it's like you're being deliberately vague. No employer is going to be okay with you being in sole charge of a 2 year old for 3 hours every day, that is taking the piss op and you know it. You're going to have to submit a flexi working request to make time up in the evenings etc or something.

If you either drop hours OR get extra childcare you may get universal credit to make up the difference/ help with costs

Try running your current wages PLUS the costs of extra childcare through a benefits calculator.

Then try running it through with current childcare costs and lower hours

TBH it's you that doesn't seem to be able to get what people are saying. I'm actually confused how you are in a high enough position at work to set your own calendar yet don't seem to understand basic stuff

Also look at your expenses. For example exactly how long can it take to pay off a washing machine? You can buy one outright for £200. Anywhere else you could make savings to pay for the childcare you need?

But also, the preschool is closed during school holidays so then it's full days/weeks of working/looking after a 2 year old. I think that is a much bigger issue. There is no way you can make up the work when the child is asleep if you have missed a full 8 hour day.

It’s unusual for organisations to allow hours worked whilst parenting a 2 year old, 5 days a week, to count as working time. On top of an hour every day, during core business hours, for pick up. Your CEO sounds very flexible.

Understandable that your line manager dislikes the arrangement, since it means you’re not fully available for part of the day every working day, although her handling / comments sound poor.

In your shoes I wouldn’t have complained to the CEO about your manager since this just draws further attention to the high flexibility / exception you have, which could be withdrawn.

it’s a problem that you haven’t got child maintenance from your ex.

I agree with you & also suspect op has not been fully honest with work about her exact arrangements. She's been pretty slippery on this thread alone & despite being asked several times by several people to outline her working day + her child's nursery hours, she's absolutely avoided answering

From this i deduce she's had equally vague conversations with the CEO (& if this 'arrangement' was made starting the job 2 years ago as op said and the child is 2 years ago then op either started this job pregnant or with a new born?) But now her line manager has taken notice & is not happy because op is essentially clocking off daily at 3pm to collect & look after her toddler.

I too think she's on thin ice here

Have you said how many hours a week your child is in nursery?

It sounds really tough, op, I'm sorry. Are you entitled to more than the 15 hours of free childcare? From September, you'll have 30 hours free which may help improve things.

I work in project management. I understand the environment you're working in, and it can be very pressured. Meetings have to fit around key people's availability and for most people, lunchtime is an hour between 12 and 2. Business needs therefore are that meetings take place from 9 till 12, or 2 till 5. If you're collecting your child routinely when others are available for meetings, then this doesn't meet business needs. It's also unlikely that when you've collected your child you're actually 'present' because a toddler/ preschooler can't be left alone. You end up doing neither your job nor parenting particularly well, and it's incredibly stressful for you. You sound close to burning out.

Our childminder is on leave this week, so I'm sharing school drop offs/ pick ups with dh. And it's hard work, despite flagging it with work and dd being 8! I can't imagine doing this on a long term basis with such a young child and tbh I understand where your manager is coming from on this. I work with a colleague who is a single mum to two. Her response is always "sorry, can't because of childcare" - even though her two spend 50% of their time with her ex. It's a bit grating tbh, but then she's not really much of a team player or a proactive forward planner anyway.

From what you've said, you're trying your best in difficult circumstances. Do you demonstrate to your line manager how you're proactively managing your time to deliver what is needed, when the business needs it? If you're just quietly running yourself ragged without actively telling your LM how you're managing your workload, then that may be part of the problem. This happens a lot when people wfh because if you're quiet/ silent then people will think you're not working and instead looking after your child.

Ultimately, I think you have to face facts that this environment isn't working for you, your child, or your employer. Would you consider a change of job, entering a different industry?

Fundamentally - you’ve chosen to juggle a full time job without full time child care.

That may be the right answer for you (and sounds like you’ve concluded it is) but it comes with consequences. The main one being it is incredibly obvious to colleagues that you’re juggling and multitasking a lot of the time.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t deliver in your role, but it does mean that you very easily appear to be not as committed and available as others who are in a position to give work 100% of their attention during normal working hours. Even if those people often don’t, it’s obvious to others that they could if called upon. Whereas it’s obvious to everyone that you can’t always do that.

Doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing anything wrong, if you’re complying with your organisations policies and any individual contract variation you’ve got (although keep in mind that a lot of employers policies around home working mean that your current arrangement wouldn’t be acceptable, so on a public board the reactions you get will be impacted by that).

It does however mean that you’ll need to take observations about your availability on the chin. You’re not as available as others. That’s a compromise you’ve made. If it works for you overall, great. But as part of that you need to find a way to take the comments about it. It gets easier with time.

The more I think about your predicament @Positivegirl I would just ignore colleagues and whatever they say unless it is brought up in a formal review process.

Ideally you would have childcare that covers all your hours of work. The world isn't ideal. Until this is brought up by your company as a concern just keep quiet.

If this is for real, I think that there are actually issues about OP'S availability.

Marketing can be very fast paced and have a lot of ad hock meetings and some last minute changes.... I think clocking off every day early can impact the job. People will notice and may well have raised concerns. Obviously, her colleagues will have to sort that kind of stuff themselves rather than her. Its something they might prefer to raise with the line manager rather than OP if it's reoccurring. I Think if OP has been with the company for 2 years, but not very long in this particular role.
In OP'S shoes, I'd listen to the line manager and get more paly with my colleagues in order to continue this amazing arrangement!

Once someone starts a formal review process, that can really be with a view to managing the out the business. And it's very difficult to come back from that.

I wouldn't wait for that to happen because they can very easily make things difficult, putting in meetings when she's not available, issuing impossible targets and bang she's out the door.

Op needs to find some way of properly managing her work load and her child. Doing 2 things at once just doesn't work.

She's got a few weeks until summer, she needs to sort something, before summer, Childminder, babysitting exchanges with other parents.

You're just being rude for the sake of it.