Sexist policies - lack of childcare currently meaning mothers can't return to work

[midclegs]

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/24/sexist-policies-mothers-struggle-return-work-uk-childcare

I'm lucky - I can work from home.
I really feel for those Mums who can't go back until they have childcare, it's something the Govt have totally overlooked.

But even I'm struggling - as a single parent this week has been more difficult with the kid not having any schoolwork and daily structure. Like many I'm working 10 hr days whilst still trying to give my kid some sort of quality of life.

On a plus note, it's good to see the words women and mother used in a Guardian article.

Well I work in a nursery that is open. I am sending my son to a holiday club next wk so thats open. last wk he was in childminders so thats open, and I expect if those three are open so will other nursery,sand childminders. But I do appreciate it depends on your area. But they are not all closed. I think men can get it hard too. When my son was ill and my husband took time off to look after him he was asked. (by a women.) can,t your wive do it? (I also work.)

I have a DB but 100% of caring for our elderly sick mother falls to me. He's gone non contact rather than step up.

Also a common story. I can empathise.... my DB has no kids or partner, a good/secure but relatively undemanding job where he can work from home 100% if he wants. He has just told my parents he is completely unwilling to help them out in their old age (even though they have given him far more help, including financial, than me and my two children). I just don't have it in me to not help at all. What kind of person would that make me? It is unbelievably frustrating though.

It does come down to choice though
I married a man who earned the same as me,took minimum mat leave,went back full time

Maybe they want women to lose their jobs to help with unemployment of the men.

When I got pregnant DH was entitled to 2 weeks leave, I was entitled to a year, 3 months on 80% salary. At the time I felt we'd be insane not to take it, particularly as I wanted to breastfeed. But there are long term consequences.

That said, having looked into nurseries, I concluded there were none that I would be happy leaving my baby in 10 hours a day every day. Every one, bar one, I attended had at least one child screaming and screaming with no-one attending to them and high turnover of staff. I just felt it wasn't in her best interests.

I don't think society is set up in children or mother's best interests at all. Especially when women are forced back into thankless jobs while the state pays someone else to look after their kids. Many women, given the choice, would prefer to take that money and provide care to their children themselves. Why isn't that an option?

@whatnow41
“@PlanDeRaccordement yours is a very unusual story. I agree it's because I took 12 months off, but in all my 20+ years in the workplace I have never known a woman take only 3 months. And I've managed department's office 500+ people in more junior roles that are more female dominated/family friendly.”

Yes I agree my choices were unusual but I’ve never been gender conforming. I have known and supervised other women who have done the same as me, and it’s very common in say the US where they have no law requiring paid maternity leave, only 12wks unpaid.
I got a lot of hate and called a bad mother for leaving my babies in a nursery aged 10-11 weeks old. I know I was swimming against the current. You are right, the majority of women do what you did and take the year off, largely because it is available and societally expected that they do so. So I fully appreciate your choice to take the entire year was not freely done but was pressured by gender expectations for new mothers. To my mind maternity leave is not woman friendly at all because of what you call the ratchet effect. For true gender equality, it should be parental leave and split 50/50 between partners.

@IloveJKRowling

To be fair though, most women marry men who have higher earnings to begin with

That isn't true of me, DH and I earned the same amount exactly when I got pregnant with DD1.

Wasn’t true of me either :) But when I look at studies and the societal expectations that women should partner with a higher earner + the constant brainwashing of “men don’t like it when their partner earns more” BS, you can hardly blame women in general going along with these expectations.

If you had babies with a decent man who takes responsibility for his family, then he shoulders some of the burden
My DH does his best to take responsibility for his DC. However when it comes down to it he earns treble my salary. So when someone has to stay at home with DC that’s me, because we lose less money that way. Perhaps you should be looking more at sexist policies that result in women earning less to begin with - because the lower earner is always the one who has to give up work.

I completely agree that shared parental leave is the answer and it should be use it or lose it as there is a lot of expectation that women will do it all to overcome.

Unfortunately for me, it wasn't an option when DD1 was born and so when DD2 came along of course DH was the much higher earner and that inequality was baked in - it's really very recent in this country.

But DH really would have loved to have been able to have shared that first year looking after each of our children, and I would have loved sharing both parts of our life too.

Also, I have friends who are younger who have used shared parental leave and their relationships and lives are much better as a result. Obviously anecdotal, but they - and their children - seem much happier that it is all shared. It does depend on employers accepting this set up which still doesn't seem to be true for all.

Especially when women are forced back into thankless jobs while the state pays someone else to look after their kids
I can understand why high flying women who are heavily invested in their careers wish to return to work. But lots of mums have to take shitty min wage jobs that they don’t want and aren’t interested in, while a stranger looks after their DC. It’s ridiculous. If the government is willing to pay a stranger to look after their DC then why can’t they pay the same amount to the mum herself to enable her to stay at home?

@PlanDeRaccordement

To be fair though, most women marry men who have higher earnings to begin with. They don’t fall behind their partner after a baby, because they already made less to begin with. There is a cultural pressure for women to marry up, and not consider as partners men who earn less than they do.

Actually figures show that men and women ( of the same age) earn similar amounts until women have children ....then we start to see a disparity in earnings. However, many women marry men who are older and typically more established in their careers and are therefore the higher earners.

My DH is 11 years older than me so is 11 years further along in his career and his position and earnings reflect that.

Whilst choice plays a part, there is huge structural and societal inequality to take in to account. I've chosen a lower paid career with a flexible employer, because flexibility is more important to me. DH has chosen a higher paid, less flexible one. My flexibility then means that I have taken advantage of it, putting me further behind DH in terms of earnings (eg going part time). So - choice.

But it would be ridiculous to suggest we made those choices in a vacuum - we've both been brought up with gender roles and expectations, him to see a 12 hour working day as normal, me to prioritise my time at home. Similarly the fact that more women are teachers, healthcare workers etc, people make choices but they don't make them in a vacuum.

This is the whole point of the concept of indirect discrimination! The fact is, it is VERY clear that the burden of childcare falls primarily on women, and that therefore in this time when less flexible childcare is available it will impact women more. Why women are in that position is less the point than the fact the government seem blind to what's happening.

@SueEllenMishke yes, I meant to include this too. Again, it's a social standard that women are more likely to marry older men than vice versa. My DH is ten years older than me, and so apart from any other factors it's pretty natural for him to be earning more. And then we take practical decisions on the household income.

Exactly onceupon. One thing I feel very strongly about is that even though DH earns double my salary that doesn't mean his job is more important day to day. He does his fair share of sick days and pick ups and while we're both WFH we share childcare responsibilities.

He's been in his current role for around 2 years and it's a very senior position but he made it clear from day one that he has responsibilities to his child and does drop off/pick up on certain days. We need more men to do this for it to become the norm.

The lack of wrap around childcare disproportionately affects single parents who are disproportionately women. So the government’s policies (or rather their failure to have any that provide childcare as infrastructure) are an example of indirect sex discrimination.

Where lack of wrap around care affects two-adult households, the lower paid is the logical individual to give up work. This will disproportionately be a woman, so again an example of indirect sex discrimination.

Failure to acknowledge these obvious consequences is pure ignorant sexism.It’s really not helpful to use these debates to criticise individual decisions because if you have children someone has to look after them. And it’s a complex decision as to who and how, not just financial.

The area I live in only just got wraparound care at our primary 2 yrs ago. I was in the PTA meeting when the head was asked why there wasn't any. He said no one had ever asked, it didn't seem like something that was needed in our (naice) area.

It's been closed since March. Our school rules are only one childcare setting per child. DH and I are both key workers and we've been sending DC to school. So we could not use a childminder or other setting as well. That left us having to deal with the work fall out of no wrap around care or paying for a childminder for the 5 full days, an additional cost we can't afford.

I'm thankfully in a position at work with influence, and have just starting a regular planning meeting for resource in September, to take in to account the difficulties our workforce will have with staggered school start times and wraparound care. I'm trying to get ahead of the curve so that we can have a policy in place to support the predominantly female staff who will be impacted most by this. At the moment, the best we are looking at is flexible unpaid leave, but at least they won't have to request permanent changes to their contracted hours and they'll continue to accrue annual leave as normal. Sick pay daily rate will be based on average daily hours over previous 3 months. It's something. But I can imagine so many people (predominantly women) who will not get this level of flexibility and loose out in so many ways.

The ratcheting affect is very real. If one of us has to cut our hours in September to facilitate schools going back, it will have to be me.

It won’t have to be you. In fact, a case could be made that the higher earner often has more flexibility and influence in seniority to ask for temporary adjustments.

Most men won’t do it, though.

"It's been closed since March. Our school rules are only one childcare setting per child. DH and I are both key workers and we've been sending DC to school. So we could not use a childminder or other setting as well. "

I would challenge that.
The guidance from the DofE is that childminders may provide wrap around care. Schools should try to limit contact with other settings, but there's no valid reason to prevent childminders from picking up or dropping off children at school.

Shared parental leave on a use it or lose it basis would be a huge help

I can understand why high flying women who are heavily invested in their careers wish to return to work. But lots of mums have to take shitty min wage jobs that they don’t want and aren’t interested in, while a stranger looks after their DC. It’s ridiculous. If the government is willing to pay a stranger to look after their DC then why can’t they pay the same amount to the mum herself to enable her to stay at home?

Exactly Raimona. Is it just to punish people who have children? Because this set up disadvantages women, men but most importantly children. There are many Dads too who would rather stay at home with their kids if given the option. I remember vividly a lovely chat with a sainsbury's worker - he saw me with DD2 at about 7 months and came to coo at her / say how much he missed his baby DD when he was at work.

I live in a country where parental leave can be split between the parents as they wish (With some caveats). Women take more than men, and a significant element of that is due to biology- breast is best and men cant breast feed. But the really telling thing is parental leave doesnt (statistically) hinder mens careers in the same way as it does womens. However equitable the policies are we are still living in a society that sees men as the better bet careerwise and on average penalises them less (in terms of promotions and pay rises ) for taking parental leave.

[quote Bitchinkitchen]@BumblebeeBum choice being the operative word here.[/quote]
yes, and dick or not, the decision is usually made based on the economics of the family unit. Ie, whose income is more. Whose income cannot be jeopardised?

This is what cornered me when my kids were tiny,. My x was a dick but actually that was irrelevant. What was relevant was that he earned 2.5 times what I did.

I chose the lower paid partner (eventually husband) to have children with as I had the difficult career to work childcare around (midwife - FT shift work 24/7). He worked PT in the supermarket. When we had our first child he took 3 months shared paternity leave so I could go back to work after 6 months.

You know what happened? He cheated then once rumbled, fucked off back to his mums and never saw the kids again (I was pregnant when he left). It's been 5.5 years now. Nothing I could do could have made him take responsibility. He was the main carer. He didn't give a shiny shit. He still managed to walk away. So not only was I then left as the main wage earner, but also the primary (and only!) caregiver.

So what happened to me then? I ended up having to go PT, nearly lost my career, managed to just about fudge it with my employer giving me set days (these could have been removed at any moment). Paid out almost as much as I earned to a Nanny just so I could keep my career. I've got maybe another 7 or 8 years before things will change for the better. In that time I am going to continue to teeter on the edge of being restricted in my earnings and losing my career (if I'm out of the job for more than 3 years I have to do an unpaid year at university where there are few places as it is).

I could scream and cry at the unfairness of it all. I often do. I feel like I am losing the battle when people don't understand the issues that women are facing in trying to be a mother and also provide for their child through paid employment. Surely it is clear to see that women suffer time and time again at the choices of men?

I could scream and cry at the unfairness of it all. I often do. I feel like I am losing the battle when people don't understand the issues that women are facing in trying to be a mother and also provide for their child through paid employment. Surely it is clear to see that women suffer time and time again at the choices of men?

I'm so sorry ThisMust it is awful that being the responsible parent seems to be so often penalised.