AIBU Meeting time changed as male in team has to drop his children at school first

[Champagnebreakfast]

AIBU but just moments ago I got an email from someone I was meeting in an hour.To say he had to move the meeting to later due to having to drop his children off at school.
I find this unprofessional. This impacts upon my day.

When my children were little, and I was working, I ensured they were in school on time. I never missed a morning meeting or was late to one. That was 25 years ago when it was a very male dominated world.

If the OP said he asked to rearrange the meeting because of school drop off, then there was a series of fawning replies about what a great dad he is, contrasting with when you asked for the same last week and were met with tuts and a warning that you were being flaky - then you’d be very justified in being outraged.

But that’s not what happened. You were doing this 25 years ago. Times have changed. Yes it’s still the case for plenty of women that they get criticised and penalised at work for trying to be flexible around childcare, but you haven’t said that happens at your workplace now. If so then fair enough. But if not, it’s a reflection of a changing workplace and an increasingly balanced ability to manage being a parent with being at work.

It happens. Sounds like it couldn't be helped. Yabu.

@Onnabugeisha not my life. The men in my past have been, erm, average. Now, spectacular thanks.

but a massive inequality in childcare and work in the home is still a reality for most women. You might like to think that the patriarchy is dead but in the domestic sphere it is still alive and kicking.

Then how are you basing your opinion on your experience if that is not your experience? 🐟

Obviously I’m only basing my opinions on my own experience
is 180 degrees from
not my life.

YABU. DH (and his male colleagues) often need to do this and it's also done in my company/industry with no dramas.
In our city/country both parents need to work, and due to location often have limited family support. Daycare and before/after school care still have set hours that mean drop off time is limited.
Us and most of our friends/colleagues split the drop off/pick up where possible because otherwise the burden on one parent alone is quite unfair.
Also given global time zones meetings can easily start to creep out and suddenly he is working all hours of the day and night and I'm doing all of the childcare and working too.
Both of our companies have great teams, strong results and great retention so the give and take seems to have a positive effect.

By “in my life” I assumed you meant partners / family. Not the men in my wider experience, sorry. That was unclear.

Understandable, I wasn’t clear either. Sorry about that, I did truly mean all men you’d encountered or heard about in your life.

I know the surveys of the sex gap during lockdown for child care and housework, but part of me wonders if that was skewed by the single parents who are 90%+ mothers who have the DC 12 days in 14.

I get why you are annoyed OP. if you had done this 25 years ago it would have jeopardised your entire career by labelling you as someone who put their kids before the company's needs. the sexist culture would never have forgiven you. in the unlikely event that a male colleague did the same thing he would have been hailed as a hero for rescuing the situation when the woman who should actually have been dealing with the kids let them all down. and that was awful.

it is thankfully often quite different now and both men and women are, in a good and positive working environment, encouraged to balance their work and care responsibilities flexibly and without such sexist assumptions. however, sexism is far from extinct and I am sure there are still plenty of people who will judge a woman who needs this kind of flexibility but wouldn't judge a man the same way.

Being resentful that things have changed for the better is a bit odd. Smacks of wanting other women to suffer because you did.

How do you know that? I took time out when I needed it and it didn't harm my career and that was more than 25 years ago. There have always been good and bad employers, there probably always will be but lets aim high.

I completely agree. Totally unreasonable. Irrespective of male or female. Ok if it's an emergency, child is ill, but to make it normal / standardised is just not ok. When was the meeting arranged, did he not think to mention then that it was an inconvenient time? Not everyone can just rearrange meetings easily. Plus if you have it planned you mentally plan your day /and or your week around it. To change Willy nilly is just not ok.

This

I don't see the issue - anything could have cropped up

Times have changed get over it

My workplace is a pain in the arse with all the different school runs. You can't have any meetings between 8.30am - 9.30am and 2.30pm - 4.00pm. Then others are finishing work at 4.00pm anyway, so the whole afternoon is out! This is men and women.

My team also can't have face to face meetings very often as one (female) in the team can't start early or work late on Monday & Tuesday, then another (male) can't start early or work late on a Wednesday & Thursday. I have to say, that one was irritating as the women had a long standing arrangement in place and the man expected it to change when his came into force.

I think it must vary so much depending on your workplace. Mine is mega flexible, which can cause issues of its own. I've worked in other places previously where you had to log going for a wee, there was just no flexibility.

In my experience, it's always been the same for everyone. Irrelevant of sex.

I would imagine all schools these days have breakfast clubs. It's kind of annoying because certain people in certain working environments just wouldn't get away with this, they would be expected to arrange appropriate childcare to allow them to be on time

HunterHearstHelmsley
People I know work in places that have core hours (usually something like 9.30-2.30 / 10-3) and the rest of the day people can do as they need to within 7am-7pm, or something similar. It doesn't matter if people have early morning medical appointments, walk their dog, do the school run, or fancy a lie in, people can arrive any time before core hours begin.

It's fairly straightforward. If people want a meeting then it happens during core hours, unless all participants book it outside core hours.

Not all schools.

in any event, breakfast clubs start at 0745 or 0800. Depending on commute, that still could mean an 0930 start.

Most of the posts are generalising. OP was given less than an hours notice, that he wouldn't be joining a meeting. That had been planned, presumably some time ago, and people travelling from far. OP then re-arranges, he's going to join when he can. I think this constitutes a disciplinary issue. If I was a manager and had this I would definitely escalate it. I wouldn't be pleased at all.

To be specific, then - given that the man knows he has children and was previously planning to attend, I assume his normal arrangement fell through - e.g. partner/childminder/lift share was sick. This is no more a disciplinary issue than if he’d had to cancel because a tree fell on his car and he couldn’t get there.

You just don't do this. You've got a meeting planned for 3 weeks time. Multiple attendees, travelling down to London from your Birmingham office etc. and then with an hours notice, he says he can't come. Child isn't even ill. It's not an emergency. I'd be furious.

“You just don’t do this”

If the scenario is as I outlined, what d should he have done instead?

You sound lovely 🙄

Presumably Shelia he has a back up plan for such instances. Tbf we don't know what the cause was.

I've worked closely with HR/Payroll teams for around 8 years now and I've seen a significant shift in culture post covid of men taking more parental leave/unpaid days to look after their children when they are sick or can't attend childcare. This can only be a good thing in my opinion. Just because we had to struggle in the past with juggling children and work doesn't mean current and future mothers of young children should. The more common it becomes for men to share the load the better.

No, we don’t… but speaking as someone who shared pick ups and drop offs with my husband for years, I never scheduled or accepted an early meeting for when I was doing drop off - so I’m assuming he didn’t either, given that would make him a massive numpty. So therefore (b) it was some last minute change that led to him cancelling with short notice. I suggest sickness, but nanny’s car might have broken down or whatever.

If my husband had woken up too sick to do the drop off on his drop off day, then yes, I would almost certainly have done the same for this meeting. I might have been able to scrabble around for a favour from a friend, but if I only found out at, say, 7am and I needed to have a solution before I left the house at 715am to catch my train, chances I wouldn’t have been able to get hold of an alternate quickly.

Much easier to find a back up for the pick up, as there is time to text a few fellow parents and wait to hear back or whatever.