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...

Ha! "you all should have married up!

in hindsight - i seriously wish i did. stick love up the arse, i'm sick of being trapped."

D'you know...I'm 99% certain that's what goes through my mum's mind whenever I say I'm broke . She groomed me for better things........

Ad, take your average workforce (and I mean not high achieving high earning people but say the average Tesco or BA or NHS or HMRC workforce) and I am certain more parents are off because of child problems than ski accidents although I suppose overall more are probably off because they smoke, drink and are fat over a 50 year career. This is also why employers can discriminate against those who are overweight - they know the sickness record could be poor.

I think a lot of working parents do very well to work the hours they do and many go out of their way not to be off sick at the slightest thing but some, a minority, I hope, exploit their pregnancy, their mind set of commitment to work changes.

I don't think parents should let their children or their hobbies or whatever interfere with their work.

The truth will always be that if you have problems doing your work you're not likely to be employee of the month however sad your situation at home is. If employers knew that mother with children was never a work problem or issue mothers would have no problems getting jobs. It's very simple so let's ensure mothers do even better than those without chidlren and then you'll be so invaluable the employer will do whatever it takes to keep you.

Xenia I happen to work in one of those you mention and in my experience working mothers do NOT have more time off than others. In my small team of 6 (2 of whom are mothers) the person who has had the most time off is not a working mother but a single childless woman of about 50.

In my previous team of about 10 there were three parents but the person with the most sick leave was a young woman with no kids.

The team before that again had three mothers and the highest sick leave was a 50 something yr old man.

The team before that (memory hazy now) had very little sick leave in general and had at least 4 parents. It was a male dominated team and a bit macho so I would say most sickleave came from hangovers. One of the guys got soooo drunk one night he forced his way past security at 2 am and curled up on the floor and slept away (those were the days).

More myths. Xenia do you have proof that mothers in those particular jobs take more sick leave, due to their children, than anyone else?

I know you'd like it all to be true. Are you that insecure that you keep needing to spout your myths as fact?!

This is interesting actually. I wonder if there are some statistics somewhere which show sat the rate of absense by gender for parents of say kids of primary and secondary age.

Not sure how you would track these statistics because if my kids are sick, I take a day of holiday, and alternate with DH. So any statistics would just show my holiday. Though I do have a live in nanny (which contrary to an earlier post on this thread is not more expensive than a nursery) so she covers a lot of days when a nursery or childminder would turn them away, such as last week when DD had the chicken pox.

However, I do definatley think there is a perception that mums are absent from work more than fathers and more than childless men and women.

I find it helps to work for either a woman or a man whose wife is as dedicated to her career as he is to his.

I'm sorry to wade in here and I'm probably going to stir up a hornet nest, but Xenia - why do you have to go and make a distinction between what you term

"and I mean not high achieving high earning people but say the average Tesco or BA or NHS or HMRC workforce... and I am certain more parents are off because of child problems".

Sorry - but wtf has that got to do with it!! Are you deliberately setting out to alienate half the world who doesn't fit into your own "high achieveing" box (as you see it). Be glad there are people stacking shelves in Tesco because oytherwise your life would be alot more difficult. They are not worth intrinisically less than you, nor so they merit less respect and tolerance. Before you start applying your assumptions to me based on this view I should say that i am city based and high profile, but I treat my colleagues with respect - all of them - regardless of whether it is the cleaner or the cheif exec

I am so cross about some of the Cr*p that is peddled on this subject and the constant mud slinging that goes on between those who think mothers do less and those who dont'. If everyone had abit more of a live and let live attitude and thought about the good of society in the long run it would make a hell of a difference in this world.

Xenia - it doesn't matter a jot what your level within the company or corporate world is - there should be some degree of flexibility for everyone. Yes, women have children and Yes it impacts their lives, but i would say that some degree of flexibility should be possible....for men too. Even if you do decide to work full time while you have children, why should you not be given some flexibility to have a life outside of the office? Also - what is a day off here and there in the context of a 20 - 30 year career.

If we all realised that people who are having children are doing everyone else a service for tomorrow it might be a start. As i said to one male colleague who told me that he thought it was ridiculous that i could take up to a year off after my second child "be glad, because when you are an old fart, it's my children and their generation who will be wiping your arse and paying yourpension"....that shut him up.

I only made that distinction because people were saying on here I live in a special privileged world of nannies and a high income and that most women are coping with no help and no back up if a child is off school sick. I am sure a lot of lower paid mothers also bend over backwards to be good employees too.

Ad, I would love that to be so and I do hope it is - that parents make a good effort to be good workers. If working mothers don't cause employers problems them why would employers discriminate against them?

My own view is most parents manage fine. I've worked with working parents for over 22 years and I think most do a good job adn that's why a lot of employers now offer more than 6 weeks at 90% pay, sometimes a whole month or 3 months on full pay because they want to keep those people. In general I think things are better and fairer. I think the new paternity leave from 1 April should also help too as employers get used to men asking for 6 months off. Of course women have a huge duty to other fathers, their children and others around them to try to ensure the men do take it and don't say - i am female - I am the only competent person on this planet to look after this 6 month year old and you are male and unable to do it so keep your filthy mits off it and get back to the office. We shall see.

"If working mothers don't cause employers problems them why would employers discriminate against them?"

Oh come on, Xenia. Imagine replacing 'working mothers' with 'women' 'black people' or 'homosexuals' and then you may be able to answer your own question.

Good point, but I really still don't feel we have huge amounts of sex discrimination at work. It's more in the home. Many women with children are employed in the UK at all levels from the Cabinet down. If there were a big discrimination problem they would not be in those positions.

What troubles me is if the EOC says (and every article on women and work mentions this) women can and only want to work short hours. That is the message houted out from the roof tops everywhere you look. Women = not prepared to be normal workers. Yet a lot of women don't want that. They want to do the work just like anyone else, black, white, male, female. They don't want positive discrimination because they know that as soon as you give them that special treatment that will make discrimination much worse.

Xenia I would be interested to know if you think minority ethnic groups are discriminated against in society/workplace.

LOL, Scummymummy is scrumptious! (imho, you are

xenia - that's the problem,the fact that women (mainly) with younger children mostly do want to work shorter hours,IME and the discrimination comes in when they are seen as getting "special treatment" if their employer complies rather than recognising that shorter hours tends to make sense all round!

Motherhood starts off being a full-time job, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Only when a child starts school does motherhood stop being a full-time job. Only the child's biological mother can take true and proper care of a child (which does not mean to say, unfortunately, that all biological mothers are good enough mothers - but that's another issue).

Mothers who work in paid employment because their families cannot survive without their wages are in the unhappy position of having no choice but to subcontract their mothering role. This is never ideal for the child, unless the hours worked by the mother are very few and a close family member (ie father, grandparent) is able to take on responsibility for the child(ren) while the mother is working. There are also some very dedicated childminders who can provide good quality care. Again, for the child's wellbeing, hours spent with a childminder should ideally be limited.

The workplace is competitive and decently paid jobs require 100% commitment to the employer and a support network at home to wash clothes, prepare meals, clean and organise family life. Women are not superwomen with 48 hours days: no human being should be expected to do all three jobs (paid work, housework and mothering) simultaneously and well. Yet Western governments consistently push policies that expect such a level of superhumanness of women. Many men are fundamentally lazy and selfish and all too happy with the idea that their wives are inadequate unless they are top performers in all three roles, while believing that their only contribution to the family needs to be paid work. And because men therefore, because they have greater availability (not ability), earn more money than women, they assume they are superior beings who can shove their wives about and treat them badly.

Feminism should be about getting women's reality acknowledged - not about equal pay for a man's lifestyle.

Oh, and Xenia, you are who so adamant that women and men should be treated as if they were identical - do your male friends get pregnant? Give birth? Breastfeed?

Anna, I don't agree. No, men don't get pregnant but pregnant women have always worked in fields, gathering berries or in offices. So that stage is sexually neutral. I worked to 40 weeks.

Then you give birth and men get 2 weeks paternity leave. I took 2 weeks off work. I wasn't ill. I'd had a child. Having a baby isn't an illness. it's a wonderful thing for both parents and completely changes the lives of mother and father. I have much more in commomn with parents who stay at home than non parents. I even find it hard to date men without children because of that huge gulf in experience and understanding.

So yes, men can't breastfeed. Sadly most UK mothers are pretty hopeless at it and I can't remember the stats but they give up far too easily and early so I doubt that is really a practical issue for them. I did breastfeed. I'm a member of NCT,LLL and ABM. With the first three children I expressed milk at work and obviously fed just before I left, when i got home at 6.30 and throughout the evening and because my babies woke a lot at night throughout the night. With the youngest I was based at home and working so didn't have to bother with the expressing. So I don't see how there really are that many differences and by the way huge numbers of UK mothers choose to work, nothing to do with forced to. They prefer it and they grow well balanced nice lovely children.

"Motherhood starts off being a full-time job, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Only when a child starts school does motherhood stop being a full-time job. Only the child's biological mother can take true and proper care of a child."

You are talking to a whole raft of failed mothers on here in that case, Anna8888. Mothers who've had a night out or popped to the gym while their children were under 5, mothers who work, mothers who have had their children through adoption etc etc. It seems a somewhat trenchant position to take, frankly. Why do you think you feel this way?

Hi,

I don't have time to read this whole thread, so sorry if I repeat something that has gone before.

As a mother myself, and as a former employer, I can understand the problem of mothers in work.

The trouble is that children being sick does happen, and when it does someone has to care for the child. In a HUGE majority of cases, that person is the mother, either because she is the lower paid, so has less to lose, or because she feels she can care for that child more compassionately and efficiently than her partner. All well and good, but if a mother has 2, 3, 4 children, then the possibility of that is multiplied.

Now a company usually has targets to achieve, deadlines to meet. In small businesses particularly, one person suddenly taking leave to care for a sick child impacts very greatly on the company's ability to hit that target, meet that deadline. In some circumstances it could drive a company out of business.

A couple of years ago I had to take 2 weeks off while my son had surgery/recovery time on his ear. I was running a project training solicitors on their new computer system. The whole project had to be rescheduled (which affected the following phase) , and TBH I was damned lucky not to lose the contract altogether.
I'm pretty sure that the next time that manager is looking for a contractor, they will try to find out if their personal circumstances may affect their ability to perform. It isn't fair, but when I was an employer, I would have done the same.

I don't know what the answer is (there probably isn't an answer). But I can see it does happen, I can see it has a difficult impact on employers. I also believe that parents should put their children first, and be there when needed.

I think it's great when people express their views. It's also healthy people don't always agree with me. But as you say SM whee do you draw the line? My sister who follows the continuum conccept would say if a stay at home mother didn't have her child up against her flesh all night (they slept in her bed until 5) is not giving that child its biological need. Other stay at home mothers are out and about all the time (and mothers all over the world have always left their children with siblings and others whilst they worked.

I said I don't know what the answer is, but I don have one idea.

I think the fact that families are now often seperated from grandparents contributes to the problem. 50 or 100 years ago, overwhelmingly grandparents lived a few hundred yards from their children/grandchildren, siblings too. A sick child could be cared for by a grandparent, aunt, cousin etc.
But now families frequently live hundreds of miles away, so that option just doesn't exist.

"Only the child's biological mother can take true and proper care of a child."

Really? Well that's my kids well and truly buggered then.

Oh hang on it's not April 1st is it?

I do hope my children stay near London. We all scattered far from my parents, partly because they didn'g get on and didn't much want to be involved with grandchildren or only in very small doses a few times a year. As I am now in year 22 of being a working mother and it will be another 10 years until the twins go to university once I get to that year 33 I might actually want some free time so I'm not sure how involved I want to be on a day to day basis with grandchildren but I would certainly like to be involved in their lives. If my daughters get on with it they can share their brothers' nanny I suppose.

Xenia - on breastfeeding, the World Health Organisation promotes vehemently full breastfeeding until six months and partial breastfeeding until at least the child's second birthday. The UK government fully endorses the WHO's position on this issue. If you would like to get your facts straight about the benefits of breastfeeding I suggest you read the WHO website. Expressing milk and giving it to a child in a bottle defeats one of the crucial purposes of breastfeeding, which is to regulate the appetite mechanism to prevent later overeating and obesity. UK mothers are actually quite good at breastfeeding compared to many of their Western counterparts, and getting better.

That is one of the reasons why only the biological mother can take proper care of a child.

The other crucial reason is secure attachment. If you don't know what that is, read John Bowlby.

Clumsymum you make some good points, but companies can also lose 2 weeks work when an employee takes ill with appendicitis, for example. You can never guarantee that someone is going to be reliable all the time, whether they have children or not.

I'm still haveing problems with Xenia's arguements
(and I've had time to read the thread now!)

1 "If working mothers don't cause employers problems them why would employers discriminate against them?"

Because they have the same ideas as you and have not thought things through properly.

Some people seem to think that all children are constantly ill and therefore all mothers will be unreliable, however in my last job (which was part time) I very rarely had to take a day off sickness because of DD1, when I was pregnant with DD2 I didn't take any time off either (even though I had terrible morning sickness), the other people in the office took more time off work due to hangovers, dentist appointments even the hairdresser to get ready for their holidays! And I had to cover their work as well as do my own job. In fact I found that although I was only in the office for 3 days a week, I often ended up doing at least 4 days work and was far more conscientious about meeting any deadlines as I knew I had less time in which to do my work.

In my opinion a working mother is a great asset to a company, if she is treated well and is allowed some flexibilty she will work her arse off, knowing that there are so few like minded employers out there. A working mother has more to lose than a younger single person with no responsibilities who can bugger off whenever they feel like it.

2 "The truth will always be that if you have problems doing your work you're not likely to be employee of the month however sad your situation at home is."

You're completely right Xenia, but why do you just talk about this with regards to women who have children, why not an employee who has an elderly parent with a serious illness that needs their frequent attention, should employers also have the right to ask how old our parents are and what provisions have we made for them!

3 "If employers knew that mother with children was never a work problem or issue mothers would have no problems getting jobs."

But how is that mother going to get the job when she keeps coming up against small minded people like you with a closed attitude to working mothers!

I think it is really sad that Xenia keeps harking on about sexism in the home - maybe that is what she experienced but don;t tar all men with the same brush - my DH is a wonderful hands on father, yes there are some deadbeat dads out there but there are also some terrible mothers too.