Child free people being told they deserve less yet being expected to do more!

[JenniferBooth]

Has anyone on here experienced any of this?

1. Employment..........being expected to work the Christmas shifts (because the parents want the time off) even though you did it the previous year or the last few years..
2. Family Being expected to take on the care of a child even though you have chosen not to have your own because of emotionally charged comments like " i feel sorry for the child cos none of his family members want him"
3. Housing. particularly social housing, where if you dont have children you are only entitled to a small flat or a bedsit, and God forbid if you happen to live in a bigger place you are told that it is your moral duty to downsize for families.
4. Being asked at a job interview if you have children and then being asked "why? Dont you like responsibility" when you say no. Happened to me back in 2004

Oh @fitzwilliamdarcy thats disgusting What if they had booked to go away?

No one expects to have every Christmas period off

One of my shift puts in for the entire fortnight every year then acts hard done by when they say no 😂

What really bugs me is I am actually a Christian. I start Christmas day by going to church

I am rather tired of being told by non Christian parents that I am daring to spoil the magic of Christmas when they actually mean I am spoiling the magic of rampant consumerism.

Apparently its absolutely fine for non Christians to expect me to miss Christmas and Easter every year because their children are more important than my religion

It absolutely is bad management though. As you say, they’re spineless. No one should take advantage, that is completely wrong, but it’s still bad management.

Then in that case it’s the manager’s job to sort the issue, isn’t it? If someone can’t work due to lack of childcare then they can’t work, as they can’t leave their children home alone. If there is no one willing or able cover that shift, then it’s an issue for management to sort.

This. I've been a single mother who suddenly needed to sort out childcare where once my children's father was automatically around to do it. Guess what? He was still responsible and, as he worked in academia, was off for Christmas whilst I wasn't always so in the years I had to work we worked it out together to ensure those were the years he had the children over Christmas. It's shit, but hey, our kids, our problem.

I've also been the manager who had to tell parents complaining about working that they had to suck it up and have their husband, partner, parents, other regular childcare that I knew they had access to.

The single parent with no support at all is rarer than MN would have you believe and, if that is your life, then a career in a field where there is a need for Christmas working might not be for you at this time.

Thats something we've discussed at work & would love to see someone push it as discrimination

There's allowances made for people following Ramadam and celebrating Eid but obviously no consessions for Christians.

@DanceMonster I don’t know why people always feel the need to point this out to me, as if my posts don’t absolutely acknowledge that and use words like spineless.

Yes it’s bad management, but it is also people taking advantage of it to their own benefit. I really feel like comments like this - which are so predictable that I referred to them in that very post - just let the parents at my place off the hook. They have agency, they know what they’re doing, and they have no consideration for anyone except themselves.

I’m sorry that’s the case at your work place.

Sorry...sent too soon...

It is not the role of anyone in the team, regardless of parental status to have priority over others for leave.

We have a sort of first come first served basis in that those who had Christmas off last year work this year. This is usually done in the summer so that gives plenty of time for arranging childcare.

In circumstances where a parent can't get childcare - then we all wfh anyway and so don't mind sucking up a bit of working around children.

The point is, everyone has reasons for not wanting to work Christmas and it is monumentally unfair to always rely on the goodwill of a small group of people.

Thank you @DanceMonster - I apologise for being snippy with you.

Not quite the same but I used to belong to a group where no one had children. (It was a sports group) It was assumed that because we didn't have children, we were always free to do events. They weren't happy that I had another hobby

And yes that was one of the reasons why I left.

Never experienced any of this. Mentioning something you were asked nearly 20 years ago is irrelevant. If you own or privately rent, have whatever property you want. But social housing is so limited, you should only be provided an appropriate property for the people living in it.

Never experienced 1, 3 or 4.
I babysat for friends’ children a couple of times in the past. I won’t do it any more. It might be an arsey point of view, but one of the precise reasons I didn’t have children was so that my free time would remain my own. The one exception I’ll make is for my nephew- I see that as spending time with someone I love and enjoy being with, and the fact that it might help my brother out is a nice bonus.

The one area where I feel very hard done by is family Christmas stuff. It seems to be just expected and acceptable that what adults want goes completely out of the window and fuck you- you can trail along after the parents “joining in”, or you can stay at home on your own. So I no longer get to ponce around doing OTT hosting and making everything look beautiful and reproducing Nigella specials, I just have to turn up to someone else’s house clutching my crappy little Co-op pudding, because nobody would even notice if I did a home-made one, so it’s just not worth it.

There's allowances made for people following Ramadam and celebrating Eid but obviously no consessions for Christians.

Seriously? In the vast majority of jobs (ones that aren't 24/7) Christmas and Boxing Day are both guaranteed days off. Christians getting annoyed that Muslims get accommodations are seriously deluded.

I was told I should offer my services for shopping, cleaning, and helping out an unwell woman who had retrenched me upsettingly from a job years ago, and who I had had no contact with in years, as - unlike the current employee who lived locally and had a friendly relationship with this woman - I had no children.

They're rarer in these jobs as its exceptionally hard to secure childcare for Christmas etc but also nights and weekends; it's not that their existence is lower but that many already close these jobs off to themselves due to logistics. My DH was often deployed when DS was small. I wasn't a single parent but if I couldn't work because he was ill or whatever then of course work came after my son. We had been moved by his job from support network.

I really am not interested in hearing about someone's childcare woes.

I don't care if you are or not, people will put their children first if there's no other option, as they should. This doesn't mean others should pick up the slack, it means that managers should figure out what they can do to support all team members. If that means we won't employ any single parents in jobs such as nursing which work on a rota then good luck with that! If the manager simply expects others to work every Christmas for an easy life then they're a shit manager.

This is not thread or the board to talk about childcare issues.

It's not though it's discussing shitty managers who lumber on people without children, a pertinent issue.

It is a thread on the childfree mumsnetters board, though.

No it's you explaining why some people with children find it hard to get childcare at Christmas.

On the childfree board

As if we are all too stupid to understand it might be an issue.

You are missing the point that just because due to your circumstances you couldn't work Christmas doesn't mean that we don't get to have one thread on the entirety of MN where we can bitch about being expected to work Christmas without a hoard of parents consendingly explaining childcare to us.

I have adult children. I’m absolutely not going to sacrifice my holidays for anyone else under any circumstances. When my dcs were little I changed jobs. This was in part due to the fact that my employer could not guarantee me getting school holidays. I wasn’t selfish enough to think that my wants trumped everyone else’s.
I made sacrifices and quite frankly so can all other parents.
I’m old enough to know that me sacrificing for John might never be reciprocated. John might leave then I’ve been screwed over.
I do cover for my colleagues at times but Christmas is not something I’m prepared to do. It will never be reciprocated. There is a high turn over of staff so it’s a no from me.
Your children are your responsibility. I made huge financial sacrifices for mine, other parents can do the same. Having children is a choice in 2023, nobody forced you.

No. This is the childfree board. It's not the board to discuss management issues.

@Fallenties Personally I think childcare issues are the parents' problem to fix, not for a manager to resolve!

Those that are childfree should not have to 'work around' someone else's priorities, it's completely unfair and entitled.