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!)

"We can't all be the boss or have "cerebral" jobs"

Which does rather imply that there are less cerebral jobs.

But now you've explained yourself better, I would suggest that maybe a good doctor would spend more time reading and learning more about their specialism than one who does this "very quickly", or who works the number of hours required and no more.

Actually, I do get the point about flexibility in certain careers and not others. But talking about "brain power" and how "cerebral" a job is is a red herring IMO.

Indded, I am seriously contemplating a career change to achieve more flexility - and also to find a career that I can see myself wanting to continue at 60-odd. I love teaching, but the though of bottom set year 9 on a Monday morning when I'm aged 65 fills me with foreboding...

Most bosses etc work longer hours than those under them in practice. Some may be not and you get more flexibility and control if you are in charge. If you do deals for clients or are in court you don't really pick your hours and if you refuse too much work you don't get any more sent your way but I certainly think if we can encourage our children to have well paid interesting work we will serve them well rather than directing them to work in Macdonalds.

The choice issue is interesting. If I had been born in rural Afghanistan (or bits of London in certain families) I might well think I'd chosen to marry at 14 or 16 and do what my husband said. As I was born in England at this time into my family where girls go to university I think I'm making a choice to work but I'm not really. We're all just pawns to our upbringing, genes and conditioning and choice is a bit of a myth.

OMG am totally ROFL at the OP!

Your poor child.

becky - not sure why you think it's a red herring.

There are manual jobs, semi-skilled jobs, skilled jobs, professional jobs... what's shocking about that?

Wait a minute - and you've got ONE two year old and you need an au pair?! Yikes!

What's the issue?
If you have a job and a family,you need to get organised.
Er..we know that.

A very patronising , but funny OP !

It is a joke isn't it ??

oh goodness me what a thread! lol moondog. i'm thinking...yes...AND....?

i love that my boss, both line manager and big boss, are mothers. also the majority of my team are mothers. we all understand where each other is coming from. we all help each other out, swap shifts to cover 'plan B' situations etc.

i work late afternoon/evenings. dh takes over when i leave for work. dd also goes to nursery 2 afternoons. dh would absolutely LOVE to be the one at home in the day, but so would i and i won!

Just re-read the OP and it's made me go from to , it's so bonkers.

Do you know what staff would say to a teacher who won't 'chatter' to their colleagues; reads industry magazines at lunchtimes and who looks down on part-timers (apart from the part-timer she employs to do her housework and childmind her kid)? GET A LIFE

If you're so career-minded and serious about your teaching, why are you reading those crappy mags at lunchtime - why aren't you organising booster sessions for under-achieving kids (like I do); why aren't you chatting with your colleagues, especially the new ones, who need to learn from the more experienced members of staff (like I do); or offer to help with their marking as you appreciate that your experience means you get through your marking quicker than they do (like I do). Oh but then I forgot - I'm only part-time and you're full-time and so you're (by default) more dedicated and committed than I am.

Priceless!

So if I had granny round the corner to help out that would be okay but as I have no family within 200 miles and choose to give DS the experience of another culture and of having another adult acting as a big sister living in our house for a year I am somehow a bad mother? I want there to be a back up childcare option and an au pair is cheaper than moving house to be near my in laws!

And what on earth is wrong with choosing to pay someone to do some of the housework to free up 3 hours or so on saturday for me, DS and DH to go out together because netierh me or DH has a pile of ironing or cooking to do?

Yes I am fortunate in that DH and I earn enough to make this possible. Of course the fact that we choose to live in a cheaper part of the country, don't have a car, don't go on holidays abroad doesn't count for anything.

My point is it is all about choice.

I want to spend time with my children therefore I will put fewer hours in at work.

I want to reach the top in my career so i will choose to work longer hours.

I want my kids to have continuity of care so I will pay for a nanny.

It sometimes feels that some people want to make the choice to put their family first but then also want to retain the same standing and benefits they had when they put their career first.

I don't look down on part-timers, why should I? I get annoyed by anyone who assumes they can work less and recieve the SAME as people working harder and/or longer.

We are conditioned - anyone who thinks otherwise isn't looking at society clearly. Everythign we see every day conditions us to a certain way of viewing the world - its called the norms of society. For example in my local grocery store they have cards and gifst for mothers day. the cards are uniform pink and flowery or glittery. the gifts range from washing up gloves with fur on them, to teacups, to teddies. There isn't a single golf ball, tool set or desk set in there. Do you honestly think this type of thing doens't affect the way people view women in general and mothers in particular?

There's nothing wrong with any of it, SJ.

But I hope you aren't as patronising to your pupils as you are to us!

so go and have a gripe at the part-timers at your work who just come in do their job and go home - for goodness sake don't be having a go at part-timers about whom you know diddly squat. or better still just post your opinions in the way you just did below rather than print out a smug 'How to' list for working parents that is just going to alienate you from a vast number of the posters on this site.

No one minds opinions based on your own experiences being posted - but your OP was patronising and generalised and it didn't do you any favours (In My Humble Opinion of course)

There was a well-known study done a few years ago now of female academics. Part-time working parents out-did full-timers in all the ways they measured (grant income, publications in particular).

and unless you are in management yourself and part of your duties are to measure and monitor staff output and effectiveness, how can you possibly judge how much effort a part-timer puts in to their job? On what basis do you make your assumptions?

Have you personal experience of seeing a part-time colleague achieving a promotion when you 'knew' for sure they didn't 'deserve' it (presumably using your marker that they're part-time and so there would be no need to actually find out how they do their job and the efforts they put in)? And even if you do have evidence of the last scenario, that would be ONE example. I go to all the meetings I need to, all the parents evenings, I mentor 3 new staff: they are free to phone or email me at work (at my suggestion as I know I'm not there every day to see them and they're happy with this); what exactly do I do (or don't I do) for me not to merit a(nother) promotion?

Have you been looked over for promotion recently then sunnyjim - is this what it is all about.

It is not about the quantity of work you put in , its the quality !

All I can say is what until you have more children - or will that interfere with your organised life !

Or rather wait until you have more children !

Re the opening post - surely it depends on your point of view doesn't it? I think the O-Post er is a teacher - in which case I'd say the following:

As a mother of two school age children I'm really only interested in the results of your input into teaching. I don't really care if their teacher works all the hours God sends, if they don't inspire my children to achieve educationally, be happy, keep interested and stimulated then they shouldn't be promoted. If on the other hand they're a natural teacher, and can do all this by cruising into school at 8.30 and going home at 3.30 - then why not promote them? -

How about thinking that it's output that counts not input.

Also, absoutely nothing wrong with paying people to do your chores - or having an aupair with only 1 child. Just wise to be aware that they are only choices available to people with a certain amount of money.

sunnyjim, don't you even realise the patronising tone of your OP?

there are all sorts of workers on this site, women who run organisations and women who go out cleaning.

usually we all have at least one child, some like Xenia have 5 and are very career minded

so you setting yourself out to be the pinnacle of wisdom for working mums when you work as a teacher (term time only I guess) and have only one child actually comes across as rather silly and niave

Moomin, yes, I agree. Lots of conditioning. Far too maothers condition their sons to think women clean and men go out and earn money and have great careers too which women mop up sick or whatever. Or men can have exciting well paid jobs which enable them to travel, have family free breaks on business trips and keep most of their earnings (some men do this) whilst women sit at home worshipping the ground these high earning men walk on and clean their shirts.

We are also conditionting a lot of people who read the press into thinking woman equals wants to work part time. Man wants to work full time. Every article on working mothers bleats on and on about how all these women want to spend more time doing housework. Yet there are loads of us full time working mothers who do not, repeat, do not want flexible working and part time work. We juts want to do the job and relish that absence from dull domesticity and demands of our children. no one ever puts our point of view. We're just forced into a cage like a battery chicken that says - woman equals wants to work part time. It's disgusting and makes it harder for women who do want to work full time to be taken seriously. In other words it's a retrograde step for women who want to work full time unless we can get as many men going part time as women in which case the effect could be neutral.

Conditioning is interesting and not necessarily wrong if it makes people happy. I think the Brethern who live near me whose daughters grow up to marry quite young, no TV, head scarves, very long hair (they look gorgeous) and I think are submissive to their men may well be as equally happy as single mother career women like me. ALthough I'm not sure happiness is what we should be after as much as moral goodness and fairness which would militate towards conditioning women and men to have and exercise equal rights and responsibilities as parents.

She got a lot of people writing. Obviously struck a nerve amongst the "malingering" part timers.. he he.

the hair owrrries me

all split

She got people writing because she was patronising, Xenia.