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?

wasabi - your way is different to what I was asking and you shouldn't feel you have to justify your choices! . I was interested in couples where both parents have "traditional" office based careers specifically because it interests me that women in that situation seem to behave differently to men.

But in your case, it seems you've come up with a solution that works for both of you, whic is perfect.

You can always ditch the husband. With the help of a great CM and flexible employers who allow me to do some work from home, I manage to work full time and do all the domestic stuff. Strangely, rather than finding life harder as a single parent, I have found it much easier to balance work/home life, with the upshot that any free time I have is mine to spend as I wish.

Sorry, totally facetious and unhelpful addition.

We share, trying to work out whose work would be most inconvenienced by any one situation. Dh's firm are usually very good and flexible about things like sudden medical needs but there are times when he is working on site and simply can't get away. I have more flexible time, but otoh when I am teaching, I am pretty well stuck.

Nah, my DH does more than his fair share and he is at home 3 days with DD while I am at home 1 day (during the week that is). He also does more housework than me

Well, I suppose, I'm the MD of the house, really, in that I'm in overall charge of the systems and forward planning etc.. (i.e. knowing about school trips and dinner money etc), but we have regular departmental rows discussions where jobs are delegated according to schedules. I work part-time, which gives me more time to do things at home, but DH has more flexibility to work from home when necessary, which is useful when I'm stuck at work.

We share pretty much equally.

The exception is time off for appointments as my work are more family friendly, and not because I'm female, however as he works shifts he can often juggle this to take ds to the doctor etc.

At home childcare is also evenly split, in fact he probably does more at weekends/evenings as I have ds all day on Thurs/Fri. I expect it and dh expects/wants to do it. Works well for us.

Not in my house, I have a career dp had a job, we discussed and chose this as a couple. Dp therefore works at home and does the school run and practical care for dd while I work in week. It could have been the other way around if we had different jobs.

I would say we share pretty equally but I've had to push for it.

In fact one of my first threads on mn was an AIBU about me taking time off to look after sick DS when DH could have done it.

We draw up the timetable for the childminder together so we can both do pick-ups/drop-offs.

However I take Wednesdays 'off' to be with the DC.

This means I squeeze my full-time job into 4 days and have to work every evening and at weekends too.

But DH does that anyway as a researcher so we sit side by side at our desks!

Agree that usually the "ultimate" responsibility usually comes down to the woman.

This is a real sore point with me. We have 4 grown up children and a toddler. Last time round, he did the school run (although it changed over time and our jobs changed- started off I did drop off and he picked up). We worked shifts around the children and each picked up where the other one left off, with FIL to fill any gaps

This time around I'm having to work fulltime and DD goes to FT nursery. I get up with her, get us both ready, take her to nursery near my work, do a full day, pick her up, come home with her and have her all evening. Of an evening I'm trying to get stuff ready for her and me for the next day.

DH works nights. When he's here in the morning I give him DD to dress. This week he's had to do a couple of days and it's been interesting that he gets up and gets himself ready and it doesn't occur to him to "help" with DD

Workwise I've noticed a distinct change in the way I'm treated since I had DD. Everyone always knew I had children but I was never one of those mums who has to drop everything to dash off to them and take lots of time off when they were sick. I was treated like a valuable member of staff. Since DD, even though I'm FT and most of the others are PT there is an attitude towards me. I don't get offered interesting projects any more and the general feeling is that I'm no longer interested in work because I've got a baby, which isn't true. My 2 colleagues are both on temporary promotion. I wasn't considered suitable... (My colleague has noticed and says it's because I've changed in everyone's eyes from worker to "mum"... she said she got over it by moving to an office that hadn't known her pregnant )

good question. DH and I both earn exactly the same and do different jobs but both in financial services.

I do the majority of the dropping off and picking up of dd from nursery. DH will generally do either if I ask him in advance but would never think of doing it unless I asked/dictated. I also do all the planning and thinking and sorting her out generally.

I did get annoyed with DH over this and he pointed out that I don't think he is as competent as I am in these matters. Actually that's true but I didn't realise it was so blatantly obvious

DH does more of the household chores (although we have a cleaner) but that tends to be because I do more of the childcare etc of dd at weekends - she's only little so can't really be left alone.

With regard to work - there is a definite unspoken attitude that I am less committed since having become a mum. Not true really - I still do my job as well as my colleagues - I'm just much much much more efficient than I used to be as I can't afford to waste time.

Dh and I earn similar money but he is self employed full time while I am a part time NHS employee. I think our careers are roughly equal status

The good points: We share drop off and pick ups. He will tend to be the one who takes time off if DDs sick etc which is a big bonus for me

the worse points: I do feel that I do most of the cleaning and house running if not the childcare and this is a regular source of arguments. It was never the case before we had DD!

The main cause seems to be a failure to multitask that drives me insane. He can only either look after DD or do housework whereas I find it perfectly possible to do both.