Mills's article in the Sunday Times

[MyBrainIsOutOfTune]

Did anyone read it? It's called 'Be My Baby' and is about Eleanor Mills's reaction to reading Rebecca Asher's Shattered: Modern Motherhood and the Illusion of Equality. As it says on top of the page: 'Eleanor Mills is furious with a mother who wants the state to force men to share the burden of childcare so that women can regain their independence.' It says, basically:

• women never had it so good
• most women want to be home and take care of their babies
• poor men, who are supposed to both work and take care of the babies
• and anyway, if the men should ask for leave or for their work hours to be flexible, they're seen as unmanly, so they couldn't do that, of course. Poor men again.
• and anyway, it's stupid to think that workers should be given more rights to be with their children when there's a recession on

I might have been able to read what she wrote without seeing red if she hadn't been ridiculing Asher (whose book I haven't read) throughout, by calling her arguments 'rants' and constantly exaggerating her opinions. Arghh.

Thoughts?

I think that everyone should have the right-but you have to accept that if you are not there as much as some people you will lose out.
There is no way around it-someone who puts the job as number 1 priority is going to advance quicker than someone who has it as number 2 priority.

I'm not suggesting that businesses should revolve around parents. I don't see why if a role can be flexible it shouldn't be though. Both DH and I have days working from home, go in late, come home early as suits us and we don't have children. (The flip side is that we work late and weekends when we need to.) We get our work done and our employers cope.

I'm fairly certain that I could do what I do in five days in four if I were more efficient. Same for DH. The problem is that it is career suicide because the workplace is focused on presentism.

There is no way around it-someone who puts the job as number 1 priority is going to advance quicker than someone who has it as number 2 priority.

I don't see why they shouldn't get back on track-it isn't as if childhood lasts long. I think that I could have progressed steadily up the ladder when I got back-if I had been ambitious because I have friends who have done it.(same job-DCs at same time). However there is no way around it-if you have DCs someone who is 'married' to their career is going to get ahead faster. They can simply stay on late in a crisis rather than say 'I have to pick up from childcare' etc.

They can simply stay on late in a crisis rather than say 'I have to pick up from childcare' etc.

Of course, if everything else was set up to make it equally straightforward for men or women to take parental leave/go part time, then it would be a private matter. But it isn't set up like that, is it? Women are still in lower paid jobs, or more accurately, women's jobs are still lower paid. So it's much harder for us to be the main breadwinner while dp is SAHD. The idea that domestic arrangements are private, not for political debate and public policy, is a pernicious myth. If we all believed that, there'd be no maternity leave/right to return and no law on domestic violence. An englishman's home is his castle, etc. The family is primarily an economic institution no matter what mythology is served up for valentines/ mothers' day. How else would the next generation be produced/educated?

Great discussion!

I believe it's not a 'personal, individual choice'. I always thought it was. Until I moved from a Northern European country to the UK. Our choices of a couple have changed, whereas most of my mummy-friends in my country have just continued with both partners working 4 days/week, like I wanted. I have now become a WAHM, doing 90% of the house/childcare work, whereas he is pursueing a career. Why have we changed? Different flexible working laws, different mat/pat leave policies, Different quality and cost of childcare. All external factors that society/politics can change.

Changing those factors would make it much easier for me to argue my DH should do a step back at work, find cover for school holidays and thus continue to work myself in a professional career. He might not easily accept it, but at least the arguments that 'it is impossible to work 4 days in this job' wouldn't work any longer. His reasons for not 'doing his share' of the house/childcare work seem to be supported by policies in the UK.

I just wanted to mention that most of my friends at home bring in quite a bit more jointly (in 2x4 days) than my husband does on his own (in a very good career). Besides it makes them less vulnerable in case of redundancy of one of them or in case of divorce.

Of course, you don't want to force this model on everyone, and that is a danger and I agree with Mills that even though I might prefer this, it doesn't mean most mums do.

At the same time I believe it is a waste to society to make it so difficult for well-educated, experienced women to stay into senior jobs when they have a child. Many choose to stay at home because they don't want a senior job and all the pressures it comes with AND look after a child. But I do think their choice would be different if there were more options to work flexibly in senior jobs.