Do working women always still take responsibility for DCs?

[BlingDreaming]

I'm just interested. I work in an office that has significantly more women than men. These are successful, career orientated women with good jobs. However, I have noticed that without fail all of them rush home at 17:00 to fetch the kids every day. In most cases, husbands also have good jobs, but are not significantly more or less than the women I work with.

At a previous job, I worked with a man who had a significantly less successful career than his DW but he was still in the office every night until 7 while she did the school run.

Why is this? Can women who work tell me why it happens this way and how they feel about it please?

"...are not significantly more or less successful than the women I work with..."

Duh.

I don't know why but yes, that is, the way it works in our family. DH does do school runs but only when I book him to do them - the default is that I do it, and organise logistics, and out of school activities, and holiday childcare, etc, etc, etc.

To be fair, although we have similarly demanding jobs, DH earns more than twice what I do and I "only" work 4 days a week.

we share

It is certainly like this in our house. I often wonder what would happen if I was 'unable' to leave the office before 7pm. Would dd be left on the steps at nursery?

I just accept that it is this way, but I admit, it took some getting used to. Dh doesn't understand at all, and we had a massive argument about it on Tuesday night when he came home unexpectedly early. My mum often comes round to look after dd for me when he is going to be late, so that I can run around and do a few jobs, and he commented as he walked through the door, 'Got your mum round to nanny for you, have you?'

It was highly embarassing. He generally gets up before me in the morning, but even when we get up at the same time, he lounges about, getting his own breakfast ready, and leaves me to deal with dd, get her breakfast, get her ready for nursery, get myself ready for work etc.

I think because I am a woman, it's more acceptable to my bosses (in my individual company) for me to leave at 5pm to go home to dd, than dh feels it would be for him to do the same.

Thats how it works here too, but I work from home school hours so that I can do drop offs/pick ups. Dh works 45mins drive away.
If I have a meeting or whatever DH is supposed to step in, although it doesn't always happen like that

We share as much as we can. However, I work for a family-friendly public sector organisation and DH works for an extremely family unfriendly private sector small company. Sometimes he just can't get away early.

My MIL always used to talk to me about childcare arrangements but I made DH do all of that with her, and I think she has now got the message.

we share too. we both work a 4 day week, off on different days (obviously). my dp does the drop off AND pick up on Wednesdays, i do the drop off on Thurs and he picks up and I do both on Fridays. We have two drop off and pick ups to do as one at school/ childminder and one at nursery but works ok. My dp is self employed though so no one to tell him he can't leave early. Might be different is he was an employee. I insist on both of us doing it and to be fair to dp , he is happy to do it in any case.

No we completely share the responsibility for childcare and household management. I think it is very important for my dd to see this, we both work and we both share all domestic duties.

dh gets home for the nanny one night a week and does one day at home, me the rest of the time. tho sometimes if crisis arises he will get home early enough (not that early -7pm).
dunno which of us is the more successful - he earns more, my career's more high profile - but i am certainly just as busy, which means a lot of cramming too much work into too little time.
how does it end up like that? dunno but i think the answer involves
a) me wanting to be sure that the parent being home for the nanny actually IS there (dh is always late for everything)
but more importantly b) me not wanting to spend a second longer away from ds than is necessary. dh loves him dearly too but somehow doesn't seem to feel the same urgency.
which is also why 95 per cent of the time it's me that gets ds up and ready in the mornings. no, it isn't fair in workload terms. but if i wasn't spending that time with ds i'd feel that was overall more unfair on me (and, i think, on ds).

I think it's because feminism has yet to truly tackle this issue head on.

We now live in a country where most people are happy to accept women's equality in the workplace. Most men, including my abusive ex, would not have a problem accepting orders from a woman. Of course there are some noticeable exceptions, both indivudally and institutionally, but society has come a long way generally. It is something to be proud of.

However, there is still an overwhelming culture of domestic life being the domain of the woman, and women are just as responsible as men for perpetuating this myth IMO. Women expect this behaviour from other women, it is not just men demanding it. Any many women find elements of the traditional female role to be tied up in a large part with their identity and sense of self. Nothing wrong with that in itself.

We have fought hard to allow women to have roles that were exclusively the territory of males. We have now got to allow and actively encourage men to do the same with women's roles. It is happening, just very slowly indeed. We also need to start really addressing equality in terms of workload, not work type. It's fine for a woman to be a homemaker and a man the breadwinner. Nothing anti-feminist about that, as long as both partners are fully in agreement it and both partners have an equal amount of 'free' time. It stands to reason that if both partners work full time then housework should be shared equally (usually works better by dividing chores, rather than taking it turns to do the same chore). Men and women need to insist on this equality, and whatever the rights and wrongs of it, history suggests that things will change most when more women (rather than men) insist on things changing.

Good topic!

We share, dh tends to call me at 4 ish to see who's most likely to get away first, and that person collects ds.

all very interesting. I'm definitely more interested in people with equal careers/salaries etc as I think if as a family you choose for one of you to work less or whatever, then inevitably of course that person picks up the bulk of childcare.

I'm interested in the point being made that often employers are more friendly to women leaving early. I sense that too - although I also sense, in my office, that while it's accepted, it's not really liked and that there's a subtle suggestion that the reason the men are all in the offices is because they're more "committed". Does anyone else feel this?

OptimistS - yes, absolutely. I have a friend who's just started a new job. Her DH has been in his current job, where he is well liked and respected, for years and years and years. But already, only a few weeks in, she's totally accepted that she leaves at exactly 5pm. And it hasn't even occurred to her to ask why?

Yes

It shouldn't be though

I know some friends with great DHs who do help out with some school runs and jobs around house, and they happily pay the price on their career to do so.

I think most men dont see it as choosing between work and family, they just assume, & therefore let the DW default into being responsible for the DC. Whereas most women think about their DC before work and build it in to the working day.

It's sexism pure and simple. And even men that you thought would never be sexist before you had children, can easily default into not taking responsibility for the DC if it's not negotiated early on.

snap, cat64 - it struck me particularly last night when at 10pm DH (tired and halfway through a nightmare week) was getting himself and his stuff ready for work today - and I was doing the same. The difference? I was doing it for 3 people (DS, DD, me) and he was doing it for 1.

I work freelance from home now but when I worked 2 days a week in London, dh and I would do one pick up each. I would usually drop off as he gets into the office early but he would help me get ds ready and organized and then just go on ahead.

Now ds just goes to nursery 3 mornings a week and dh drops him off on the way in and I pick him up.

I think Blingdreaming has a point in that it isn't always considered acceptable for men t leave early to pick up the kids. Having said that I think attitudes are changing. My dh works for a smallish company and the attitude of the one of the company owners changed when he started a family. It was just accepted that my dh left at 5pm on a Thursday so no meetings could be booked for that time. It was just accepted.

However you are talking about youngish blokes here with young families. Sadly I think the Alan Sugar type attitide is the norm.

We share the dropping off and picking up, dh drops off, I pick up, but if I have to work late, dh can generally cover for me. We both have similar senior roles (in different industries) so I have always expected equality in negotiations over childcare. We also split the periods when cm is on hols or if dd is sick. At home, though, the presumption is generally that I'm chief in charge of small person entertainment, which can grate a bit, but then dd conspires w dh and demands that I play/bath/read w her. Dh is in charge of the bag as he delivers it to cm in the morning. I do the clothes washing/sorting/buying, booking/toys buying, trips organising...

We share - if I'm away, DH deals with everything. If he can't be back on time for some reason, he will make arrangements for someone to bring DS home from nursery and babysit (my trips are booked far in advance and diaried - his meetings are more short notice). He packs nursery bag, replies to party invitations etc etc . If we are both equally available to pick up or drop off, we are equally as likely to do it

"I know some friends with great DHs who do help out with some school runs and jobs around house, and they happily pay the price on their career to do so. "

This sentence freaks me out on so many levels.

"help out" - I'm not even going to go there.

"pay the price on their career to do so" - on plus side, the implication is that men and women are equally penalised if they make this choice. But on the downside, how sad is this?

Not that I'm one of those people who thinks all highly successful (career) people should be able to do their job between 9 and 5 with an hour for lunch - I think I'm realistic enough to know that's simply not how it works. But still....

I am lucky in that DH will be at home or part time or whatever and I'll be at the office, but if he was also working similarly to me I'd want him to take some responsibility and would expect both his and my work to accept that some of the time we have other responsibilities...

At the risk of inflaming this discussion I will state that there is a pretty traditional slant to the way that dh and I choose to care for our ds, but, frankly we both like it that way.

If dh made sure he was home at 5 or 6 every day he just couldn't do the job he does. Is that the fault of "the system? " Probably. But dh is happy doing what he does and the money he earns has given me the chance to go freelance. Like it or not, behind every successful kitchen table type business started up by a mother is a partner pulling in a dependable salary.

When I was with my (now) ex and we were both working, we'd share out the pick-ups / drop-offs at nursery. When she stopped work as the kids got older, she took charge of the majority of organising of day to day stuff for the kids. I let her because, to be honest, she was a massive control freak and it was a lot easier to go along with what she wanted (I'm not trying to imply this is always the case though). She was definitely a "If you're not doing things my way, you're not only doing it wrong but you're doing it wrong on purpose just to wind me up!" kind of person. Bless her tiny mad heart...

These days, I do it all as a single parent. I cut down my work hours to part-time to allow me to do so and the company I work for was very willing to be flexible. I wonder, sometimes, if part of that willingness was the sheer novelty of my situation - I don't know of any other men working there who go part time for any reason other than ill-health. There are a few who juggle their time so they can leave early once or twice a week to pick the kids up, but that's it.

whereismumhiding made the point about some men choosing childcare over career and I'd absolutely agree with that. I'm very grateful that I've still got a job but I'm also acutely conscious of the fact that the minute I went part-time, my career stopped. I'm not going to be promoted ever again - at best, I might get shuffled sideways every now and then.

I don't think dh or I are paying any kind of price on our careers. I work 8 to about 4.30 in the office and anything else that needs doing will get picked up at home in the evening. That just comes with the territory. If i need to travel, I will check dh can cover for me, but even employees without children can have commitments (other family, pets etc) that have to be juggled before they can accept a work trip. Hardly anyone can drop things at a moment's notice, so I'm not penalised because I have to check w dh before I say yay or nay.

Our cm is able to have dd from 7.45 to 6, so that dh is also in the office by 8.30/9.00, so no-one could claim that he was less than committed.

I think that it is perfectly possible to have two careers and a family life, but you both have to be equal partners in it.

play what sort of company do you both work for? It is unusual to routinely be able to turn in a 8 - 4 type day in the industry that dh works (and I used to work) which is IT?

wasabipeanut I'm a bean counter for a law firm. Not sure that it's usual in this industry, more the case that I've been here for a while now, my work commitment is known and trusted, and I have a decent boss who knows i put in the hours to get the job done. It's not a breeze though - constantly chasing my tail, running from home, to office, to home (getting no housework done..), but it's totally my choice, so try not to whinge too much as it's self inflicted