Motherhood 'devastates' women's earnings - well, obviously!

[neenztwinz]

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/10/mothers-wages-fawcett-society

I know it's not fair and it's not equal opportunities that men can have babies and not be affected in the workplace whereas women are affected enormously, but isn't this just obvious and something we should accept when we decide to have children?

If you don't want your earnings affected by having kids, don't have them, or get your partner to stop working to look after your kids while you go back to work. Then your wages won't be affected. But you have to accept, surely, that when you have kids you will not be able to earn as much as before?

The article doesn't acknowledge that lots of women don't want to earn as much or work as much after they have kids. It says something should be done to redress the balance so that women can earn as much as men after having kids. But the govt should be making it more attractive for women to stay at home and look after their own kids, if that is what they want, rather than thinking of ways to push us all back to work and become as 'successful' as men.

PS that Kingsley Brown book is sexist and objectionable.

I would be horrified if I thought that I - or my male colleagues - were being judged on our supposed biological traits.

'Rethinking Sexual Equality'? No thanks!

I wouldn't go ballistic, MT. Actually for quite a long time I explicitly told school to ring my daughters' father (with whom I both live and co-parent) because I was so pissed off with the assumption I'd drop everything every damn time. And to school's enormous credit, it did.

But then I'm a feminist. I think that till men step up their co-parenting responsibilities and the concomitant drop in income that can involve, we will continue with this current, appalling, division.

(And yes, I am a flexible freelancer whose partner works very conventional hours.)

I dont know if I'm the exception to the rule or not, or whether I'd be earning loads more if I hadn't had a child...

I went on maternity leave three years ago on just under 15k. I returned to the same company, was promoted to a slightly higher role, and am now on 26k (might not rock everybodies boat as a high wage, but it does me!)

The company I work for is exceptionally good, there is a lot of investment in people, they'll pay for study courses related to the role and really push people to reach their potential. Obviously in return for this, they expect hard work and effort. However, I'm still able to fit everything into my allocated childcare hours. They're flexible in letting me work from home if my child is poorly

I have a good pension package, which I view as important as my OH doesn't have one so I'm preparing for the future.

There are sacraficies of course, I work 35hrs a week so with travel theres 40hrs a week I'm not with my child. But working means I can provide (financially) much more than I could working p/t, in a different job, or not at all.

'Why is this the woman's job?!

It doesn't have to be the woman's job, I said that in the OP, but it is somebody's job - and someone is going to have to take a hit on their earnings to accomplish it.

But surely that's why you wouldn't go ballistic MI.

But why not share this burden between both partners? That is fairer, because it spreads the risk.

It is easy to see our own choices as individual ones - but they are part of a broader pattern where is is almost invariably women who choose to drop their hours/give up work. So naturally the schools assume that they should ring the mother.

This is, imo, institutional sexism. Not on the part of the school, but on the part of society as a whole, and it has very damaging effects not just on women's earning capacity, but on family relationships more broadly. (Cf. the number of threads on here where a poster's husband will not do his share of childcare/domestic work.)

Sorry, that post was to neenztwins.

I think the issus is that it is typically a 'woman's job' to be priomary carer - and one she chooses more often than not. That does not mean she needs to be exploited becasue of it. I think these are two different, but interlinked issues which are typically collapsed, which leads to many thinking the solution is for women to forsake being primary carer rather than more lobbying to recognise the material worth of parenting.

Hign, can you be a bit more specific?

I mean about the book.

neenztwinz, some of the pages are ommited, but page 36 isn't.

MI, I'm a feminist. Being a feminist doesn't mean we can only look at the problems women face from one perspective, does it?

Highon, I don't see looking after kids as a burden. It's a pleasure and it's something I accept will impact on my earning capacity. Of course a man can take the primary carer role, but he would have to accept that his earnings will be hit by that. What I am saying is it is unrealistic to think that having kids will not impact on your earning capacity if you are the primary carer. Most women are, they don't have to be, but they are, therefore of course they earn less than men (over the course of their career).

Out of me and DH, he will earn loads during his career whereas I will earn way less than my potential, but I think I'm the lucky one. My DH would love to stay home and look after the kids, but he earns too much for it to be viable.

I would be interested to see the stats wrt the earnings of mums who had no time off after they had kids. Surely these are comparitive to men and to women who have no kids?

To compare the wages of mothers who have chosen to take work less and chosen to stay in lower-paid jobs (so that they can spend more time with their kids) to the wages of men who have worked all their lives is not a fair comparison.

It's a shame that our society seems to value your earnings over the upbringing you give to your kids. The pursuit of wealth is not healthy imo

Neenztwins, for me this is not about money, it is about women's place in society. Most women end up being the primary carer, yes. Why is this?

a. because men tend to earn more pre-kids - there are lots of reasons for this, including men going for higher salaried positions than women, and negotiating better starting salaries

b. because most men are not prepared to downgrade their careers and associated benefits e.g. pension

and c. because women are expected to take on most of the caring responsibilites associated with having children.

It is naive to say that women choose to be the primary carer, because this 'choice' takes place in a wider social and economic context. In fact, you make this point for me, by saying that your DH would love to stay at home but it not financially viable.

For me, this is a massive problem because it makes women vulnerable to relationship breakdown. If their marriage ends, a woman who has gone part time, or given up work, can find herself in a dreadful position financially. It also means that lots of women stay in crap relationships because they feel they can't afford to leave.

It would be much better if both partners were to share the responsibility of being primary carer e.g. by both working 4 days a week instead of the woman dropping to 3 days. This would spread the financial risk, and keep the balance of power within the relationship more equal.

Obviously this is just my opinion - there are loads of families where it is right for the woman to SAHM or go part time. But the fact that this is the norm implies that there is an unequal gender dynamic at work i.e. that men's work is prioritised over women's.

how about

d. Because, on average, they want to be primary carer. Most certainly in the first year of their babies life.

It is not naive to say this. Women chose to do this in a wide variety of social and economic contexts - across the world and in most animal species.

The consequence of it leaving women in a situation of dependence with men, is a different issue.

And can I also say, if a woman is trapped in a crap relationship, then so is the person she is in that relationship with.

It is true that mens work certainly was prioritised over womens - when a woman had to give up work when she married. This is also why men have happened to be paid more than women. Because they were deemed the primary breadwinners. We still do see echos of this in blue collar workers. In white collar jobs, top flight jobs, most men are not paid the same. It's every man/woman for themselves when it comes to winning the bonuses or negotiating a pay rise.

But I do not think it is true to say that mens work is prioritised over womens, per se, today. Women are just as essential to the economy today.

Highon, I agree with most of what you say but also agree with MT that the points you make are different issues.

One thing I don't agree on: I don't think it is naive to think most women choose to be primary carer - if I asked every mum I know whether they would have preferred their DH to take time off and they go straight back to work after the birth not one of them would say 'yes I wish I could have gone straight back to work'. Every mum I know dreaded going back to work after mat leave - they didn't want to leave their babies.

This is also a different issue but I have to disagree that it is naive to think this is true in the vast majority of cases.

I still think most women want to be primary carers, they want to work less and they accept as inevitable that they won't earn as much as they would have done had they never had kids. And that they are happy about it.

Monkeytrousers, I think that women choosing to be primary carers and their economic dependence on men is absolutely the same issue. Work in the home, carried out by women, has historically been undervalued, or not valued at all.

There is a huge issue of gender power relations here. The fact that women are prepared to take on caring, unpaid roles, which leave them financially vulnerable, is greatly to their credit in some ways. But is hard to imagine men choosing to take on such a role in large numbers. Because, by and large, we live in a world where men have more power than women.

It is often (but not always) true that a crap relationship is a crap relationship for both parties - and this is a good example of how skewed gender relations are bad for men as well as women.

Neenstwins, I think the first year or so after birth is a different case, especially because of breastfeeding and recovery from pregnancy and labour. But I don't think there is any reason why men and women can't share the primary carer role after this.

It's also certainly not true that every mum I know that dreaded going back to work - some were ready to. And many women might feel happier going back to work if their child was, at least some of the time, with their dad.

I'm not saying that all women should go back to work FT - far from it. But I would like to see a situation where it was more common and acceptable for both men and women to work PT.

The only thing I really do disagree with you about is the fact that women are happy about the fact they earn less. They may accept it as a necessary pay off of spending more time with their kids, but I don't think they are necessarily happy about it, particularly in the case of family breakdown. So many women are screwed financially by divorce, and end up living in poverty in old age. Unfortunately, with the divorce rate as high as it is, this has got to be a major concern.

The domestic realm is much wider than that prescribed by men to women in recent centuries. In their efforts to maintain some degree of paternity certainly, men have created inbstitutions that dicate that women effectlvlky became prisoners after marriage. It is no wonder that many became demented and resorted to laudenum, tranquelizers or 'mother's milk', i.e. gin)

But it is much too crude to then say that becasue women revolted against domestic imprisonment, that all domesticity is slavery.

I am always arguing the middle ground on these threads. I really don't think women are helped by forcing the decate into dichotomous extremes.

As for power realtions - the power struggles between men and women are actually dwarfed by the power struggles that go on between men and men, and women and women.

has not entailed them being isolated from society, from making strong bonds with other women, from being able to

I think there are a few things here really.

Firstly it isn't even as clear as man working full time woman working part time. How many times does a man leave the office because a dc is ill? How many men are responsible for picking up dcs from nursery etc? Until people form equal partnerships where both are responsible for child care men will always have the upper hand.

Secondly, women don't always 'choose' to be the primary carer for the first year. The law eg maternity leave dictates we have to be. I don't want my daughter in nursery until she's one, my husband can't share my maternity leave so I am the primary carer.

Thirdly, and this may be a very sweeping generalisation but a lot of men are more motivated by money than a lot of women. I think that women are more likely to choose jobs that they enjoy.

Of course men and women can share the PC role - if they want to, and it would be great if more men went PT. I would love my DH to do four days a week but his firm would not allow it. But I would not want to up my workload to three days a week so he could go down to four. I would still want to do two and him do four! If it was a case of me doing more days so he can do less, no thanks! I don't like work that much

I accept your argument that staying out of work affects women badly if they get divorced but for most families (66%) divorce is not going to happen. Many women work 3 days a week with DH working 5, but not many would say 'yes please' if you said why don't you and DH both do 4 days - because many women don't want to be away from their kids for that long. Many women work 4 days and their DH 5 and could not afford for their DH to drop a day.

So yes your utopia of everyone working PT sounds great but I just don't think it is realistic in most cases and it ignores the fact that most women want to be the primary carer, therefore they work less and earn less.

Of course, if you asked women 'would you like to earn the same PT as you did FT' they'd bite your hands off, so yes they only see earning less as a necessary pay-off and are not 'happy' they earn less, but they are happy about the choice they made to earn less so they can spend more time with their kids.

Why would they 'not allow it'?

Men have the same rights to ask for flexible working as women and his employer would need to present a genuine business case to turn down his application.

www.acas.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=1076

"Until people form equal partnerships where both are responsible for child care men will always have the upper hand."

The upper hand in what? Is being primary carer the lower hand? And we wonder why parenting is undervalued...

He is self-employed (a partner).

In the workplace

Yes at home I have the upper hand