Why is it always the woman who goes part time?

[maggiethemagpie]

I never really saw blatant sexism until after I had a baby.....I'm sure it's always been there but I never really thought about it until I had kids and realised that I am very very unusual in that my partner was happy to stay home and do the childcare (luckily he has an income from property) and I chose to return to work, and do a demanding full time job. Sometimes I think we must be living the feminist dream - if indeed the early feminists dreamed of having households with working mothers and househusbands. I'm sure some of them must have. Anyway it's a great example to set my kids.

However amongst all my friends who have had kids, pretty much without exception it is the woman who's had to make the career sacrifice and go part time or stopped work. I don't think many of these women have sat down with their partner and worked out which one would prefer to go part time, and it just so happens to be the woman. I think it's a foregone conclusion that it's the woman's job. Even when both partners work full time, nine times out of ten it's the woman who is doing the nursery drop offs and pick ups. EG my boss returned from maternity recently and it's a big deal when she has to work late and get him to pick the kid up - they never just take it in turns every day or anything. Or, a colleague was forced to go part time to full time. She was really worried about picking up the kids from school on some days as she couldn't get them into after school club. No mention of her partner doing this, or if HE should ask to go part time.

I think until more men begin to consider being the ones to stay at home, things won't progress socially in this area. I know the woman has to be the one to give birth, and until shared parental leave came in recently, only the woman could take an extended period of time off work. But that's just the maternity period, which now can be transferred to the man or shared - what about all the years after that.

Does anyone think this will ever change or are we doomed, as women being the ones to give birth will always be seen as the obvious choice to be the part timer/ stay at home parent?

But that's why too only taking a decision on how much one earns is rubbish. What if said high earner suddenly cant work anymore? What if there is divorce?
And what about the fact that childcare cost as well as time issue is a shared responsibility by the couple, therefore it's not a question of saying xx Amount in childcare compare to yyy from one wage but just xxx to take out from the combined salaries?
What about the self development of both partners and their equal right to fulfillment and financial security (I don't believe you have financial security of you arent working. See my point above).

The starting principle seem to be that one patent has to be present at home no matter what. Why is that??

There are very few part timers at my work. Mostly women though, only one man. His wife is has a very demanding job.

My dh does drop off and pick ups.

Although I work full time, my hours are such that I get home at least an hour before dh and kids. What do I do with this time? Anything I like, except housework.

What the hell is my point? I suppose it's that it's not always the woman going part time and that I don't more than my fair share of the 'wifework'. That's my gripe - no matter the set up of the family, the 'wifework' falls mainly on the woman's shoulders.

Hopefully it's changing though.

You may have a point Blu (about male earnings), before I had my first child my partner and I were earning roughly the same, but because he also has additional income from property (equivalent to 4/5 of my salary) we had the choice to either both work and spend most of that on full time child care or for one of us to stay home. Luckily we both wanted different things, he wanted to be the SAHP, I found myself getting bored on mat leave and wanted to go back to work.

But if he'd not had the additional income we'd probably both have had to work, and one or both of us would have had to go part time.

He did find it hard at first, being a man in a sea of women, there is a lot of sexism in the 'baby and toddler group' world which whilst against men, should also be of interest to women as it makes men less likely to want to take that stay at home role in the first place (plus, as an 'equalist' I am pro equality for both men and women.)

He has only got used to it now by seeking out the few other men and they all stick together, he doesn't really have any female friends from these groups.

toast i did that by starting to value my job as much as my DH and to act like it. That meant no more default position fur me of 'I'll find all the ways possible to solve the problem wo dh'
I didn't do what I couldn't do. I just stopped doing stuff. And then told DH that from now on xx was his responsibility (eg ironing or picking DC up at after school club at X time). Them I didn't intervene, ask questions about it. I assume he would do it just as he assume I would do other things. In effect I took his attitude to my duties at home and applied it to him.
I simply acted as if I was a man regarding some stuff that has been assigned as his responsibility.

It's not ALWAYS the woman. My DP is a SAHD.

A colleague noted that at their kids' previous inner-city primary school, there seemed to be a mix of dads, mums, grandparents, childminders picking up. Now they've moved out to the suburbs, it's almost all women.

At my current workplace, of the senior level managers I work with, both of the ones with small children do the school run at least once a week. (Could be more but if they work from home they don't put it in the calendar). This makes it a lot easier for others to ask about working flexibly. I'm not actually sure how many of my male colleagues do as a percentage but several do leave earlier/come in later.

Contrast to a previous workplace where I overheard a manager telling a female team lead that she couldn't expect a great rating because she was only part-time (she managed bigger more complex projects than her male colleagues, in fewer days).

Tell us more sleepingbunnies - was that through choice or circumstance?

Definitely something I'm working towards woodheaven. Do you think it's realistic for every woman in the uk? It would be revolutionary if every woman acted like you say.

Can I ask a personal question of posters? Those with sahd/husbands who work part time, do you earn considerably above average? Average is 26k. Just wondering if there's another stereotype at work here.

"The starting principle seem to be that one patent has to be present at home no matter what. Why is that??"

Because once you have more than one child the childcare costs become astronomical compared to income. Our income, anyway! I think it is an issue that is exacerbated once there is more than one child. Lots of women go back f/t after the first maternity leave, but not after the second child. I have lots of women friends who did that. Then they go back once they are all in school. With 5 years to catch up on in terms of professional development.

On numerous MN threads I have urges women to consider that the childcare bill enables BOTH of them to work and shouldn't just be set against her earnings, and that although the net income may tiny once childcare costs are taken into account the impact is a lot less if you set it against the earning loss of taking 5 years out. IYSWIM. Your salary may barely cover the childcare costs - but your job is the best stepping stone to a higher salary - and that will be felt for years after the children start school.

"A colleague noted that at their kids' previous inner-city primary school, there seemed to be a mix of dads, mums, grandparents, childminders picking up. Now they've moved out to the suburbs, it's almost all women. "

Because once a big commute is involved it becomes harder to manage 2 f/t jobs within the family. I was wondering today, whether the London-flight, because of property prices, will actually increase the gap between men's and women's career development because of the commute factor. House prices as a feminist issue.

My DH is SAHD too. We have swapped back and forth over the years. Last swapped when dc3 was 10 months old. I was struggling with PND and going back to work helped. He enjoys being with the children, as do I, but finds it isolating as there are no other SAHD at the local playgroups. I am glad that when ds reaches school age that we will both have some recent work history, if we hadn't swapped at all and I had been SAHM it would have been 8+ years without any work on my CV.

It's just so deeply ingrained in our culture. I think it will be decades before this really starts to change.

I'm currently 24 weeks pregnant and have already been asked many, many times if I will go back part time after maternity leave (and some older family friends have asked if I will give up work entirely). Not one single person has asked my DH if he'll be going part-time/giving up work.

I find it really surprising how often I hear otherwise sensible, educated people saying that flexible working, part-time jobs, job share opportunities etc are important for working mothers. Not parents, but mothers.

It drives me mad!

Toast - I earn above the average but not significantly so. about 10k more.

Because, biologically, I was desperate to stay with my children. If I had been the massively higher earner (not tons in it) practicality might have had to win but personally I didn't want to be away all week if I didn't have to.

If women had equal opportunity to work and earn and no gender pay gap I still bet more women would go part time than men.

Toast: when I went back to work after maternity I was on exactly 26k. Now more than double that. DH's job, which is skilled but less marketable has hovered around 18-20k full time for decades.

I was speculating whether people though it was more 'acceptable' for men to be the main carer if they're wives were earning a lot. Although those men would probably be 'cock lodgers' by MN standards. Can't win sometimes.

I know a few a fathers who have either stopped working or gone part time as it is what is best for their family. It is definitely becoming more common.
Personally I would have even miserable if I'd been working full time and my husband had been with our children. It's just not what I wanted. Luckily my DH enjoys his work and earn significantly more than I do. He would find the day to day minutiae of sorting out children dull and the emotional stress of caring for them all the time very stressful. He is an excellent father, very capable of caring for them alone and totally trust worthy but he would not choose to do it all the time.

Toast (or anyone else for that matter!), do you think it's significant then that my partner has his own, independent income (from property)? So he can be the SAHP without being financially dependent on me? I wonder if a lot of would be SAHDs are put off by the notion of financial dependence?

I agree with Ladyluck. I just think that women are generally more predisposed to hang out with little kids. This is why there are so many more female nannies, nursery teachers and primary school teachers.

However, I really would like it to be a real choice for more families (ie end of gender pay gap) and for the role of primary care giver to children to have more status and respect in the modern world.

Op, what makes you say earning £10,000 above average salary is not significantly more?

I would think significantly more would be earning a serious amount like £80, £100 k. Earning 10k more than average doesn't make me a big earner. But as I said it's different in my family as my DH has an income despite not working and being a SAHD.

Like LadyLuck81 primarily I stayed at home with the DC because I wanted to.

It surprised me tbh; when I was pregnant with DS1 I never would have imagined wanting to go part-time, even with the stupid hours I was doing at the time but he'd just started to get interesting as I was due to go back (he was about 8 mths, this was late '90's) and I just didn't want to do it. Luckily it made sense financially to go part-time because of child care costs, but I did take a big step down to do it and I'll admit, I didn't ever give DH the same opportunity.

The DC are considerably older now and I've gradually started increasing my hours, but frankly if I was more selfish and we were financially better off, I'd love to keep having all this time at home to myself. It's a nice trade - time at home for absolute responsibility for everything that isn't 70% of the bills.

We must be an anomaly. We have had every combination of ft/pt/SAH (both of us in all those roles) over the years, now we have 2 careers that although not earth shattering provide us both with intellectual stimulation and financial independence.

Bit of both really. I do see where you are coming from with the sexism. My dad cannot understand out way round of doing things at all!

I was thinking 50k as the big bucks but I guess it depends where you live etc.

OP, I think the more money you have the more choice you have. So the fact that your husband makes 28k a year without having to leave the house is pretty useful. I'm sure most people would be envious of that.

Do you think he would still want to be a SAHD if he didn't have that income?