Being open with your manager about plans to have children (or more children)

[barcelona87]

I'm asking in the context of thinking of ideas for an MSc Occupational Psychology research project and want to test whether there is something interesting to say about this.

My hunch is people generally don't feel comfortable openly discussing it and this could impact career planning / the support your manager can give you.

Similarly, for all the managers out there - would you feel comfortable discussing this if an employee raised it in the context of their career?

Would love to know what others think! At this stage I'm just brainstorming ideas...

Thanks!

The whole idea of this research project puts the responsibility on the pregnant (or planning) member of staff, not the company, to do what they should be doing.

You're very blessed that you haven't experienced pregnancy discrimination. Further research is needed on your part into how lots of companies treat their female employees.

I have discussed children with my direct report, she talked to me about her difficulties conceiving. We work in healthcare so are possibly more open because of that? We also have a very supportive team.

It was't a surprise when she did become pregnant and I am really happy for her.

I don't think it's a good idea for a research project sorry think you're gonna have to think of something else.

Women usually only discuss potential pregnancies with their partner.

Rubbish-people could do all of those things without discussing with their boss when they’ll be having unprotected sex with their partner! The boss can find out if they are pregnant when they are told.

The research is not a great idea.
You work for human resource management. Same as the stores manager whos job it is to make sure that the company have enough paper for the printers. So please explain why the paper supplier should be sending in their 3 year business plan to prove how they are going to keep a single customer supplied with printer paper?

Managers of HR are there to manage the supply of labour. It is always silly for an organisation to document how they plan to micromanage a individuals career path based on how the organisation ranks a number of protected characteristics.

Sorry I don’t really understand your post. I’ve not said the research project is about suggesting organisations document how they will micromanage someone’s career path. I’ve not even formulated a specific research question, so are you saying any research at all into the prevalence, antecedents, or consequences (positive or negative) of the ‘wanting to start a family’ taboo should be off bounds and not explored?

And don’t even think about getting people to discuss retirement plans, for all the same reasons as already highlighted ie being passed over for promotion, not sent on training courses and not asked to do really interesting projects.
Ask me how I know this to be true 😏

Well, both. It seems unworkable as a research idea -as it’s so obvious there’s nothing to research. Regarding some of your points of why you thought it might be good, they are in general nothing to do with the employer. People spent decades trying to get laws against pregnancy and sex discrimination, for good reasons. You seem to suggest it would be good to ignore all that and in fact make it worse.

Why would anyone discuss this? I remember when I first started work being asked this question but it was a long time ago. As a school governor interviewing prospective staff it is not something that can be mentioned.
I used to teach Educational Research and, I’m sorry, but I think you need to find a different topic.

The thing with discussing three year plans with your manager is that very often, pregnancies don't happen when you plan them. They can happen very quickly, or it can take a very long time to bet pregnant. They can happen accidentally, or sometimes not at all, even when planned.
In short, it would be difficult to plan your career round a pregnancy before you're pregnant.

This sounds like a dreadful idea for a research project which will only benefit the employer. It might allow them the most privilege of knowing when an employee might get pregnant-and they could use this information to overlook staff for jobs/promotion. It doesn’t benefit the employee at all.

I wouldn’t be discussing any family planning decisions with a boss-I don’t think any of the points you write at 17.31 yesterday would benefit an employee more than the employer and many of them aren’t issues for a boss to deal with anyway!

Since then it has come up in career discussions and she has always reassured me that having children does not impact my ability to progress in my company.

That's because to behave otherwise would be illegal.

⬆️⬆️
OP, by law, employers are not allowed to discriminate because of pregnancy or family commitments.

I think you’re being hopelessly naive to think discrimination doesn’t still happen all the time.

… and yet several PP’s have said they have discussed this.

If I as an employee think it would be helpful to disclose to my manager that I want to have children in the next few years, but something prevents me from sharing that, is that not interesting?

I could understand it if you said a particular research question wasn’t viable or valuable, but you’ve put the whole topic off bounds.

Where have I said I didn’t think discrimination happens? My perspective is actually that the impact of discrimination is further reaching than the literature currently indicates.

My line manager has the people skills of a plank of wood. I can't imagine what she would say to me if I said I was TTC. Good luck? She does love policies and processes, but there isn't one for TTC (apart from for infertility issues?) so what would we talk about?

Why should you have to tell your work you're planning a baby? Why can't they just do all the things you've mentioned when you announce your pregnancy between 12 - 20 weeks?

I'm glad I didn't tell my employer I was planning my baby 5+ years ago for them to create this "3 year plan" you gave as an example. My 3 year work plan would have been completed before I even fell pregnant 😳

If I as an employee think it would be helpful to disclose to my manager that I want to have children in the next few years, but something prevents me from sharing that, is that not interesting?

I strongly suspect the "something" that stops most people is that this is private information between a couple and most people don't share their private reproductive plans with others. The fact it's an employer will be irrelevant to most people

Yes because I was starting IVF so needed time off for appts & I was concerned I’d turn into a hormonal cow that needed a bit of a buffer.

Agree

I'd have a union down on top of me as well, as well they should.

It has zero to do with starting a family.
That is personal data often medical data and sex specific with a lot of legislation and case specific legal work.

This was your reply on the concerns a woman not a man, may have :

• To help create a more realistic 3-year career plan
• To support thinking through career opportunities, potential future roles or even your current roles and how work-life conflict challenges might be overcome
• To support decision-making on whether to start a professional qualification / further study
• To provide support around any anxiety over whether to have children and how it might impact your career, or to provide support through fertility issues
• To discuss whether going part-time after having children would be viable in the role

That is a petsonal bias right there.

This is also micromanaging a female career path on the basis of discrimination.

If you are working in human resources your question is how do the company ensure that it has the right resourse in place to meet the needs of the company. so sucession planning, cross role training, and availability of agency staff etc etc. Sucessfull business which support employees dont need to explore the fertility of its staff. They have already built out a business model which can cope with the need to be flexible when an individual needs to leave their role for a period of time.

I would suggest that you examine the culture needed within your organisation which supports males taking parenting leave. Then examine if your list is applicable to the male employees. Or is there an assumption made that male emoloyees will continue their career path with little or no change?

No, but the trouble is that you might find out that yours isn't one of the good ones...

That's a different scenario though, IVF is a medical treatment

Out of curiosity, does your course cover any ethics and law? Or any history of workers' rights and just how hard some people fought to get even the shadow we have left?

This is quite a minefield you're proposing to research. Have you discussed it with your supervisor yet? As if so, I would really hope they'd guide you to a less contentious aspect of mums in the workplace. (Or parents and carers, though in practice it's nearly always the mum who ends up being disadvantaged career wise.)

As for planning your life in any respect three years ahead set in stone, good luck with that one. I don't mean to be personal, but do you have much actual life or at least workplace experience behind you? (The pandemic officially started in 2020. Just look at how that one little event has turned the world upside down.)

Of course the whole topic is out of bounds! No one should be “sharing” the fact that they might want to have children. It’s unprofessional. The only exception is for those who might be undergoing IVF or similar, which might mean more medical appointments.