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

You cannot look after a 2 year old properly while also trying to work.

You cannot do your job properly while also looking after a 2 year old

OP is selling her employer and her child short by trying to do both at once. You need childcare while you work and you need to pay proper attention to your child when you're in charge of them.

Toxic work environment, you are not the problem, you are an easy target! They don’t care about you!

Look at your job description and create a log of the work you do, and how long it takes you. Then look at your work load and compare it to that of your colleagues, and their output.
Being away at a certain time as a regular arrangement is not unreliable per se
but if you are late or taking time out that isn’t part of that arrangement, your colleagues may have a point.
You say that you are the earner - are you a single parent? If you have a DP or DH and he is not working, why can he not do the school run?

it’s a marketing role with good organisation you can get things complete in good time. And if I don’t it’s back on after bed time. Because emails csn be scheduled and content can be made when ever as long as it’s out on the deadline

One of several comments from the OP.

She also says that at a heavy workload time, she would be logging off atm 9pm.

I’ve every sympathy for you but you are putting you into an untenable position 😭

Left for a bit as things where getting confusing.

This Is how it works, each individual in our team has their own clients. They are required to schedule themselves meetings with clients and work loads. Our daily meeting is first thing in the morning where we feedback what is happening with our clients. This means no work is left for my colleagues as I deal with my own clients and they deal with theirs.

Arrangements - majority of us work from home the culture is we have a morning meeting to check in and the rest of the operation will me communicated via email or message. Last minute meeting are extremely rare but I I will go. Some colleagues start at 8 other will start at 11. It’s just how it is.

update - I had a meeting with the project leader and they stated that that all my clients are extremely happy and impressed with me. My project manager even said that I have saved their life many time, because I and them know that they are unorganised and forget to do things. The only reason my project manger holds up the work load is because they do sign off. But my work affects no one but myself. The teams sometimes changes and my project manager has fought to keep me there that I will now not be moving when everyone else does. They said the feedback was about an occasion which was an easy mind slip but I made it up and they said they had done it before themselves.(A senior had approved my request, I had forgot to remind my project manager it was happening). They said they told my line manger it wasn’t a big deal it was the fact a new person was starting and the project manger wasn’t fully prepared and had no idea how they was gonna train the new person.

my line manger blew it up in to a bigger thing adding other unreasonable comments like “unreliable”. But they always do that. I probably could forget to bring a pen and it would be labelled as concerning. Every so often she will try to say I’m not performing when I ask for an explanation she can not tell me

childcare- I pay for childcare thank you. It’s logged I go for hour that’s classed as my lunch for pick up. They also know my daughter is there. As long as no work is outstanding it’s fine. I will pick up the work if there is left over whatever the time even a weekend If necessary to not miss deadlines . The employer pays us even though colleagues will start at different times leave at different times to get the job done. Because they know the work is done. Everyone is much happier not being micro managed. And when it’s crunch time we will work like crazy. I have even worked 7 days before no extra pay. I have colleagues who will finish work early to go to the gym to better their mental health. No one moans as it keeps us happy and it’s a fair arrangement to us working crazy shit hours when the time comes.

To the angry commenters in here I am not being paid to not work. I am not deceiving or entitled. I AM though a hard working mother who does the best by my child.

Yeh and that's a MAJOR problem (both for the poor kids and the workplaces, both of whom get a raw deal) and one reason many employers and pushing for a return to the office - to avoid parents taking the mick in this way.

It's the child I feel most sorry for. Poor kid.

Exactly this. 👏

Good for you OP, crack on. You are fortunate to have a job that enables you to look after a 2 year old during working hours, and it also sounds like you are great at what you do which of course helps.

Now you understand and have context to the criticism from your line manager you can probably put it in a box and move on.

It will get easier on you as your child gets older.

OP, you are still conveniently skirting around the fact that you will be looking after a two year old full time at home during the whole of the 14 weeks a year school holidays while still claiming to be working full time.
That's the issue, not your school pickup hour.

Yes! Poor kid, and poor employer.

Childcare is expensive - we get it. I used to pay £160 a day for my childcare when my two were tiny so I could work (more than I earned in fact!). But I wasn't going to cheat my employer by pretending to work while actually looking after my child (or neglecting my child while actually working). I can't people seem to think that's okay.

The school pickup hour, taken as 'lunch' is no issue. People are ignoring the crux of the matter.

Wow you must be quite wealthy £160 a day on childcare. I wouldn’t be able to eat or turn the lights on!

@BCSurvivor im not skirting around anything my child is happy. If my child is not settled and playing independently I will just come back later and finish up. Which everyone already knows!

Two things can be true op. You might well get your work done eventually, but you clearly aren't reliable for your direct manager. More senior manager may not care for now as it doesn't affect them, but it seems like fair feedback from your line manager, you aren't always reliable and it makes their job harder.

I’m only passing judgment because you have done so…

But if your paying more childcare then what you earned. How did you afford to feed your children. Surely that’s unfair to work so many hours your childcare exceeded your pay.

why didn’t you lower your hours and see what help you could get 🤔🙃

I'm a teacher, so no 😅 As I said, it was more than I earned (and my husband is a teacher as well). It was rubbish but I wasn't going to neglect my child or try to scam my employer. We are only just out of debt now from the childcare years. But we made a choice to have kids and we knew childcare was expensive.

OP - you’ve explained the set up.

All you are going to get is people continuing to tell you you’re a shit parent/shit employee because women just seem to love tearing other women down.

If it’s working it’s working.

Youve got far better things to do with your time than try to defend yourself to peopld who are determined to find fault

Oh right so you had a husband…

I don’t have a partner for me to exceed my childcare payments over my monthly pay 🙃

So what's your suggestion?
Option 1. She doesn't work. The money she maybe on from the government isn't sufficient. She uses most of the money on food for the kids. She suffers malnutrition. The kids suffer. Worst case scenario social services get involved take the kids from her.
Option 2. She works. She's at home when the kids are home. The kids see mum. They are fed. I mean we don't know what mum's job is so it may well be that she can fit meal times around her job.

I see a lot of guesses including my own. But again. No support here for mum. Just disgust. She's a bad mum. And a bad worker.

Maybe she should be chasing up the other parent who isn’t contributing anything to their child practically or financially. I know you can’t force someone to do either but I’m sick of hearing about (mostly) men who just get away with it.

I’m not convinced this is completely genuine anyway, if this is someone who supposedly works in marketing/communications I’d be worrying about more than just their working pattern.

So @Positivegirl - I've asked this in the thread before as have others - how will you manage in the summer when your 2yo is home full time?

Actually, that's not judgement but a sensible question that I'm happy to answer. 👌

The position I was in wouldn't allow me to cut my hours without a knock to my career. Flexible working requests arent automatically accepted you know. I could have gone part time but lost out on longer term career and earning potential. So we took a short term financial hit for childcare, knowing that within a few years we'd be able pick up financially (we are finally there).

And of course we could feed our children 😅 We wouldn't have had kids (2 close together) without being able to do that. We had a small amount of savings in the bank, and used credit cards where necessary. All finally paid off 🙌 Trust me, my kids ate VERY well. Nothing unfair about it (not least because my kids weren't neglected and there was no scamming of my employer 😊)

I will use the monthly payment I use for normal childcare on holiday club

That's lovely and relatable my child is not neglected as I’m there to take care of them. Also my employer is not scammed as they know and I will come back to work at a later time ☺️