mothers with young children are the most discriminated against at work

[paddingtonbear1]

I haven't actually found this in my company, and it's very small - only 18 employees. But I can imagine if I looked for another job, I might find it hard to get one, being a mother still under 40. I couldn't believe some of the comments in the 'have your say' on the bbc website though - most people seem to think that women who can't afford to stay at home shouldn't have kids at all! That would be me then! I don't think in this day and age, with mortgages and other rising costs, that's practical. I don't take advantage though, fortunately dd isn't sick very often, and dh does his share.
I think most of the people making the comments were men, or people with no kids...

ormirian..thanks! no worries, i've got a strong stomach!

I think some stay at home mothers feel more than working mothers the need to vindicate their choice. Some people are good with small children and want ot be with them. Many are men in the UK these days and more are mothers. Some choose that as their career and some us hire them as nannies or in nurseries. I just don't think parents damage their children by working.

Anyway it's all getting better. More and more women are working and doing better than men (as you'd expect) and more and more particularly younger men expecting to play a full part in family life. We have 1st April new paternity leave rights and I am sure on the whole it all works fine.

expatinengland I do agree that flexible working policies should apply to all employees not just women with small children.

epis also has some good points about staggered working hours etc - after a horrendous 3.5 hours wait on the M20 for us all to get into work on Weds morning I'm sure a lot of companies in the SE could see the benefit in that.

Interestingly, one of DH's team has approached him with a flexible work request - he has a pre-schooler, his DW is returning to work, and he wants to work his hours over 4 days instead of 5.

DH is not keen and has past it back to HR but his biggest fear is "it's setting a precedent" - well, yes, it is...

"I think some stay at home mothers feel more than working mothers the need to vindicate their choice."

Well MN bucks the trend then. Maybe it's the company you keep..?

FK, if the job can be done with those hours then I think legally the request had to be met otherwise they'll be in trouble. If not then they don't. It is particularly unhelpful when men with children are discriminated against. My ex husband was told by his headmaster he couldn't get a pay rise one year because his wife (me) earned too much and very very often female teachers with under 5s were let off after school things and he the one in our family who also saw to the needs of the under 5s first as I got home later wasn't allowed.

I don't believe you can have a double standard that says that women should be allowed more time off work than men to tend to children. My husband works really hard. Why should he not also be allowed more time off for the family. I think this should be a parenting issue not just a mothers issue.

Yes, the city is an unforgiving, venal place, Kiteflying. The point is however, Xenia goes for the soft target every time, the women who follow their hearts and instincts and are discriminated against because of that.

Why not go to the powers that be and lobby to change things there? The answer is simple; she doesn?t want to bite the hand that feeds her. Fair enough, but lets not pretend it?s an argument based on anything else those cosy self-delusions, as to some extent are all our opinions on this. But Xenia's distain for SAHM's goes sometimes spill over into vitriol.

"I think some stay at home mothers feel more than working mothers the need to vindicate their choice"

I disagree. I worked as a nanny for nearly 10 years and saw lots of working mums trying to explain why they worked.

Just for the record I don't think that women should stay at home and I don't think that women should go to work, I think that they should do what is right for them and their family. If they choose to stay at home working mothers should not make them feel like 2nd class citizens who are letting the side down and allowing sexism to take place in the home. If they choose to work sahm should not make them feel guilty for neglecting their children.

As long as children are loved and are given their parents (not just mothers)attention then they will be happy and thrive. End of. Its so simple really

The self deluded are those who think unless there is material benefit in it working practices won't be changed (without legislation that is). If there's profit in keeping good workers by letting them leave early, have sabbaticals or whatever then companies will give it. If working parents sometimes are more trouble than they're worth no one is going to bed over backwards to let them leave at 2 every day.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with businesses giving what their clients want. Most mumsnetters probably love it they can now call an insurance company up to 9pm (which means some poor person has to work until 9pm). A lot of us probably go to the supermarket on Sundays too. We create this market which causes the working parents either to suffer if you view it as that or to benefit from the increased hours and money.

"I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with businesses giving what their clients want. Most mumsnetters probably love it they can now call an insurance company up to 9pm (which means some poor person has to work until 9pm). A lot of us probably go to the supermarket on Sundays too. We create this market which causes the working parents either to suffer if you view it as that or to benefit from the increased hours and money."

Xenia I don't ususally agree with you but that is spot on.

The other side of it is that client write into contracts sometimes that their advisers won't be too tired. Wise service buyers don't want people who will make mistakes. I stopped doing something last night, said I was too tired to finish and would do it this morning and I'm sure I made the right decision.

I just wish it didn't always have to be the mothers that get it in the neck whichever path they choose. We never hear the phrase ''stay at home fathers'' (except by the very small minority who have made this choice). There are never articles in the press criticising fathers who work etc. 99% of the time it is assumed by society that it should be the woman who has to choose between work/stay at home. We need genuine pay parity to allow more men to be the ones who stay at home - they are perfectly capable of bringing up children.

A soft target, like I say. People should try punching above their weight for a change, but of course, that's more challenging.

Xenia - I know about all that British eulogising about life in the French countryside (I read the English papers), but it's naive blue-sky stuff. If you have any ambition at all for your offspring in the global economy, rural French education just doesn't equip children with the critical thinking skills necessary to get into a decent world-ranked university. Bringing your children up abroad isn't all bad, there are some great eye-opening international schools and being bi-lingual and getting along in a few other languages is a major advantage in life.

I quite agree with you that all women are different.

I don't think rural schools are usually that much good anyway. You want a school where everyone is fiersomely bright if you have that sort of child. I suppose look at who gets into insead and track back which French schools they came from right back to primary level. I had lunch with some people one of whom was brought up in France by his English parents who moved out there about 30 years ago. He went to an English university but I think they sent him to an English boarding school and he did A levels etc.

Except that in the UK there are some excellent public schools in the middle of the countryside ie Benenden. I don't think that's true at all in France. At the moment we're just racking our brains about where to send my (so far monolingual) stepsons to school (their state schools are just too awful, even though they're in Neuilly) and it's actually quite hard to do the track-back thing because in one generation the swing from state to private has been huge - my partner and my brother-in-law went to ESSEC and HEC having been to what have now become pretty indifferent lycées and if your ambitions are more Oxbridge and Harvard then you need to adopt a different path altogether.

True, but I don't think boarding schools are generally good for children and we are lucky that outer London has very good academic day private schools which get better grades than the boarding schools, without the emotional damage of being sent away. Anyway I hope something suitable is found for them. It sounds difficult.

I think that's very interesting, that you don't think that boarding schools are good for children, given the way that you think about working mothers because this whole thread discussion is about how to achieve a satisfactory balance between home and working life. I have strong feelings about a mother's presence because all around me I see mothers so busy at work that they have no energy left to bring up their children and I tend to think that, were I forced into the same circumstances, I would rather my children went to a good boarding school than spend their out of school hours with a moronic home help who can provide no useful guidance or intellectual stimulation. I do see very damaged children around me, not just my own stepsons, whereas in my family a lot of children have gone to UK boarding school and are balanced and successful people. And I tend to think that boarding school takes a lot of strain off dual career parents and is better for those marriages.

I think having a parent's presecnce on most days is beneficial. My father is a psychiatrist and a lot of his patients were damaged by boarding school. I think seeing a working parent every evening is different from being sent away. I see a lot of people damaged. They talk about getting through it, surviving it, it did me no harm, protective words which proves the damage to them. They build up a reserve and can't easily form close emotional relationships. Many of the English boarding schools can't fill all these places unless they are particularly good ones as parents know the harm caused now.

Also if you're not having a good time at school you know you have your own bed with your parents every night. If you're boarding and bullied (many children at all schools are bullied) you don't have that escape of home. Also parents lose their influence over children. none of mine smoke for example but I've been in English boarding schools where I've seen the boys allowed out after dinner to smoke outside as if that is okay. You are much much more subject to peer pressure too as you're with your peers all the time, not your parents.

In the UK we have a boarding school survivor's association. It is sorely needed.

I think it's essential that children see a responsible caring adult every day, ideally at least one of their parents, which is why I'm so fervent about mothers not working too much (which often means not at all). My stepsons are not unusual in that they often don't see anyone at their mother's house all week except their "nounou". When the boys go to their friends' homes to play, they never see a parent, just a servant. My stepsons are lucky to have very available grandparents and an extremely available father who makes time to take them to school every morning, take them out to lunch during the week, attend parents' functions at school etc. Lots of children are not so lucky and don't see either parent from one end of the week to the other, which is why boarding school seems better.

They see their father so they do see an adult who loves them every day and it is his job as much as their mother's to see them after school so I don't think it's fair to blame a first wife for that. Perhaps your husband should give up work and have his sons after school whilst you work then on that basis. I don't think my children suffered by being collected by a nanny from school and then one of us was home from 6 most nights. If you don't see a parent at all in the week even for a good night cuddle then you might indeed as much weekly board but people have to compromise in real life most of the time. Life isn't perfect for anyone.

The hands-on parent has always been the father (also the main wage earner) and his parents, in my stepsons' case. Always the father who takes the children to the doctor, hairdresser, to buy clothes etc. Their mother and maternal grandmother have never done much because they were too busy working and leading their lives outside the home. But the children are still damaged from the lack of maternal care - we have plenty of psychiatrists' assessments to uphold that, as, perversely, the mother just loves sending her children to the shrink, preferably for long Freudian-style analyses. She'd rather pay the shrinks bills than spend time with the children. But there are lots of mothers like that here.

That's a shame. I shouldn't post on these situations. My ex husband has chosen virtually never to see the children and pays nothing (indeed I had to pay him) and that colours my views.

Indeed. My partner's ex-wife used to make precisely zero contribution to household finances once tax and childcare had been deducted from their joint earnings, and zero contribution to her children's upbringing (this is still pretty much true). The zero contribution to household finances is absolutely not her fault, but the fault of the horrible tax situation in this country, but at the end of the day a wife who is out all day working and has no time (or inclination) to care for her husband or children and thinks that she deserves a princess's lifestyle to compensate her for all her hard work is not a very attractive proposition for a man. Hence divorce. Now she has bigger job with more money and gets to keep it (because of separate taxation) but still doesn't take care of children... Actually, one moral of story I think is probably not to get married if you are a high-earning woman in this country so that at least what you do earn doesn't to the tax man and you can make a real contribution to household finances and have some negotiating power in your family. Yet more discrimination to deal with...

Same here. In the UK if you work earn a lot and your husband stays at home you can lose your children as well as your money.

But it is very wrong to see childcare costs as the woman's cost. Half those costs were her husband's off his salary and his to pay and arrange. Children have two parents and both or neither may be good at looking after children. Some parents get very fed up at home with babies and it is not best for the family they are there at home. Some men love staying home. Some couples like to share 50/50.