I suppose this proves that women just can't stand the heat.........

[seeker]

here

[tootsietoo]

We need to start putting pressure on MEN to spend time with their children. Start criticising them when they don't work more flexibly when they have a family. It is so unfair that these discussions are ALWAYS about the mother.

[Dazzler159]

Our working hours are set to limit what used to be done historically and before the directive was introduced (working hours used to be much higher and not far off what you've mentioned).

Since industrialisation, people have always worked long hours either due to overtime/incentivisation or slave driver bosses looking to maximise output. The limit, currently 48 hours per week, attempts to reduce the amount of time that people put in but still does not prevent people from working more if they are particularly determined.

I wouldn't say there was a convention as hours vary between 35-48 and I have spent the last year working 4 days a week while other people often work 5 or 6. The last HR document I read stated this 48 hour limit is an average over a 3 month period so it's still possible to work well over 48 hours a week for long periods. I'm guessing that a CC in a big city will be expected to work silly hours thus making a 2-4 day week unfeasible.

[FloraFox]

PromQueen I hear you!

[exoticfruits]

Whatever hours a CC works they have to be on call. You can't have a position where they are needed and they say, 'I don't have child care - Wednesday is my day at home'.
I thought that I ought to find out what they did- it is a tremendous leadership role and doesn't look child friendly hours to me. They have to do a lot of community work which isn't conveniently 9-3. The are 6 female ones at the moment- not a lot I admit, but a start. The police hours are not child friendly to get there. I don't see how they can be.
I would agree that any job that requires more than 35- 40 hours a week suggest that they need more than one person- but that will never happen! Primary schools need more than one teacher per class for a start.
They could be a lot more flexible for everyone but when the yahoo boss has taken a backward step by wanting everyone physically in the office, you can't see much progress, and she is a woman.
You can't get around the fact that children need time, and getting to the top needs time too and there isn't enough.
If I had died DH would have had to change his job. He couldn't commute to London everyday at 2 hours each way. He would have had to have worked locally at reduced hours. He couldn't move grieving children to London, away from everything they knew and he couldn't afford London prices anyway. He couldn't afford a nanny from 6.30am to 7.15pm. If we both worked those hours I suppose we could have afforded the nanny, but we wouldn't have seen the DCs much.
I would say that the big progress is men seeing that success doesn't have to necessarily mean money and status. You can be very successful without either, depending on your definition of success. Of course we should change working practices that are set in the past - which would make it easier for all- but we shouldn't burden young people with the idea that they ought to aim for the top. It is just as valid to want to keep sheep in Wales, make pots, be a sailing instructor, gardener etc - with the ambition you want to be good at it. Maybe in mid life you might want a change and public office etc. Boys seem to have this freedom - they can be a nurse without the reaction girls get of 'why not aim higher'. The big message is 'choice' - whether male or female. And there is nothing wrong in choosing family first.

[Dazzler159]

I wasn't going to bite, given how unbelivably wide of the mark some of you were back there. It's been oft noted when someone makes a comment and it gets overly dissected and totally misrepresented.

For the record I have no idea how some of you made the monumentous leap but I don't expect any male/female to be fluffy. As per any real life scenario I expect people that are discussing things to apply a little civility, common courtesy and perhaps exercise some humility.

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Exotic has chosen to be with her children. Florafox has chosen to work FT (is that right or am I thinking about someone else?). I have chosen to work PT with hours fitted around school (and no, I'm not a teacher). Can you imagine that women had these choices 60 years ago? What has been does not have to be. If we cannot see beyond that then PromQueen is right to despair. I'm off now. Bye.

[Dazzler159]

PromQueenWithin

Yes I am that poster but sadly I genuinely don't understand the latter part of what you've just written (sorry ).

But yes, the assumptions were very wide of the mark given they were not anywhere near what I was thinking when I posted. That's not me being patronising but pointing out that people had made a mistake.

If you want to take it as an implication of being a foolish, woolly headed thinker and writer then that's your choice but it works both ways. Sarcastic assertions were made about what I had said before, except I didn't take offence to it.

AbigailAdams Wed 27-Feb-13 13:04:31

An expectation that women should be polite and nice is very patriarchal. Being angry and frustrated, not really allowed.


UptoapointLordCopper Wed 27-Feb-13 13:18:03

Feminists are nice and fluffy in real life. We wait politely till our lords and masters have time for us to listen to our petty little grievances. While we wait we mop the floor and cook lovely dinners so that our lords and masters will be appeased and in the right mood to pay us undeserved attention. And after a hard day's work! How magnificent of them!

FloraFox Wed 27-Feb-13 16:22:10

...needing to be all fluffy kittens with any old thing said by another woman...

But I'm going to stop as I can see this going round in circles.

[Dazzler159]

I posted my thoughts a few pages back (p6 IIRC) but will have a think and get back to you.

[exoticfruits]

The fact is that we need very few people at the top and a lot at the bottom.
e.g. A hospital needs a few managers, a few surgeons, a few consultants etc but they need a lot of nurses , they are vital- you can do the operations without them. We want good quality ones that are paid a reasonable salary, we want them to be in the job because it is what they really want to do, not because they can't do anything else. We want a lot of women as nurses, I can't see my elderly mother being happy bathed by man. We want experienced nurses who want to stay on the ward, not disappear into teaching, managerial jobs leaving just the inexperienced. We need hairdressers, car mechanics, etc. It is pointless sending everyone off for law degrees, they can't get jobs when they finish - there are too many of them. We don't want 50% at university.

Of course it is unfair that it is unequal - of course you would expect 50% at the top to be women. However very few are going to make it, even if male. It is sad that we have such a narrow view of success so that being a surgeon is a success and being a nurse isn't- when they need each other and we need both.

I am all for changing working practices but you have to understand that children change the life of a couple - if you only see them for quality time you miss out. I know many young women who discuss problems etc with the grandmother, and bypass the mother- because Granny was there when they were growing up and mother was not.
Normal career patterns are fine, most people juggle- you have to. Getting to the top is more than that- it takes dedication to the job.

It is quite understandable that many women prefer a balance.

I would say that women are their own worst enemies. They make themselves 'senior' parent from day1. Often, as a couple, they know nothing about babies and yet the mother becomes the 'expert' and either does it all or issues instructions. She won't just leave him to it, or go out between feeds and leave him alone. Needless to say they give up and let her get on with it and it become 'her' job. Later on him looking after his own children is 'babysitting'! I was able to go away for a week when mine were 1yrs and 2yrs- they waved me off at the airport- I didn't have to give any instructions DH was equal they were his DCs in his own home- he was used to looking after them.

As far as I can see women want girls because they are seen as more compliant and quieter and will grow up to be mother's best friend.

People complain about toys being for a gender and the whole pink, princess stuff- and yet it is mothers who buy it! Lego have doubled production of 'girls' Lego and can't keep up with demand. It wouldn't make business sense to stop. Obviously women are buying it in droves! I hadn't given it much thought until a friend's DD had a baby girl and then I went into a shop saying 'I have 3 boys, I want to get a really 'girly' present' - and yet when it came to it I couldn't bring myself to and got a lovely brown dog. I had never been exposed to it before and it as a shock!

We need to change working practices, women need to let the father be an equal parent, stop seeing girls as less trouble than boys.

We need to change our attitudes to success and have 'real' choice. Education should be for the excitement of learning- not always jumping through hoops for the end result. A career should be one to suit you, if you would love to be a librarian - then go for it - don't let someone tell you that you should want higher.
Boys seem to win out yet again because they have a free choice- they are not loaded with expectations of what they should do, or not to the same extent and they don't get the same sense of failure if they don't get there- or step off the treadmill.

I would say that the real worry is that our young people can jump through all the right hoops, go to top universities get a good degree and can't get a job in the field they want, never mind one with a future. Maybe with younger children you don't realise that our shops, bars, cafes etc are staffed by graduates who can't find anything else.

(I'm sure that everyone would love a job that makes a difference and stops at 3pm- I think teaching does that but it doesn't stop at 3pm)
.

[kickassangel]

But WHY do you think that women don't want to make the sacrifices but men do?
What about the RL examples of women who DO want to make it but get shut out by men?

OK - There will be some women who want to stay home. There are men who do as well, but WHAT causes the gender bias? When men have to parent they do a very good job of it, yet for some reason some people think it's a 'naturally' female thing.

I would argue that there are a lot of societal pressures that need to be discussed, not just that 'women want to stay home'. That's just repeating the issue, not attempting to answer it.

[exoticfruits]

I think that increasingly men don't-they work out there is more to life than paid employment-however it tends to be men who haven't a clue what to do if they don't work.
Men generally have a supporting woman, women often don't have a supporting man. How you change that I don't know if people are happy with it.

My newspaper extract said Ruth Kelly managed to juggle four children with her job as Education Secretary. The Tory MP Louise Mensch combined being on a select committee with having three children. Both are resilient women and both quit. Neither mentioned sexism, but instead talked of tiredness and the impossibility of making both roles work.
Even the ballsy health minister Anna Soubry says she would find it almost impossible with a young family

I don't even see that it helps if your DP stays at home-the nature of the job means that you don't see your children except for 'quality' time which is not something that children want. They only want one thing from parents-time.

Those without children don't take kindly to changing everything for parents in the workplace-they are quite vocal about it.

A lot of it is fact PromQueen. I can find lots of threads with women disappointed to have a boy, I can't say that I have seen any disappointed to have a girl.
You can't miss the boy and girl merchandise in shops.
I can find you lots of threads where the DH is an extra child and lots where women have never left their child with anyone other than family, and women who never have a night out.
I can assure you that new graduates can't find a job-fact.
A new branch of Costa coffee opened last week in Nottinghamshire with 8 jobs and had 1700 applications-many from graduates who can't find jobs.
If they do get a job in the right field it can often be the sort of job that you could get straight from grammar school after O'levels when I was young. This is far more worrying IMO.

[Dazzler159]

PromQueenWithin Fri 01-Mar-13 14:08:03

OK, so I've looked back. Your view is that most people don't want to make the necessary sacrifices elsewhere, primarily time with loved ones (or as you call it, the 'best job in the world'), to get to the top of their chosen career?

But, what I and others are trying to say is that just because society as it stands tells us that family must be sacrificed for power and representation doesn't mean that this is right, inevitable or has to continue.

As you're so very keen on personal experience and choice, I'll tell you that I'm on track to a position where I hope to have some power to make a positive difference in the world through my work. And I stop at 3pm every day.

I think you got the jist of what I was saying except I think 'some' as opposed to 'most' people. I have no idea what the percentage may be but from my social circle it is certainly a significant number. As I mentioned previously the shortfall in representation is likely to be due to many factors and I believe this to be one of them.

I appreciate what you're trying to say and it probably isn't right that power should come at the expense of family. I believe it is accepted that in hunter/gatherer times we worked about 2-3 days per week so can imagine it was easily possible to juggle many moons ago. However, evolution and industrialisation has led to ever more complex societies and longer working hours. These economic changes have occurred over centuries so winding it back to say, 30 hours per week is probably going to take longer than our lifetimes to achieve (without some economic meltdown). Either way, we are all born into this world and are simply making value choices given what we are presented with. Sadly the current status quo still requires ridiculous hours on the way to the top.

It sounds like you are fortunate so good for you and all the best with it, although I can imagine you are the exception (as opposed to the norm).

For the rest of us we have to make a choice between chasing the dream and spending time with your kids. As Exoticfruits says, kids don?t want ?quality time? but ?your time? and nannies, carers etc. are no substitute for time with mum/dad. Of course it goes without saying that men should support their wives more but this is changing with more SAHD?s (albeit slowly). In other cases I?ve known successful female bread winners that objected to their husbands wanting to be a SAHD as they wanted the added income and for nan/granddad to perform the childcare. This was mainly due to the view that men are useless and cannot be trusted. It?s a poor stereotype but one that a lot of women love to joke about.

There are many issues as this is a hugely complex problem. The workplace needs to improve, parents need to raise their kids to be free thinkers, women need to be more discerning with their partner choices and men need to be more supportive of their partners.

Of course there are deeper rooted issues but these have been ingrained over thousands of years so aren't going to be broken down in a hurry.

[FloraFox]

Dazzler I believe we have seen greater societal changes in our lifetimes than would have been conceivable when our parents or grandparents were children. You've referred to every conceivable reason for "how things are" other than sexism / patriarchy. Do you think this is a factor? What is the feminist aspect of your points?

Also, economic meltdown? I think we could do a lot better economically than we are now if fewer people were doing the work of two people.

[exoticfruits]

Parents do need to raise their DCs to be free thinkers.

I agree with you FloraFox that we ought to have more people working and that far too many have an unrealistic workload. But once you get people working like that you are not going to get employers going back.
My father had a very responsible, graduate level job and yet when I was a child he went home for lunch everyday and he was home by 5.30 every night!! He occasionally had evening meeting but he had his evening meal with us before setting out. The same job today would mean that he would be lucky to grab a sandwich and he certainly wouldn't be home on the dot each day. I wonder if it was more productive?
A friend who worked in the sort of culture where you were in the office early and didn't like to be seen to be the first to leave did a few weeks work in the Isle of Man and found that if people arrived early they sat in their car and read the newspaper, they left on time.
When I started teaching you didn't have TAs, there were no computers, everything was written by hand, I had to write my own work cards etc and yet I had time to go out in the evening and most of the weekends and holidays were mine. My ex pupils from that time seem to be doing very well.
When I was at school ( being quite old) I distinctly remember being told that new technology meant that everyone would have more leisure time and the difficulty would be finding time to fill it. How wrong can you be?!!
Technology has meant far fewer jobs but the people in them are working far, far harder and longer. The rest can't get jobs at all, or only ones far below their capabilities. If we could only employ more people then the young would stand a chance. There are so many young graduates who can't get work- and they are so keen- generally they are grateful to get an unpaid internship, they are so desperate to get a foot in the door. In a few months thousands more will be joining them. At the same time older people have to stay in their jobs longer- they can't afford to retire.
While I agree with PromQueen's point that jobs don't need the hours and why are you working 5days out of 7 every week if it could be changed- the fact is that it won't be changed any more than every primary school will take on at least 2 more teachers, each hospital will double the number of nurses etc.

The one fact is that DCs need time and working practices don't give it. Most people juggle, but most people don't have jobs of power and influence. If you are in the job where the buck always stops with you, there is no one to pass it on to, the hours are long and not child friendly. It is even worse working your way up, you not only have to be dedicated but you have to be seen to be dedicated. I don't see how you get change when there will always be people who can manage it. Good child care is necessary, but even with that you do need to see your child in the morning and most definitely before they go to bed. You need to know their friends, what the teacher said, how best friend upset them- just what is happening in their life. If you go days without seeing them you miss this close relationship - they bond with someone who has the time- they are not going to save it up to discuss in 'quality' time next Tuesday - they will have forgotten because it has all moved on. They don't go in a cupboard and come out when it suits you! Children are inconvenient and life changing.
Maybe working hours will change- but it will be slow and very gradual- like getting women into top jobs- it won't be sudden.

[Dazzler159]

FloraFox

You are probably right about the changes within our lifetime. I would expect to see parity in salaries within the next 5 years but this will likely come before real equality is reached in the workplace (in terms of a 50% split). Even then sexism will sadly still be rife IMHO.

Of course sexism is a factor though, I'd assumed we had already established it was a given.

I'm not trying to be a defeatist but society as we know it is a crazy mix of male values + (small part) female that has evolved since the dawn of time and probably before humans developed the ability to philosophise (and apply moral judgement over our actions). Rightly or wrongly sexism has been perpetuated through history but it is changing. However, I would suspect that whilst equal representation will come, a change of attitudes i.e. where all men 'truly' accept women as equals will take longer. But this has to be met with women that actually believe themselves to be equal, which from my experience is something some women don't.

The only way I can see us working drastically less for the same money is if we all start paying more for goods/services etc. Most things are driven by sales, profit and hourly rates. We would have to see a fundamental change before we could all start working 30 hours a week and still be able to have adequate means to provide for ourselves. In order for someone to live on minimum wage, for instance, it would have to double to £12/hour or for everything to halve in cost, which is at odds with what would be necessary to pay two people instead of one.

[Springdiva]

The devotion to child rearing is a relatively new thing because the lack of reliable contraception in the recent past meant that babies weren't always a blessing, quite the opposite alot of the time.

And, imo, many DCs didn't get the fuss made of them that DCs do these days. Are we happier than in the past, not sure.

So stating that DCs want your time over anyone else's is not true imv. A good nanny could surely do as good as job, or maybe better if the parent wishes they were in their interesting job rather than baby minding.

Are we producing more rounded, confident, happier people than in the past through all this child rearing advice? debatable imo.

[exoticfruits]

Of course you don't need to be there all the time, there is nothing wrong with a good nanny, but you do need to be a daily presence in the child's life. The DC wants someone's time and attention and that is the person they love and develop the relationship with-not the person who is too busy with other things and can only take you up in the odd moments it happens to suit.
You can't develop a proper relationship with a child unless you have the time to talk on a daily basis.

[Springdiva]

Well, many wealthy people choose to pack DCs off to boarding school - in the belief that they will come out better because of it, I think, so those parents must not agree with your veiw that a daily presence is required.