If you are a WOHM, are you discriminated against at your child's primary school?

[Eleusis]

I generally feel out of touch at DD's primary school. So, I sent an e-mail to the parents and invited everyone out for drinks and a meal. 2 people showed up. And during the course of conversation I realised that we are the only mums (out of 26) who work full time, and hence never show up at the school gate. The other two had a few stories of how the school actually frowns at them. For example they are offered 3:00pm time slots for parent-teacher conferences and just expected to be available, etc.

I haven't realised the extent of the SAHM vs WOHM war zone... and I am rather pissed off about it. I think it is outrageous for the school to treat parents this way. I did know that these feelings are alive and well at the school gate. But, I am very surprised about the teachers' attitudes.

Is this common? Do other WOHMs have these experiences at your kids' schools? If so, how have you dealt with it? Are private schools the same?

Of course, not all SAHMs are unwelcoming towards the WOHMs. But, I so did not expect the stories I heard on Friday night.

fennel - at least working in a school i get to see firemen IN ACTION every time one of our little darlings 'accidently' breaks the fire alarm!

As the majority of teachers are also WOHPs I can't imagien they would discriminate against WOHPs. They'd be discriminating against themselves, which wouldn't make sense!

Parent teacher consultanants are nearly always relatively early. This is so the teachers don't have to be at school till all hours, and then getting up the next day to teach again. AFAIK most schools have one or two parent teacher consultations per year. Surely the majority of WOHPs can manage two early finishes a year - they are generally well publicised as to when they will be.

Think thats one of the problems though Hula not getting enough notice , we usually get 1-2 weeks notice of parents evenings.

hulababy, I wonder if there is an element of "I can manage, why can't you ?"

All kids in our class have school issued bookbags into which the teachers kindly put birthday party invites, parents night out invites, notes about Quentin's lost tracksuit etc. Notes re night out usually come in 2 parts - 1st letter giving choice of dates and asking for email/text or paper responses to class rep. 2nd letter confirms most popular night and details etc. Our class rep is a WOHM but who does manage drop off (though not pick-up) as school starts at 8:15 and she works locally.

Out of 16 boys we usually get 10-12 mums for each night out unless it is a dads night out where attendance is lower. We also have cliques which meet additionally!

I would imagine meeting parent's evenings must be even harder for teachers who are parents - they can't take time off at all, or use holidays!

DH and me are able to finish early, or if necessary I will use a holiday.

Not getting enough notice is a problem though and seems really disorganised. The (secondary) schools I worked in sent home calendars at the begiing of the school year and these had parent teacher nights written on them. DD (primary) gets sent home a calender each term and they have dates on - so we always have at least 5 or 6 weeks notice.

i don't think it's just schools. i think a lot of people see a woman with a young child & assume she will be at home during the week. i'm VERY lucky as a teacher to have the holidays, but unfortunately you can't always make things wait fro 7 or 8 weeks, e.g. the car breaks down when IT chooses, i need to see a gp (they, at least, do late appointments), need to go to dentist (latest appt, 4.15, once a week) and being involved with dds school. her nursery used to give loads of nitce & plan things for the end of the day, but her school still doesn't know even which week they are starting intake in sep & seemed surprised that i wanted to get organised - oh no, that's ok then, witha 6 month waiting list for childminders, i won't need to know whether 'later in the term' means sep 10th or after oct. i'll just wing it & hope someone can pick her up!
luckily, they have an after school club, but the places for that fill up quickly!

I think this is one of those issues that can raise a lot of ill feeling perhaps unintentionally. As a teacher myself, I really don't think any school would go out of its way to discriminate against WOHM. Apart from anything else, so many teachers and head teachers these days are working mums themselves, and understand only too well the pressures! There's also an underlying issue coming through here - that some WOHMs feel a bit sidelined because they feel out of touch or left olut of social gatherings by other parents. But remember, if you're a SAHM, networking with the other SAHMs at the school gate is probably the basis of your social life. I have a social life with my colleagues - we often pop to the pub on a Friday, or have a night out at the cinema or for a meal. I used to get slightly pissed off that there are regular coffee mornings or lunches among some of the mums at my childrens school which are always at times that working parents can't manage. But then I realised it's boredom that drives a lot of these mums to it, and frankly I prefer having a life that doesn't revolve around the school gate!

Teachers at our primary give hardly any notice about some events which working parents could attend if they had more notice...but I expect this is also a problem for SAHMs who would probably appreciate more notice too!

If you miss the school pick up and drop off then you will obviously need to work harder at making friends with other parents...being on the PTA is a really good idea!

Do you make friends with your children's friends' parents?

Agree with ebenezer.

Dates for assemblies/TDdays/parents evenings are given out at the beginning of each term, giving as much notice as possible.

But I do agree that giving out key dates at the beginning of the year would be much more benficial to everyone (teachers included - after all we don't get much more notice of dates than parents do)

We ALWAYS offer late parent's interviews until 8 o'clock to accommadate WOHMS/Dads.

However, that means that I then have to find childcare for my ds as my dp isn't always home by then.

And as for teachers getting time off to attend anything their children do, forget it. It's not possible as we are not able to pick and choose our days off.

I work in secondary and we give a year's information out at the start of September.

All parents evenings run to 9.00

Review day runs from 8.00 am to 8 pm, which I think is about as flexable as we can make it.

Working myself I often miss things in my kids school. Which is a shame but unavoidable, sadly.

Re times offered, sadly you only have so many time slots available. Not everyone SAHM or WOHM can always get the slots they want.

I see it as a blessing as I can avoid dull school trips and stuff like that and a massive blessing to avoid ever seeing mothers at school gates which is pretty much like standing at the gates of hell in terms of tedium. Thank God one is spared.

I am often not there on parents' evening days so I just write the teacher a note like I'm flying on business to Trindad (or more likely Manchester) or whatever it happens to be and we fix another time, no problem at all.

As for 5 times required at school in a term! Wow. I never had that. I don't think there is a single one. I have changed a work thing to get to sports day.

By the way it is very different in secondary school - parents much less likely to be around or involved.

I had a party here when the twins started as we had one in each class and are right by the school and virtually every parent came but at that point they didn't know each other I suppose. Some have made very close friends with other parents in the last 3 years. I don't really want to be part of that so it's fine.

The difficulty in the pre prep was the times for parents evening were a chart put on the door but I was never at the door so I'd be allocated a slot but 9 times out of 10 I'd have to change it but they didnt' mind. I think I have some sympathy as I'm the only single parent in both classes never mind working full time... anyway they seem to be interested in me - I was quizzed about the island last parents' evening and the one before that we'd just been in the paper etc

Didn't realise you were a single parent Xenia. This isn't relevant to the thread really, just curious - what island were they quizzing you about?

hers

Our local school does 4/5 time attendance in the 2nd half of the summer term for next year's reception (or that's what they did last year - places were only confirmed today for reception so I don't know yet).
I work part-time (mornings) and the visits, which I think are about an hour, are in the afternoon and my mum will be able to have ds2, so we won't have a problem. BUT if I worked full time and didn't have someone to take ds1 then tbh he just wouldn't go, I might take one afternoon off but I wouldn't be taking 4/5. He is at pre-school and knows most of the kids he will be going with, and even if he didn't then 4/5 1 hour sessions, 2 months before he starts term isn't going to make a bit of difference. Yes it would show him 'the ropes' but if he didn't go on the visits then he would 'learn the ropes' when he starts anyway.
And then the settling in procedures, some of them are beyond belief.

(Yes but I was married for 19 years; the children were doing the rain forest at school so one of them mentioned he'd been on our island last summer in the rain forest which is why the teacher was interested, I think. She probably thought he was making it up)

I think eleusis's DD is actually at nursery rather than reception just now. Because I was working 3 days a week and also because he has a late Feb birthday so would not have got in for the full 3 terms, DS stayed at day nursery and didn't go to the school nursery. Therefore from Spring Bank to Summer he was supposed to go to school for an hour on a Thursday morning at 10 - a total of 7 weeks. However not realising this we had booked a holiday for two of these weeks. But we had to manage him going for 5 sessions. We did this as a combination of me taking holiday and DH working at home.

Can I just nip in my response to Xenia:
so you own your own island? That does sound nice, lucky you!

well, I am a SOHM (student parent!) and whilst I can't be there to pick ds up , I still drop him off 5 days and pick him up for 2. Most of the mums in the playground ar SAHM and there is a club, there IS, I tell you! They do not talk to me and do not encourage ds to play with their kids the way they do with each others IYSWIM. I know of a couple of parties that my son hasn't been invited to already despite the fact that the kids all play together whilst at school

I don't know whether this is because i find it hard to talk to people (i'm a slow burner) or because they perceive me as different cos I am always straight out the door and off to uni. Our area is very w class and education isnt seen as anything that valuable...

actually I'm surprised that WOHMs are in the minority in a lot of schools, I would have assumed the opposite. After reading through the thread, I do think a lot of schools should be doing more to make sure WOHMs are informed and involved but I'm not sure who should be responsible for that, perhaps a volunteer SAHM?

V sad to hear of SAHM v WOHM war zone. Haven't come across it myself, perhaps because so many mothers work part-time so have a foot in both camps. Our head teacher is a WOHM herself so I don't think we have discrimination.

I don't find it a war zone because I'm simply not there. It's their zone - the stay at home parents and part time workers (and by the way we have a lot of fathers dropping off and even collecting perhaps because private school parents often have their own businesses and fix their own hours).

All the parents' dinners we've organised have been in evenings and details are emailed by the class rep so working parents get those and go to them. At one point I was virtually the only full time working female parent in either class except one or two, but I might be wrong about that now. There is one teacher parent she works full time but that isn't business full time until very late and most of the year so not quite the same as normal jobs anyway.

A friend of mine has 2 daughters at a (state) secondary school and she gets emails every few days about what the lunch menus are, what's happening that week etc, as well as emails about her particular daughters when necessary. Seems to me a great idea.

LOL at Xenia's comparison of teaching and 'normal' jobs! As a F/T teacher (and working alongside many other F/T teaching mums, I wish her perception of teaching was my reality! The parents I know who are 'in business' certainly don't seem to work as hard as I do. A lot of them get to drop their kids off at school for instance, and don't work evenings/weekends. And I certainly don't get as many MNing opportunities as she Xenia seems to get. Hey that could be a whole new thread..... Anyone think they get more MNing time than Xenia?!