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?

The breastfeeding thing is an issue - although there is shared parental leave now, a lot of mums breastfeed until 6 months at least. There is a lot of pressure to breastfeed. You can get these weird breastpump in a smart bag type contraptions for working mums who want to pump, but then you'd have to pump during the day at work (where? In the toilets?) and take the stuff home, and do it all the next day...

So I can see this reason alone putting a lot of women off returning to work early and the man staying home (even with SPL which can be transferred to the man after 6 weeks).

Interestingly I work in HR and there has been not one jot of interest from ANY of our employees since SPL was introduced last April. Most people probably don't even know what it is.

So maybe if more men take chunks of the shared parental leave it may start to make a difference?

I think for me the problem is this discussion tends to see equality as being like men.

I'd much rather see a huge shift in how we value care work, be it our own children or for other people.

It's also that we don't have a way of valuing non monetary contributions to society. So for example I'd be seen as a more productive member of society if my children were in childcare so I could work as a childcare worker. I think we need to find someway to value those contributions. If we did I think we would end up with many more men wanting to stay at home and a situation where there was no disadvantage in staying at home

Yes - I suppose it depends on maternity packages and how easily your partner can go back to f/t after reducing to p/t hours etc. My maternity package is just SMP so doesn't really make a difference and if DH had negotiated p/t hours in his current job he would probably have to be looking for another one when DC2 arrives

Does your company offer equal terms to men and women? I'm not sure if mine does, I will have to check.

Maybe if one day some of the paternity part was use it or lose it, like in Sweden is it?

My company does offer men and women equal terms for the shared parental leave; though in practice, expect dads would tend to be taking the end part which is unpaid anyway.

Deffo - yes, that's true about the DH job ease of going p/t thing, mine is self employed so it was very easy for him, whereas I worked for a multinational corporation with a generous ML scheme so this way round worked for us but I can see why it wouldn't for everyone.

SPL can be taken by the man and woman simultaneously btw, obviously that brings the date that the leave ends forward, but a mum and dad can take it at the same time if they choose to.

I was questioning this the other day. My partner never even thinks about childcare or whether his hours are a problem where it's always been expected that I was the one who has to fit round such things. I'd never really thought about it until I mentioned wanting to change from nights to days and dp asked "but who will sort the kids out? " I know it's my fault for giving into expectation but does seem kind of unfair.

Just checked, my company only offers statutory pay anyway. How rubbish.

There seem to be as many opinions on this thread as there are posters.

When I had DC1 I was acutely aware that I was expected to stay at home, and DH was expected to continue earning money.

I was so, so happy that childcare and travel was so expensive it meant working wasn't going to be worth it financially in the short term. There is no way I would have wanted to leave DC1 and go back to work, where as DH was quite happy to.

Having said that, I think both parents should have the option to go back to work, and child care and travel shouldn't cost so much they make working pointless.

I only know a handful of fathers who have given up work totally to care for their DC (and in each case the mother was a much higher earner) but I also know several families where the lower earning father has refused to give up work, and would rather pay out almost as much as they earn in child care.

a lot of men do informal flexible working, late starts, 5 days in 4 etc, but it's mainly women who have formally dropped their hours and gone through the more visible FW process.

At lot of my friends do this!

'I prefer it with me being the one to be pt but a lot of that is to do with wife work, overall responsibility for dcs etc, which I still picked up even when he was the one pt.'

And therein lies one of the major problems.

I also really, really hope all the posters on here who have gone PT and have a 'partner' either have some serious independent means behind them or serious legal cover because your position is incredibly vulunerable.

Yep, serious independent savings/pensions here and p/t earnings still enough to cover the essentials.

Lynette women on MN are told to do that all the time though, to carry on working even if it is for very little or no gain so that they don't lose their place on the career ladder.

Presenteeism needs to become less of a thing before you can have two successful fulltime careers in a household. Some industries are doing better at this then others, DH works in IT and it has become the norm to work from home unless there are specific meetings. At the moment he is at home somewhere between 1 and 4 days a week, he will be logged onto a conference call while he does the school run, organise a meeting to start at 10am so he can drop the boys off on the way.
I don't work at the moment, but it is the flexibility that DH has which will allow me to start a new career, knowing that I haven't got to try and juggle the kids and work by myself.

I chose to go part time. I don't feel 'doomed'. I enjoy the balance.

I have nothing in place but then again we don't have any savings

I bf the dc until 3 years. Until mem can do that, women will stay at home and look after the dc.

And maybe women naturally feel more maternal and as though they want to look after the dc, not be away from them? I felt v protective of my dc when they were little. Now they are older, dh does half the caring.

I got chatting to a woman the other day whose son works PT and looks after DC whilst his wife works FT...

She said that actually getting a job with PT hours when they made the decision that he would be the one to cut hours was really difficult. Employers seemed to be suspicious of his reasons and apparently he struggled for ages to find something that worked.
Companies are a massive part of the problem.

I know only one SAHD, and a few Dads who work PT. It's easy to go PT at work but men find all kinds of excuses to not do it from 'I earn more' to 'she earns more'. Lots do shifted hours but the 'book time off in the middle of my full time work' is something DH does without getting into trouble (he does work flexitime). Interestingly going PT has more of an impact on a woman than a man, e.g. people assume I work 3 days rather than asking (I work 4 days). The worst example was a colleague who when she went for a promotion was told the job couldn't be done PT (several men do it PT) despite her working FT, not having children and being in her 40s. That's the specific recruiting manager that's the issue there, there's other departments with senior women who work PT so obviously those managers are more enlightened.

Cocktail, DS is still bfing, at 3.5. It hasn't stopped his dad going part-time to spend more time with him - why on earth would it?

Wow this is so interesting, I see myself as the sahm/pt worker as the lucky one. Dh and I both want more time with our dc, we are seriously not interested in forging ahead with successful full time careers!

I feel like dh has had no choice but to go back to full time work because he has by default become the higher earner. Although we both acknowledge that I could easily take over in a couple of years if we swapped roles. Thank God he doesn't seem minded to push me down this route and I love the luxury of taking and fetching children, a fulfilling part time career and being flexible to attend concerts, sports days etc. As well as they get older time to myself. I feel like I have it all (although am not successful in career / money terms).

I suppose we are lucky that we have the option. But I always find it odd if people see it that way, we made choices about size of house, when to have our children etc based on the fact we had done the maths and knew we would have choices....

Cocktail, I went back (including a spell of ft) when DS was 8mo. He bf to 3.5.

Also, when I interviewed foor this job, ihad a couple of offers. I choose the one where all parents of young DC were pt by choice. In fact until I requested it, there were more men than women pt. I decided they were the most likely to respect my career and life balance decisions.

I worked freelance from the moment I could sit at a desk after having DS1 - I love my job - DP has always been the solid earnings whilst I've picked up the slack by being freelance, and we generally earn about the same amount now that I've gone back to freelancing full time. None of his jobs have been amenable to flexible working though (think someone who manages teams of people, so he needs to be there to do that generally)

BUT, having said that, he also feels no responsibility - he doesn't keep track of weekend clubs, if I want him to do something for the kids I have to ask, and that is wearing. I've stepped back and made him do the packing for some recent trips (with a secret glance over what's being brought to make sure the kids won't suffer some kind of lack), and hoping that by doing that he'll slowly start taking more responsibility, but it's ridiculous that I have to. Direct conversations about it do nothing, it needs to be behavioural therapy I think!

Magpie - I fed DS1 until he was 3.5, but past about 18months he didn't need to feed in the day. DS2 weaned himself by 8 months anyway. Plus, if you did need to express at work, it certainly shouldn't be in the toilets Acas advice - it seems you should be providing somewhere a breastfeeding mother can rest and even lie down! And whilst you're not legally required to provide a room to express, you should consider it as a reasonable adjustment to allow the employee to work.

We talked about who would go part time, dh would have been willing to but I wanted to, so it made more sense for it to be me. Some of my work is evenings and weekends so he has dd then, and we share nursery drop offs and pick ups too.

I think it helped that we were already sharing responsibilities in the home before we had dd, and during maternity leave, dh was actively involved in caring for dd whenever he wasn't at work. So although I am part time now, there is no assumption that i am therefore fully responsible for housework and childcare.