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!)

It's a personal moral issue then, may be? Some people take pride in keeping the best public toilets in London (I think that was in Covent Garden, down to the fresh flowers and music).

If we take jobs not by salary (and £30k is much bigger than the average UK salary so a fortune to many but wouldn't even pay about half my school and university fees bills) but by worth then having good teachers or cleaners or service in shops etc is just as important as a committed Managing Director of Nat West.

Also in many jobs the better you do at it the more promotion you're likely to get so that's a good reason to do the kinds of things that are on the list. Also she did say it's assuming you have a career you enjoy and value. It's a shame when people don't.

Yes, as you say it is a real shame that I value looking after my own children more than other people's. It is a shame that I would rather spend time with my own child than running choir practice for other children.

What a shame I don't value my career more.

most people have a partner ..... lala land? Sorry but last time i looked most children have 2 parents.

And as for the dig about valuing looking after ur own children more than doing things with other people's..... bet you're bloody grateful that ur kids have teachers to do exactly that

I work part time I give 110% to my work when I'm their but I'm a mother and give 150% to my children when with them. I work because I have to make ends meet. Yet why should I not be in line for promotion just because I'm a mother. The best person for the job should get promotion I agree that just being a mother doesn't give you an automatic right. But I wish I could afford not to work until all my dc are at school but I can't so have to work a couple of hours a week to help out the household accounts. If my dc suffered because of this then I would stay home and dh would have to go without sky+, internet and all other nice things we pay for.

My performance management, classroom observation reports and ofsted inspections all state that I am a 'good' teacher. I have been promoted both before an after having kids and working part-time under my previous Head (father of 3) but under my new one (who has no kids of his own) I am having difficulty getting recognition for the job I have been doing and for the job I want (another promotion). Yet my line manager (another father of 3) says he would be happy to have me do the job on 3 days a week as I do more work and am more motivated than the present job-holder who workd 5 days a week.

Is it just my Head who has the right idea then, ignoring all of my achievements just because I have kids and want a balance between work and home?

I feel more than slightly patronised by your recommendations, frankly. Also, can I please point out that speaking as a journalist, it's a damn sight more complicated than just 'writing something and sending it off to be published'?

I take my work bloody seriously; I like it, I'm good at it, I put energy into it. I also take my children seriously, although if I am honest I am probably far worse at looking after my children than at doing my paid work.

However, there are times when my domestic life inevitably impacts on my work life. The End.

Yes, the recommendations are patronising.
Also, you've got ONE 2yo. Hmm.

yeah in my experience a lot of mothers (and fathers although I don't know so many in this category) who work part time give 100% commitment. Actually so do full time parents i know. In my opinion it's perfectly possible to have a successful career which might involve being fulltime/part time or a combination of both at different points in your life.I also feel a little concerned at the digs being made on this thread about people with careers - almost as if it's acceptable to have a job to bring in much needed money, but a career - heaven forbid. I wonder if there's a teensy bit of jealousy going on here..... Actually I hope my dds have interesting and fulfilling careers. If i'm honest i hope they want more out of life than a low status, boring job just to make ends meet (though it goes without saying I'll always love them whatever they do). And with that I'm off to spend a lovely spring afternoon with my dh and dds, which I'm sure i appreciate all the more for having been working all week in my demanding but very interesting career!

when i had 1 dd was the same as you as getting people to look after her at short notice wasn't a problem. now i have 3 dc under 4 yrs non at school yet. please hands up who wants to look after this brood at short notice it's bloody hard work and if ones sick and child minder can't have them then dh either takes them to work him him if they are not too poorly or dh and i take it in turns to take time off work with dm willing to take time off work and mil. everything is about mothers working what about nannies as my dm takes short notice leave to look after my children when dh and i can't her employer (local government) totally fine with this but she doesn't get held back from promotions like me. she takes dd1 to preschool in the morning before work and once she starts school she'll take her every morning and collect her twice a week, mil collecting once and myself doing the remaining 2. how do parents without large family circles around them manage this - they have no choose but to take time off and why does this make them a bad employee!!!!!! It doesn't unless it's done regularly.

Lizziehoney, frankly I would be very worried about any of my children's teachers who valued spending time with my children above their own ! But that is my personal opinion and (like me) you are perfectly entitled to hold another view.

Obviously by the tone of the postings this is a very emotional subject - I do feel extremely partronised by the OP who seemed to imply (in my opnion) that part time workers get the treatment they deserve and that they should all be a bit more dedicated if they want to get ahead.

Part time workers are an essential part of the workforce and the UK economy has benefited considrably from having such a flexible workforce - if the majority of workers wanted to work full time there would be the same economic consquences as seen in France and Germany which suffer double our unemployment rate and the inability to attract as much inward investment as the UK.

By managers refusing to allow flexible working and bitter colleages resenting part timers to manage childcare (or suggesting they should be a bit more dedicated and work full time !) we are driving women out of the workforce.

This will have serious implications for future UK economic growth (less workers =less output) or alternatively will put a lot of women off having children at all (as seen in Germany) - again this will be a disaster in the future as there will be a mass aging population with few young workers to pay taxes for their support.

Women are a vital part of the workforce and leaving them with few prospects unless they work full time will cause untold damage.

Most of us probably like lizyh want our children to have interesting careers rather than dreary low grade work they hate.

I think you're picking on the part time thing too much. Some very committed parents work part time and often go back full time in due course and do fine but for some careers that's just not feasible.

A lot of the points on the list no one could quibble with - if you do a job that needs you to be up to date make sure you're up to date. I'm sure you'd all like your brain surgeon to know the latest in brain surgery etc. If I get stuff wrong people lose millions potentially and you can't coast. Working parents who manage best are those who don't worry too much so I think that bit about not wasting energy feeling guilty is wise. I never did and in a sense that's been the best facet in terms of my combining work and 5 children, the feeling comfortable with my choice. If you can get that most of the rest probably follows.

Having back up in case childcare fails is sensible and most people try to find it. It's certainly not easy to find.

And remember except to you your children are deathly boring so don't go on about them at work.

A healthy society in my opinion embraces part time and flexible working as contributing to the economic and social success of a country.

The answer is not to make full time work the only option for people who are bothered about using their skills and developing new ones and being properly remunerated in the process.

It worries me that people can think that the status quo is just fine and that all problems other people have with it are self-induced. We are wasting talents because of how society is organised - not properly valuing the contributions of mothers in raising their children and not properly valuing their abilities to contribute economically on a part time model - surely this is not in the long term interest of man, woman or child ?

I was thinking about this thread over lunch (I so need to get a life); actually, my recommendations to working parents would be a lot more along the lines of doing your best to organise your working life so that you are not over-committed in a completely unrealistic manner. That does not mean slacking; it does mean making sure that you don't allow yourself to be pushed into something you know you won't be able to deliver, and/or negotiating deadlines you know you will be able to achieve. And if possible, deadlines you know you will be able to achieve early, so that if everything does go horribly wrong (and it will. Sometimes it just does. Believe me) you still can do your best to come in on the actual deadline.

I do think that some of us - perhaps many of us - simply cannot have a plan B. I have nowhere to put an au pair. DP's parents are dead; mine live two and a half hours' journey away, and in any case my 72 year old mother is still enjoying a highly successful career as a translator and is therefore not always in the UK at all. If one of the children is ill, it's up to her parents to cover.

Oh, and although I work fewer hours a week than my partner, both of us value my career as much as his, and I don't do the cleaning (we pay someone else) or the washing (he does it).

Plans Bs are one of the hardest things to find. That's why when market forces work well employers can provide plan Bs. Some City businesses have a pool nanny who is always there and can always be your backup. If the consequence of the employee not being in work is the company loses £2000 of fees you do what you can to get those parents in work. Those are rare perks for high earners but the idea of looking after staff to get better workers isn't new at all - look at the Bournville model villages etc. It makes commercial sense.

But some people seem to think there is this thing called "employer" - one body with a bottomless pit of money which has a social duty to assist families. May be the Government or BA or big employers can do that but your average working mother employing one nanny or small business with 2 very stretched staff just don't have the ability to be so accommodating.

So plans B - my cleaner has an arrangement wiht her neighbour to have her children when off school sick so she can still come here. That's a plan B. In fact I'd be quite happy with a plan c her bringing them here but she chooses not to do that. My sister used an emergency nanny agency for her plan B the other week although that's only worth it if you can afford it. Some work and employers let you bring the child in in times of crisis. We could do with some state provided plan Bs if people want their taxes used for that.

But my plan B - working from home, which is quite feasible if it's the six year old who's sick - is precisely the one I'm told will be frowned on by my boss.

In reality, as my boss is (a) the mother of two small boys (b) the maternity cover for the actual boss (c) managed by uber-boss who is also mother of small child and about to go on maternity leave...everyone understands. Including my job-share partner, who is the father of two.

As usual, there's a lot to think about here and, even when I'm not in agreement with a poster's pov, it's still worth listening to... However I have to make an exception and that is with the chirpy patronising shit in the OP.

I've actually been in a rage since reading it and I've been trying to deal with it sensibly... but I just can't. It makes me MAD that just because ONE way of coping/working has worked for ONE particular couple it's been set up as some sort of model for us all to adhere to. It's absolute bullshit. I'd no sooner post my 'rules' for working parents like this than I would suggesting methods for peforming your own C-section. Just because I've had two myself, I don't assume I know how to deliver a baby in this way.

It actually scares me to think that women like sunnyjim are working in places like the one I've spend the last 10 years of my career in and are harbouring opinions about me or any of my colleagues based purely on her own experiences. I can only hope, like another poster has suggested, sj prints this out, keeps it somewhere safe and refers to it in 10 years time. I wonder if she will view it with the same amount of conviction?

I'm actually a bit ashamed of myself to have reacted like this but it's all a bit close to the bone at the moment given my present work & family situation.

The funny thing that strikes me about sunnyjim's OP is that she describes herself as fulltime but says that she leaves at 3.30 on nursery pick up days???? Is that fulltime? I only get to leave that early if I've worked till 9pm the night before. And I only get a 30min break for my entire working day.

But a lot of it most of us wuld agree with - don't over promise. Don't feel guilty because it's pointless. Both jobs are equally important (a major fault in many marriages which helps keep women down because their husband's job always comes first where they have a husband at all).

Whinging about being up all night with children.... obviously people don't want to chat to you if you're just moaning all the time so avoid that.

Take as much intest in your career as your children...I agree that that just depends on your personality. I am probably more interested in my career than my children and probably m ost of the rest of you wll be more interested in your children than the career so that one you can't really generalise over.

It will be 32 years between my having baby number one and the twins going off to university so of course the children fit into a long grown up life whereas mothers who have their children in their late 30s and then stop work and become "devoted to their children" for a concentrated 5 years and almost make it another career than part of a general life just do it differently from how I did it.

Some of her tips must surely make sense if you want to be the best in your field though. If you don't keep up with developments, go to the conferences or whatever it is in your area then you won't progress.

Agree to a certain extent Xenia. I work in a 'caring' profession and with people who are very friendly and interested in each other's lives and how they can impact on how we feel at work. I always try not to bring too much of home into work and tbh it's not that hard, as once lessons start it's so busy that I hardly give the kids a thought. On the odd occasion I've had to take a call about either of them (if they've been ill), work has been fine about me leaving if that's been necessary. Dh and I take it in turns to go for the kids if they're ill so it really hasn't happened much at all.

A male colleague said to me the other day that he thought I was so enthusiastic and motivated about work because of my days off and implied that if I worked more days I'd be as tired and cynical as the rest of them (him in other words). I told him that I have two jobs, both very demanding and physically exhausting but the one I have at home is just not as mentally stimulating as the one at work, so it has been great feeling creative again. I think that's a bonus for my boss, not a drawback.

My DH's job is more important than mine - he earns more than double me! It's fact, and we've both been doing our jobs for over 20 years, and neither of us want to change because it suits both of us. It doesn't generally stop him from taking his turn if the boys are ill, but bottom line is sometimes his job does take precedence.

As for plan B...we have elderly FIL as plan B and that's it! Just recently all three of my boys were ill (as well as myself) over a period of three weeks...they had tummy bugs and there is no way I would foist them on to FIL, so both myself and DH worked in sort of shifts, but I ensured that I didn't lose any hours, or take leave - I could not have done this if I worked full-time.

There are certain other parents who would assist occasionally (no neighbours as they're all at work) but with both I would still not leave a contagiously ill child with anyone else. However had my youngest has to stay off school when he fractured his knuckle last week, he could have stayed with FIL for short periods. That's about as good as plan B gets.

Incy,
I'm glad you as a teacher think so little of yourself and your colelagues to suggest that whilst its okay for a highearning barrister to be committed to their job no teacher would ever want to do their best and work exrta hours because after all we're just teachers paid £30k.

What on earth is wrong with taking pride in my job? or enjoying it?

"he would be happy to have me do the job on 3 days a week as I do more work and am more motivated than the present job-holder who workd 5 days a week. "

but yhow can you be doing the same amount of work as a f/t teacher? you aren't taking the same number of classes, you aren't there for extra curricular things on two days a week or for students to talk to, or to cover for an absent collegue, or to attend training/staff meetings.

I think the issue peopel are getting het up about is that they are assuming I confuse quality with quantity. Most jobs need BOTH. Your manager/employer needs people who are a) actually there - ie on the job as much as apossible and b) do the best work they can while they are there.

Now of course there are people who are present for 40 hrs but only get about 20 hrs of work done, there are also people who are paid for only 20 hrs but do at least 25hrs if not more worth of work.

But even so if you need a f/t employee (and no its not cheaper to employ two parttimers) then you will want the person who is able to be present full time, AND who can work hard during those hours.
And alot of employers might well beleive that if they have someoen being paid for 40 hrs then they can work on otivating/trianign them to get the best out of their work. If they only have someone avaiable for 35 or 30 or 25 hours no matter how good they are there will always be that day when they literally aren't there for an important meeting etc.

Promotion, pay etc is based on your value to the company you work for. To put it in teaching terms. I can't give a student who has only produced half the required coursework the same grade as one who has produced ALL the coursework even if the quality of work is excellent.

If a student takes a year out of school due to personal circumstnace I will try and be sympathetic, I will try and help them with catch up classes. But they can't expect to gain the same grades/exam passes at the same time as other students because they have missed a year!

SJ, your OP was patronising In The Extreme - frankly if I can manage to work full-time and bring up TWO well-adjusted and likeable little boys, I really don't think I need telling that I should choose my knickers the night before.

SJ - you speak as though promotion prospects will always be in a full-time capacity.

Quite frankly, anyone who is bloody good at what they do will get promoted - irrespective of what their home circumstances are. Although, there are still many employers who are under the misapprehension that working parents - mothers particularly - will be unreliable. This is rarely the case.