The effect of having children on a woman's career

[MediumOrchid]

Can you help me get my head around this issue please? Had an argument discussion with my dh about this and am now confused and need to solidify what I think.

Imagine a woman has a career with good prospects, then leaves to have children. She has 3 children reasonably close together, breastfeeds them and takes the best part of a year off for each, with ~ a year working part time in between. Is it reasonable to expect that this time not working will have a detrimental effect on her career, and therefore she will never reach the top of her company like she would have if she hadn't had children, or is this unfair? If it is unfair, what could be done to make it fairer, bearing in mind she wanted to breastfeed her children and wanted to spend the majority of each child's first year with them?

This is a hypothetical women btw as I don't have children yet.

As to Senior Management, I think its probably a mix - some women don't want to go for promotion because they assume it means selling their soul to the company, never getting to the school play or sports day etc, and they don't want to completely give up on family life.

And other women would be prepared to, but are perceived as less committed to it, either because they have taken time off, gone home on time, etc, or because other women have done those things and all women are therefore viewed as uncommitted to the company.

So two reasons, which reinforce each other - fewer women at the top means fewer role models of how things could be done in a more family-friendly way, but those women who do make it to the top are maybe less likely to try to make those changes, because they had to make that sacrifice, and/or because they'll be perceived as weak if they suggest things don't have to be done the way they always have.

'And other women would be prepared to, but are perceived as less committed to it, either because they have taken time off, gone home on time, etc, or because other women have done those things and all women are therefore viewed as uncommitted to the company.'

Or because the boss is just prejudiced.

Re the no health care for part time employees thing, isn't that illegal? I know it is where I work, but it is unionised so I don't know if that is why. You should not be treated differently for being p/t that f/t. Of course I know this can be done in lots of subtle ways that aren't provable, but the healthcare one totally is.

I am in the public sector, so should be protected largely from the random acts that can occur privately. However I suspect there is a perceptual issue that is impossible to erase when you have had children, maternity leave, and been less than full time, and may well impact when I apply for a permanent post.

I am still in training - I am asked constantly when I am due to finish my training and get "a proper job". One man, who has known me in passing for 7 years asked me the other day "Surely you should have finished by now. Why is it taking you so long, are you some sort of retard?"

No (you twat), I'm just fertile.

As it stands, it seems that the size of the effect on a mother's career is almost entirely dependent on how much the father contributes in a practical way., unless a nanny or other family members take up the slack. It would be the same the other way around if the situation were culturally turned on its head. So, either the workplace changes or men do in order to achieve a level of equality of opportunity. Or it needs some really out of the box thinking, which is not something that is easily imagined among British management.

I think the "time served" is a nonsense model anyway. How many of us know people with 20 years experience (and the salary to match) who really only operate at a 10x2 years level of knowledge/skill/ability?

Do you think so? I think your boss's/organisation's attitude is a bigger factor.
You can have a dh who does more than 50% of the emergency callouts but if your boss is convinced that women are unreliable and is waiting to jump on you the one single day you have to be the one who leaves work early to pick the sick child up from childcare, that all goes for nothing. Or even if you never have to leave early but said boss has got it into his head women with kids aren't worth promoting.

Similarly, woman academics at the moment aren't going to be saved by their supportive husbands, if their research output has been affected by pregnancy and maternity leaves.

And more positively, if your organisation offers a the right kind of support to get you back up to speed when you come back after an absence and then does NOT discriminate, the sky's the limit

I remember around 1 1/2 yrs ago I used to work for a company that sold baby products and I looked after and specialized in the pushchair and car seat department. Some training was being offered at the time but it required a bit of travelling (in the country, not out). This training would have aloud me to go to other stores and train people and it would have given me an even better knowledge of the products I was selling. Someone from te bedding department was sent on the course instead of me.

I queried my line manager about this and she said I couldn't possibly go as I had a baby and was breastfeeding. I was really upset and made sure she knew I had a breastpump and that I didn't need to have DD on me 24/7 to be a good mother and was perfectly capable of balancing childcare and work.
She apilogized, but the opportunity was gone so stuff the apology was what I thought!

Very true, SB, and I'm not minimising the impact of business and management attitudes, although it might have sounded that way. I am just a bit defeatist that those attitudes will change vis a vis women until childcare becomes more widespread as a parental issue, rather than a mother's one.

Able to get back and read some more as the kids are in bed now.

I agree with so many things said on this thread.

I can only speak from my own stand point but with the benefits of hindsight since having two kids I cannot believe how difficult it is to find flexible and well paid employment.

My husbands career has soared as I have remained at home looking after the kids. I did discuss with Dh both working pt and he advised he was not able to do his job pt (?).

Without getting too feminist about it he has internalised the oppression too.

My job was just as important to me as his to him except his is in private sector and pays two - three times more than mine and I worked in the public sector! The inequalities in womens pay just exacerbate the problem.

I do wish that I had returned to work in a pt capacity now to at least maintain my professional standing.

I am very demoralised by the whole experience to be honest and although I enjoy being at home and caring for the kids I am sick of the school run and the 'tittle tattle' that I get every day. Unfortunately as in our society a persons worth is often measured by their employment (after asking someone their name we then often ask what they do!) saying a SAHM just p*** me off.

Sadly, I think the problem starts before we even get pregnant. In the vast majority of marriages, the man is older than the woman. So chances are (all other things being equal) he is earning more, simply because he's had a couple of years' start. So then when a baby comes along and a decision has to be made about who should stay at home, he's earning more so logically she should stay at home. And of course that just amplifies the problem.

It is unlawful to discriminate against part time workers, you should get pro rata whatever full time workers get.

SurprisEs where are you located?

I agree with what ayebelieve is saying above.

In my case, I earned significantly more that DH until DCs - due to high stress, long hours, lots of travel job - which I enjoyed until I tried to keep up with it while pregnant. To continue, I would have needed immense DH practical support - probably as a SAHD doing the full 'wife' role. That is what my colleagues and clients had. DH didn't want to do this - no doubt influenced by societal norms/expectations as well as personal feelings.

Obv, my clients & colleagues were men with full-time SAHM / wife support...

brawhen, I agree with the poster who said that with most couples the man is a couple of years older and so have been in workforce longer and earn more so it becomes the "obvious" solution for the womans career to be compromised. Given that's not your situation, so if you don't mind me asking how did you resolve it and if it hasn't been resolved to your satisfaction then does that make you resentful?

brawhen, I agree with the poster who said that with most couples the man is a couple of years older and so have been in workforce longer and earn more so it becomes the "obvious" solution for the womans career to be compromised. Given that's not your situation, so if you don't mind me asking how did you resolve it and if it hasn't been resolved to your satisfaction then does that make you resentful?

The company I worked for were great on paper in pursuing equal opps, had a women's initiative to retain women in co etc. But elephant in the room was that (as a generalisation) for every senior man they employed they effectively employed [person + support-wife]. For every woman they just got [person].

It probably depends on your profession, but in law women on the whole have their career prospects damaged simply by being women. I have been a solicitor for 15 years, working in law for 20 and right from the start the implication was 'when was I going to go off and have babies?' In fact I had my first child at 34.

What herebebollox said.

Having children has to have an impact on a career - even if it just slows it down a little. But it should be a shared impact on the careers of both parents not all on the mother.

The pregnancy discrimination thing is definitely much more widespread than anyone realises (sorry to hear about your experience, SurprisEs. It doesn't surprise me at all though, from what I know now about employers! I hope you are at least able to get Maternity Allowance or SMP). It's not so much that employers are sexist, I think, but that pregnancy, like an illness, is viewed as an opportunity to get you at a weak point when you can't realistically leave your job and have poor alternative employment prospects. Bad employers will take advantage of it.

This happened to me in my pregnancy as well (am 38 weeks now). Employer wanted people to take reduced hours but instead of just discussing this rationally, the director got me in for a shock tactic meeting when I had just announced my pregnancy and said that my role 'wasn't working out' and that while they'd try to redeploy me, the role I was in was gone. There was no 'at-risk' letter, no warning of planned redundancies or restructuring in the company and I was the only person affected - and the only pregnant employee. Looking back, I think they wanted to demote me or reduce my hours and were planning to use a sham redundancy consultation process to force me into that, assuming that as I was pregnant I wouldn't be tough enough to fight my corner and stand up to them.

I went all out on them anyway, raised a grievance against the director (company is owned by a larger organisation), got the trade union involved and complained to the highest level in the owner-organisation to name and shame this scumbag director and have him disciplined. Unfortunately, all the senior managers ganged up to lie and protect him (not that surprising I suppose...!) so I had to just pay for an expensive solicitor to threaten them with legal action and scare the pants off them. Got a settlement in the end but the whole experience was incredibly upsetting and stressful. I'd had a previous miscarriage as well at 12 weeks (which employer knew about) so was absolutely terrified that my pregnancy would be affected by all the stress. Here am I though at 38 weeks and things have been fine so far (fingers crossed) and I'm so glad I don't work for those idiots anymore.

Meanwhile, DH, same age as me but about to become a father rather than a mother of course, is being headhunted by a top corporation for a senior role and was flown over to California for an interview last week. They all thought it was lovely that his wife was expecting, bought him some company-branded baby clothes as a present and said how much they appreciated him travelling so far with a baby due any day. I'm sitting at home, posting bitterly on mumsnet, having Tony Soprano thoughts about my former employer and having to be evasive to my NCT group about what I do for a living... so much for equality of the sexes! It pains me, as a feminist, to be in this situation but there don't seem to be any easy answers, except avoiding evil employers and building up your skill base as much as possible before you have children so you remain employable and capable regardless.

novice I still have very mixed feelings:

• I had underestimated physical impact of pregnancy - felt quite stupid about this - but it really did mean that I did not have physical & mental stamina to perform well in that kind of high-pressure role whilst pregnant. I didn't want to be treated as a special-case / patronised by being given easy duties - but realistically I needed to. This was hard for me to process - seemed like such a betrayal of the 'having it all' and equality of ability that I'd been brought up to expect. Maybe I should have taken sick leave / mat leave for most of pregnancy - but that doesn't seem right either.

• I left original employer and have worked PT as freelance and in start-up business project since having DS1. Had second baby 2 yrs after first
• We were at first in situation where DH salary was fine to live off, but he has since done start-up and we have used up savings to support
• DH is not bad but I do greater than fair share of family/domestic stuff and this is source of tension. Also continually makes me feel stupid that I have degrees / professional experience coming out of ears but can't sort out feminism in practice in my own home life
• I rationalise that it's not for ever, kids will grow up, I am good at 'keeping the home fires burning' and this is valuable - if noone did it there would be nothing to fight for anyway. So part of the problem has been my own undervaluing of wifework.
• My mum went through similar in that she gave up career progress to have 3DC and support DD building his career - but then she went back and was CEO of £ multi million org by time she retired. So I guess I can see hope.
• and now this is a ramble and I am typing on phone and can't review anything I have written above!!

And yes - I am somewhat resentful and grieve for lost career - but pragmatic I suppose.

Sometimes laws intended to help can actually hinder. For instance, if a woman has time off to have a baby, an employer is not permitted to treat her as being "behind" her peers. Sounds good. In practice what this means is that a woman who has had, say, a total of two years out with three children has to compete with people who in fact have two years more experience and, given that she will also be paid the same, will find it harder to justify her salary. She will end up being seen as less good than the competition and we all knows what follows then.

Lots of structured careeers (law, medicine etc) also have a dificulty built into the structure: crucial points, such as selection for partnership, consultant promotions etc. tend to be fixed at a point (early thrities) where women, having just started to earn (together with their partners) enough to cover the necessary long-hours childcare, have to fit in having babies before they lose their fertility.

brawhen is right that there is an unspoken expectation that an employee, especially in a senior role, should come with sufficient domestic "support" that the employee need never be distracted by a child's illness or an elderly mother's fall or a school project etc etc.. Both men and women who have full time working spouses are at a real disadvantage

brawhen has a good point. Men are parents, but they are not mothers. I often feel that I could do with a wife, and my DH is pretty good domestically.

However, I would not want having my children to NOT have impacted in some way on my career. I wanted to stay at home with them when they were babies. I wanted to breastfeed. I wanted to go part-time so that I could occasionally walk them to school and take them to the doctors as well as buying new trousers and knowing when they had grown out of their shoes. Right or wrong, I feel that there are certain things that I would define as 'mother's work'. Fortunately my DH is very proactive at home in terms of dividing the housework etc. so I don't often feel resentful about progressing more slowly career-wise (we are both in the same line of work and until I had children I was essentially a year 'ahead' of him)

I am lucky enough to be able to make choices about how we run things as a family (some women are not) and to be able to work part-time. I work in a reasonably male environment and have become used to the feeling of having to prove myself and to shrug off casual sexism but that's another story.

I think that the key is encouraging employers to have more flexibility. Mothers in the workplace can be highly efficient, focused and value for money. No-one works all the hours in the week, night and day, so perhaps we shouldn't be so hung up on full-time/part-time - just on the work that needs doing and how it can be done by the best people in the best way.

And women cannot 'have it all'. Sometimes it has to be enough to be able to say of a particular job or position or project or trip 'I could have but chose not to......' rather than 'I did and it nearly killed me'.

brawhen, I know exactly what you mean. As a senior person in my organisation, I am a rare beast amongst my peers in that firstly I am female and secondly I don't have a stay at home spouse. I got to the top before having kids whereas I know that it would have been so much harder if I had kids before. As a single person it meant that I could "compete" with men who married in their 20s but had stay at home wives with their children who were there to take care of things at home.

novice informal advice given to me was 'make partner before having children'. I did not take that seriously enough (plus didn't want to chance the fertility, I guess)