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...

Xenia, can I once and for all counter your bizarre assertion that everyone can be rich and have a nanny?

If every working mother in this country had a nanny instead nurseries and childminders, there would have to be a lot more nannies around. Where I live, getting a nanny is like gold dust. There just are not the people queuing up to do the job.

I know your stock response will be "Well, everyone has the choice of a high paying career which will enable them to afford it."

Wrong: not everyone can do a high paying job, for the same reason that we can not all be millionaires. We cannot all be rich, because even if we were all paid huge amounts more, the threshold for being rich would just go up. As indeed it seems to have done.

So many of your arguments which run along the lines of "I have done this, therefore everyone can" are just a complete fallacy.

Instead of feeling lucky for your priveleged position, you seem to delight in goading the vast majority of people who do not share quite as much good fortune. Make no mistake, if there were as many people going into your job as you suggest could, you would not be earning as much as you do. Supply and demand would apply and you would earn peanuts like the rest of us.

just to add - the woman i was talking about knows that i as her supervisor understand fully if

a. she cant find anyone

b. sometimes she doesnt want to (this happened once) she said her daughter needed her as she was really quite sick

I also find the assertion that everyone who works can afford a nanny (hollow laugh).

I think that it is in an employers best interest to be flexible when it comes to granting leave for exceptional family circumstances.

I am exceptionally fortunate, by school gave me indefinite compassionate leave when dh was first dxed.

Once his situation stabelised I went back in and arranged to go back to work on a part time basis. They know that I can cope with this, and that I work exceptionally hard for them in the time that I am there.

They also know that 'after' I will go back to work full time. They have been exceptionally kind and supportive.

Had they not been I would have probably quit, and we would both have lost out in the long term.

I know I'll regret posting this but could I just agree with one thing that Xenia has said which is that if both the mother and father's careers are given equal weight and value, then it follows that it should not always be the woman who takes care of the poorly child. It suggests that her career is less important.

And I'm ignoring the issues of nannies who are simply not an option for most working couples.

aiz, the proper feminist position is that you just ensure women remain drudges at home if you give them really good maternity rights. Because that makes them not their men take the leave. Maternity rights are inherently sexist and are part of the reason women have done so badly in employment. Theis husbands can always say to them the economic argument is for you to give up work. The chain women to sinks in effect. The sooner we have sexually neutral parental rights the better. The new 6 months paterntiy leave will help.

It doesn't matter what I think anyway, does it? If you employ people are there is a people shortage you bend over backwards to help those with children, cats, dogs or whatever. Where workers are ten a penny you'd be a fool to pick the worker with the bad health, aged mother or small child unless they have proven then have very good back up in place. That's all. Common sense. You can all leave and move to some communist nirvana but in the real world here where most employers employ 2 -0 5 people often scratching a living for themselves all these employees rights are a huge nuisance.

Well, maybe it is just not viable for two people with children to both work? If we're going to get so picky about people taking time off when the kids are ill?

nannies... well the agencies charge - not sure how much a day. My sister who isn't that well paid hired one when her child was sick and off school a month ago. My cleaner has a friendly neighbour who has the children when hers are off school sick. Other people find they have to live near even hated interfering parents just because they need that support. I have 3 adult children who will also help if I need it. People just make the accommodations they need to. If you are a brilliant worker and committed you will generally do fine and usually ensure you turn up more of the time than not.

ch, for some people no, may be not. Others work shift - the taxi driver / nurse couple is not uncommon around my way.

On immigrants in NW London they work so hard, 12 hour days, the children are pushed and pushed to be doctors and lawyers, the more in the class at my children's private schools anyway the harder they work and better th overall standard because the parental expectation at home is so much higher. We are lucky to have them.

Well, Xenia, if you have such an issue with these sexist policies take out your frustration on the government and politicians who perpetuate them, not women just trying to make ends meet in a mans world.

I'm no defender of this government, but I do believe that the new laws on maternity leave mean that it can be split between the parents- surely this is the gender neutral maternity rights you're complaining about? But, no, that wont be enough will it? Because what you're actually upset about is your workforce having commitments and responsibilities outside of work and I doubt you'll ever be satisfied until robots take over the work of you employees! And, lets face it, just because a man can take some maternity leave doesn't mean that they will. If you want to stop the sexism then you need to address it societally not by picking on some poor woman who's husband doesn't meet your political requirments!

At least no working mother has to deal with your bullsh*t.

The only sexism I am really particularly concerned about now is the sexism stupid women tolerate at home when time after time in marriage after marriage they put their careers second and run round after idle men they treat like Gods. Why do so many more women than men do more housework? Because women accept that. That's the battle ground for fairness and equality. Why are women on this thread collecting sick children because their men won't and those women have accepted subsidiary status in their marriage. They have made the rod that beats their own backs and have only themselves to blame.

I am pretty glad we gave women the right to own property and vote. I am old enough to remember the Equal Pay Act 1970 when women could get equal pay for equal work - remember that was a big change. We needed all those changes and I think the 6 months paternity leave is great. Even better if we did it as in Iceland or Estonia where if the man doesn't take it the family lose it entirely - we should have that - force those men home or the benefit is lost. But we only hate 6 weeks at 90% pay so for anyone on a fairly highish income for whom £112 a week or whatever maternity pay is barely pays their food bill and who earns a lot more taking loads of maternity or patenrity leave is not really an option and so it should be in a free market. We choose to have children and it's our personal responsibilty to have only those we can support and to bring them up.

Xenia, you still havent justified that statement

I haven't bothered to hunt out any surveys but every wave of immigrants we've ever had from the Vikings, Romans to the Normans, the Jews to the West Indians, the Ugandan Asians etc have worked hugely harder than the locals. It's common sense. You go somewhere else because you're strong and hardworking and want to build a new life. It's the same when British people go abroad too.

Also, you think emergency nannies are affordable because your sister who "isn't paid that well" can afford one. Given that you sound like you've somewhat of a silver spoon in your mouth, I'm not going to trust your idea of "isn't paid that well" as I imagine it's rather substantial in comparison to what the rest of us think as small.

Living near families is doable for some, but others who have families abroad or don't have families or can't trust their kid with alcoholic Grandpa aren't so lucky. What if your job has required you to already make the massive commitment of relocating away from family? etc, etc. It's so messy when real life enters the equation, but that's reality, which is why I feel my robot solution is best for you Xenia.

hmmm. Still not buying that statement on it's merit alone. I think its a bit stereotypical, and, I think it is reasonable to suggest that the hardworkers in this country are pretty evenly spread across culture, origin, class, area, age etc.

Anytime someone says "it's common sense" it should read "It's boll*cks" IMO.

So let me get this right- women let men walk all over them so they shouldn't have maternity rights?...What?

Xenia, forgive me if anyone on here has already asked you this, but I am intrigued to know how you would react should one of your daughters ever choose to be a SAHM. Would you support her in her choice?

Please don't brush this answer off in the way I suspect you would, i.e. "my daughter wouldn't think of doing so, I have brought her up to believe in equality and she is far brighter than most women therefore wouldn't possibly entertain the idea of being a drudge at home blah de blah..."

I therefore request that you open your mind and imagine the possibility of it one day happening. Would you support her as a mother or would you frown upon it, always making sure she feels completely insecure in her decision?

I have a personal interest in this as my mother has a 'proper' job and always brought me up to "never rely on a man for money" and this was my wholehearted attitude until the minute I held my first child in my arms. My mum is OK(ish) with my decision but I feel she is totally out of touch with my reality and this I feel has led to a gulf between us which was never formerly there.

I applied for an Arts Council job. They sent me loads of info about how they didn't discriminate...but it seems that the only people they are happy to descriminate against are working mums...my question about a degree of flexibility of hours for working mums went down like a lead balloon with my potential (childless) boss and childless lesbian director! I was a bit disappointed!

Xenia the 'free' job market in this country favours men hugely over women, largely because of attitudes such as those bemoaned on this thread: that working parents (assumed to be mothers for reasons which are not women's fault but to do with structural prejudice) are a liability and drain on economic resources etc etc. This affects women's pay even before they have children as we are all potential childcarers according to the culture's assumption that childcare is low-status 'women's' work. Before we start blaming 'stupid women' for dropping out of the workforce/accepting too much unpaid labour at home, that would have to be addressed.

I have a great boss who has children herself so she fully understands how difficult things can be....I feel for the ones who don't have understanding bosses...

Imagine my surprise

(in answer to the thread title and copying Caligula, who went through a stage of saying it)

I asked for compressed working today and was told by my (new, female, childless) boss "x won't like it and we were about to start expecting longer hours of you" at which point I had to say they could expect them all they bloody well liked but I couldn't do them due to childcare arrangements. My dh is in exactly the same position as he does one child pick up and drop and I do the other. He's just been offered a perm role where he's contracting and might have to turn it down because, despute knowing damn well he cannot do after 5pm a 35 hr a week contract apparently is worth swapping (in their view) for a 40 ht a week perm job. If they don't budge he will turn it down. Their bloody loss.

Will read the thread now.

WOmen do better than men in many jobs. They earn more than men up to age 25 now for the first time ever and more women are millionaires under 40 than men.

It is completely unreasonable and unfair to say because you have a child or because you're white or fat or whatever you don't have to do the same hours for the same pay or you can turn up 3 hours after everyone else or whatever. You need to treat everyone the same and then we all advance on raw merit. If we get short of workers then the state changes the rules in teh interests of recruitment - just like we set up nurseries of female munitions workers in the war.

I hope no mother on here believe in positive discrimination. Treat like alike. The work is 9 - 5 if you can do that fine. If you can't tough. Flexible working - there is a right to request. Most jobs can't be done flexibly and it's right and proper the law says that's fine - you can turn down the request. That is as it should be.

Lady M, I expect you're mother's just waiting for you to realise she was right when you get fed up with how things are but time will tell. I have 3 children at university and we talk a lot about jobs obviously. We talk about all kinds of issues, life, lifestyles etc. Students are very well aware of options and choices. If my sons or daughters chose to be a stay at home parent I would advise them of the risks (partners disappear with all the money, dependence is risky, being at home for many women leads them to depression and drink and they hate it, plus the feminist arguments etc) but if they said they would do that then there'd be no question of my casting them off and never seeing them again. In fact I'm looking forward to grandchildren and I hope they all stay in the London area.

Not read thread yet but

"i dont undestand employers who give a shit whether your 10mins late - as long as you work your hours."

I don't understand them as long as you do your work. Hours is all about presenteeism. Not disagreeing with custy, just extending the point.

Sorry but about to lower the tone of the thread...

WWW, I misread the bit of your post that said "they have offered him a sperm role"....

Xenia, I disagree. If you're a parent/carer then imo your needs are different to a non parent. Another human being, a child, depends on you and may need you. And there may not be anyone else if you're a single parent. Or it may be your turn (and I agree with you, men should pull their weight and women should make them and that's the way it is in my house) if you're married.

I can't read everything you say about not employing women with children because it makes my head explode but if a school/nursery calls adn says your child is ill/hurt/please come and get them you cannot just say No, I won't, my job comes first. Well, you can but you'd better a) have someone else to do it and not everyone has a nanny or b) be prepared to live with those consequences.

You are, I know, but just because you are I don't think you should assume a) that everyone is and b) that you're right and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong.

Worker:
Get the work done, be committed, don't take the piss

Employer:
Give as much flexibility as possible to those who do the above- male, female, child abundant or child free- as and when they want/need it.

There are actually lots of jobs that can be done just as well 10-6 or 8-4 as 9-5 most days. And given different abilities and ways of working, there are people who will do more in one hour that some of their colleagues do in a day so presenteeism is not always the way forward.