wokring parents

[sunnyjim]

Just wanted to get some opinions here;

there's alot of stuff out at the moment about how women suffer in their careers through having children. I have to admit I felt a bit puzzled by some of the comemtns etc.

I don't understand why you should be given the same promotion prospects as someone else when you havn't been in your job for a year due to mat leave, you work 35 hr weeks and take 20 days unpaid leave a year due to fmaily commitments, the other person has worked f/t for the past 3 years, works 45 hr weeks and never takes sick leave let alone unpaid leave.

surely you get back what you put in?

I think the only way to be taken seriuosly in your job is to take the job seriuosly. If your kids come first and foremost and you would take a day off without a second thought to deal with fmaily matters then your employer will notice and quite honestly i think thats one of the biggest problems working parents face - the fact that some working mums give the rest of us a bad name because they aren't committed to their jobs.

Anyway here are my 'rules' that I'm trying to live by now both me and DH work f/t and we have a 2 yr old.

1. Both our jobs are equally important so we take it in turns to do the nursery run etc. On days when I'm not doing nursery run I get in as early as possible and stay a bit later.
2. Get VERY VERY organised, I don't natter in the staffroom and I don't take 30 minutes for a coffee break. I make sure I get my prep and marking done in free lessons and lunchtimes so I can leave at 3.30 on nursery pick up days. Get a working wardrobe put together and prepack your bag - it honestly does work.
3. Get help; we're getting an au pair in the autumn but prior to that we're trying to find a p/t mothers help to give us some leeway. Send the ironing out, get a cleaner. You can't do it all so see what you can get someone else to do.
4. Pick one or two things that you can do relativly easily but very well in your job to make the point that you are a dedicated employee, for example DH works sunday afternoons going into the office at 3pm and staying until 7pm, this makes up for leaving early two days a week. I offer to do junior choir two lunchtimes a week.
5. Say what you can do and do what you say, never over promise but always keep your promises. You get more respect for saying firmly, I can't attend meetings held after 5pm and I CAN take lunchtime meetings. than saying 'oh maybe i can try and stay' but then be watching the clock or rushing off halfway through to get to school.
6. Don't use your family as an excuse, never apologise or whinge about the children keeping you up all night. At best you get sympathy but waste time you could be spending doing your work so you can leave earlier, at worst you are seen as a whinging female who can't keep her personal life out of the office.
7. take as much interest in your career as you do in your kids, read industry magazines at lunchtime, go on conferences etc
8. Don't waste time and energy feeling guilty about working
9. If you negotiate flexible working patterns understand the impact this may have on colleagues, make sure they aren't left picking up your work.

10. Get flexible, reliable childcare and have a plan B, whether tis granny, a neighbour or an au pair if you both work you ened a back up. What happens when DH is 2 hrs away and I'm at an all day conference and the trains go down? Or DS is ill? backup means you don't have to argue about who takes time off work to deal with the crises!

(all this is assuming you have a career you enjoy and value - its not aimed at anyone who is working purely cos they need some extra cash - totally different set up!)

"Get help; we're getting an au pair in the autumn but prior to that we're trying to find a p/t mothers help to give us some leeway. Send the ironing out, get a cleaner. You can't do it all so see what you can get someone else to do. "

some of us can't afford it sweetie - y' now thems thats iz poor

"take as much interest in your career as you do in your kids, read industry magazines at lunchtime, go on conferences etc "

like tesco shelf stacking monthly mag? for them that do.

its a stupid thing to say - my kids are simply more interesting, more important more everything than my job - my job pays the bills sweetie - it ISN'T my life.

"its not aimed at anyone who is working purely cos they need some extra cash - totally different set up!) "

EXTRA cash? surely you mean....cash - to pay the bills and eat?

actually I bet sunnyjim's a troll

"It doesn't sound like you're showing much interest in your kid at all, imo. Using an au pair, going on conferences, working extra hours at weekends. It hardly leaves much quality time with your child, does it? You have one chance at parenthod with each child."

thanks to Xenia for making the point first about how wokrign parents can often afford to outsource certian jobs.

Not sure I see the point of going through our week to 'prove' that we spend time with DS, I'm sure alot of people would assume we don't care about him because we both work.

We focus on our jobs and our relationships as a family, we make choices to reduce the amount of time we spend on routine boring things (like ironing) and maximise the amount of time we can spend doing productive enjoyable things both at work and at home. I don't like doing housework or spending time on routine childcare jobs, because I also enjoy my work I choose to work f/t and pay someone to do certian elements of the routine stuff around the house.

Someone asked what the point of my first post was: I've thought of a way to sum it up using a story!

I was offered 2 contracts, both in good schools:
1: paid 10x a year, 1 hr commute and 1 1/4 hrs from DS nursery by train, good promotion prospects,
2: paid 8x per year, 20 minute commute and only 15 minutes from DS nursery, not so good promotion prospects.

I made a CHOICE to take job 2, what I don't understand is how anyone could whinge about being paid less or not getting promotion for job 2. You weren't forced into it - you made a choice that the shorter commute was more important to you at this point.

Pre Children DH was offered a job paying 13x rather than the 11x he is on now - but it involved a 1hr car journey commute rather than the 20 minutes walk he has now. He turned it down but he wouldn't dream of moaning about losing the extra money, he made the choices about what worked for him.

If you choose to take a year out of work then why shouldn't you expect that to affect your career?

I do agree that in certian industries and companies there is a bad 'bums of seats' attitude that values staff on the basis of how often they are there rather than by what results they acheive. All I can say is neither DH or my jobs are anything like this. It is the results you produce that matter in our jobs. HOW we produce those results- ie what hours and where we work to acheive them is up to us.

christ you're a Teacher??

I thought you worked for Nasa

all that organisation....

i wish you TWINS for your next pregnancy.

then come back love

"working purely cos they need some extra cash?" extra? what is extra?

god forbid any woman should dare to take....whispers maternity leave. i think personally that maternity leave is a weakness and should be abolished. however, men should be allowed 4 weeks a year for outbreaks of "man flu", its only fair.

pmsl at shelf stacking monthly.

oh and:

1. Both our jobs are equally important so we take it in turns to do the nursery run etc. On days when I'm not doing nursery run I get in as early as possible and stay a bit later.

lovely, but what is a working lone parent supposed to do about the nursery run? (as an example).

10. Get flexible, reliable childcare and have a plan B, whether tis granny, a neighbour or an au pair if you both work you ened a back up. What happens when DH is 2 hrs away and I'm at an all day conference and the trains go down? Or DS is ill? backup means you don't have to argue about who takes time off work to deal with the crises!

flexible, reliable childcare? some of us have none!

I have twins. It's perfectly workable. I was at a big dinner a few months ago where you'd expect us to talk about work. I was next to a sectoral regulator who has twins and is very involved with his famly and the lady lawyer next to us is a full time working mother of triplets. We talked about multiple births not the subject of the evening.....

The thing is people make their choices. It's only idiots who expect to do little work and do well. It's all extremely simple. Listen carefully, I will say zis only once..... you take out what you put in, to everything in life - relationship with husband, children, hobbies, work.

Believe it or not the harder and better I work the luckier I get. Funny that.

"The thing is people make their choices. It's only idiots who expect to do little work and do well. It's all extremely simple. Listen carefully, I will say zis only once..... you take out what you put in, to everything in life - relationship with husband, children, hobbies, work"

thank you xenia - summed up what I was trying to say!

I guess I was getting annoyed with the tone of some articles on wokring mothers that seemed to imply women should be able to take out the same as other people they worked with, despite putting less in.

seems a night for it.

I feel it should be fair, however SJ it is still a FACT taht women get paid less per hour than men - FOR DOING THE SAME JOB!!

Now that is ot right/fair/equal.

Whilst I totally agree that you cannot expect to get promoted over and above others, you shoud be treated equally and not overlooked for promotion etc.

Your last comment irritated me as you are implying that women shouldn't be treated equally
'I guess I was getting annoyed with the tone of some articles on wokring mothers that seemed to imply women should be able to take out the same as other people they worked with, despite putting less in.'
I suppose you need to define what 'putting less in' actually means, as IMHO it isn't about hours at your desk or overtime, it is getting your work done EFFECTIVELY in the time you have available.

I know I do this at work, do it well and probably do it better than most. The reason I can and do it better is that I am a wife and mother, I have learnt to multi task and be able to juggle my time and prioritise in an instant. My job depends on that to take me above the average. What I also do is ensure I cover for my collegues WHENEVER i can, then when I am not around (like yesterday I had time off for a funeral) others do my work for me!

BTW I still worked yesterday, train journeys are far better than driving

xenia it's perfectly workable if as in the op you can afford the no3 "3. Get help; we're getting an au pair in the autumn but prior to that we're trying to find a p/t mothers help to give us some leeway. Send the ironing out, get a cleaner. You can't do it all so see what you can get someone else to do."

imagine that - poor people can't - funny that

Yes, poor people can't easily pay for help but some take second jobs, night jobs, weekend jobs and drag themselves up and out of poverty. I'm not saying everyone can but some do. I'm not saying life has ever been truly hard but I've had a few years when I've chosen to get up at 5am on Saturdays to do 2 or 3 hours extra work before the children got up and surprise surprise that increased our income and also helped me do better at my work. In this bit of London I am surrounded by surpremely hardworking immigrant families who clean, drive taxis, garden, hold down 2 or 3 jobs within a family often tolerating cramped accommodation and through dint of that hard work many of them do well.

The original post here about doing what you need to do and more to be the best at the job, read the trade journals or whatever it might be is obviously how most people get on and do well. It's not just or even long hours. It's being clever at it, using psychology to get on with the right people, being the person people turn to rather than the jobsworth who always has an excuse to avoid things.

how dya take a second job without childcare for a first?
immigrant families living in a community.

the basic ethos whichcomes accross from you xenia is that poor people are too damn lazy to get out of poverty.

its truly chilling.

so xenia, i am a "poor person". how do you suggest i get an extra job? i guess i could do nights. ds is 9 and im sure given the chance he would excel at looking after his three year old sister. they wont be too scared in the house on their own, i'll leave them a snack and kiss them goodnight before i go.

i'll drag myself out of "poverty". doesnt matter if i ever see my own children, they should be happy for me. i dont understand why i never realised how easy it can be!

"work yourself stupid in ten easy steps" will be my motto from now on.

Okay, you can both write. What's to stop you getting up 2 hours early tomorrow and writing something and sending it off somewhere to be published? Also most people have a partner who can babysit a bit at weekends. What about taking a Saturday morning job. Is that not feasible? Or my teenagers are on the books of a catering company. You say exactly what evenings on a very casual basis even just 4 a month you might be free and then just go out and serve.

the thing is 'just' a couple of hours anywhere could cripple somone on benefits. and still doesn't solve the childcare issue.

if only everyone could write material of quality worth publishing, it would hardly be considered a skill of any kind.

you're so right xenia. my partner lives over 200 miles away but i will make sure he's here every saturday morning without fail to babysit my children while i go to work.

i can see a new thread looming "am i unreasonable...to ask my partner to drive for three hours to look after my kids?"

"also, most people have a partner" in la la land they do yes.

Xenia, my boss has different qualifications and does a different job to me. I don't want his job, and I'd never be in line to get it anyway!)

And my manager wouldn't dare patronise me by saying "yes dear, put your children first".

Interestingly enough......there are more women than men in my sphere of work, and a lot of the managers are women.

I work full time (I do compressed hours, so four long days).

I don't have a cleaner, anyone to iron for me, or any other kind of "help".

I still spend plenty of time with the boys.

I love my children, I love my job, I love my husband.

If I needed an au pair to help me with one child I'd kill myself.

Sunnyjim you again said

"If you choose to take a year out of work then why shouldn't you expect that to affect your career?"

Thats complete b*cks. So for anyone (male or female) took a year out of work say following a serious injury or illness like cancer you think that gives the employer the right to discriminate against them. I mean thats exactly what it is, discrimination, treating someone less favourably.

I haven't changed my opinion of you (patronising with stupid comments) and I now also think you are ignorant. Thats based on your

I also don't understand your reasoning with regard to the salaries and jobs you had on offer/chose to take. You have compared basic salary but don't appear to have taken into account the additional cost of travel (fuel or train ticket) not to mention the time to travel so you haven't exactly lost money

Xenia. You are such a Tory. Nuff said

sunnyjim - what an inspiration you must be to all the other teachers that work with you but don't manage to be as hard-working, successful and committed.

I only wish you worked in my department so you could teach me a thing or two. The one-size-fits-all model that you promote is an extremely relevant one for anyone who has children but who wants to work without fear of discrimination:

• simply work full-time
• treat anyone who chooses to work part-time but who still wants a career with the pity/contempt they deserve sit back, safe in the knowledge that your personal circumstances will never* change, however many children you may or may not have in the future; your marriage is and always will be rock-solid and you are immune from tragedy or illness

and double

It doesn't matter what people's inaccurate views are. If you have a year off from work with cancer or having a baby or nursing an ill parent you will set back your career. You may well get it back again but you won't have that year's skills. Now you might get other skills - managing at home or skills you'd get if you took a year out to do an MBA or travel the world and you might come back refreshed and better at the job but it's going to have an effect even if just on your remembering how to do things, being up to date with your subject or whatever. I'm sure most people get back into the routine again and most employers of good employees given the costs of recruiting new people etc do want to keep people who have these breaks and retain their commitment to work.

On the question of partners I don't have one either but I still stand by the statement that most parents in the UK do have them. I also think one reason some people can work harder is by their living arrangements - more than one family or generation living together gives you more babysitters and then it's easier to work harder so perhaps two single parents could move in together or back with parents as indeed many do to ensure they can take those other jobs

Can just about understand people making family sacrifices for a high earning career such as a barrister/city analyst ....but teaching ?!

I speak as a teacher and frankly it all seems a bit OTT for £30k a year.