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!

OP, it’s a shame you’re doubling down on your original idea, rather than considering the alternative areas for research that posters are sharing.

That said, it’s a bit worrying that you’re saying you haven’t chosen your research question yet. At masters level, research questions should come from the literature. You need to read around this topic, looking at the potential next steps identified by authors of published papers, as well as trying yourself to identify the current gaps in the literature.

From this thread, a quick content analysis points to experiences of employees navigating IVF as being a really rich and promising area for your research. But still, you need to back up these suggestions by going back to the literature and seeing what is, or isn’t, there.

I don’t understand how the things you’ve highlighted indicate personal bias? They’re gender-neutral. For example, a man might wish to move to a 4 day week once he has children, and be considering whether this is viable in his current job or whether a job move is needed in advance. Similarly, promotion in 2 years may be unrealistic for a man intending to take 6 months shared parental leave during that period, and 2.5 years may be more realistic.

I had no intention of collecting any medical data, nor focusing on a particular organisation, nor collecting non-anonymised data.

If you genuinely don't understand why women's careers are more affected than men's, I'd probably suggest you ditch this research altogether and start from scratch on gender inequality at school level.

These still aren’t things you discuss in advance with your employer. Eg, wanting to move to a four-day week; the employer won’t know whether that’s possible or not until the time comes. Employees have the right to request flexible working at any point, but it doesn’t have to be granted. Even if other people in the organisation have been granted a four-day week, it doesn’t mean you will be.

I think part of your issue is that you seem to regard an employer like a parent figure, there to support you and look after you and cheer you on. That’s just not the case. You’d do better at looking how those with health problems or disabilities are treated in the workplace.

I’m not doubling down at all, I’m actually thinking of a few new directions!

The RQ does needs to be developed in consultation with the literature, and I’m reading extensively, but also believe a lot of research is done on topics that aren’t actually that interesting in real life. Testing that aspect was the aim of this thread.

I find this comment quite rude. I’m well aware of both the theory and research on inequality. I was responding to a PP who said my language reflected personal bias, and I don’t think it does.

Do a little test in your employment.

Is it lawful to exclude an employee from promotion if that employee has a PC "of having been a one of two party to sucessfully grow and birth another human" ?

I didnt mean to be rude. You have asked for opinions and mine is that you sound incredibly naive and inexperienced in this area.

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.

Managers/companies generally do not care about your career planning. They're a business. It is NOT an employee's fault that their career progressions are often halted/hindered by having children. Open discussions are MASSIVELY less likely to have an affect than overall changes in company policies, attitutes towards childcare, better mat leave, more opportunities opened to women, etc.

Good luck with your research.

Your definition of "unprofessional" is not universal.

I hate the way people will seemingly label everything and anything "unprofessional" to shut down and shame things that they personally dislike.

It’s nothing to do with whether I personally do or don’t like it. It’s that there are laws and guidance in place in the workplace to protect employees and employers. And this would go against them.

As pp has said, although it's a grey area, it verges on unprofessional at best, and downright illegal at worst.

And no amount of "but we're doing it for the welfare of the staff" will change that.

Women of childbearing age are STILL sent to the bottom of the pile, however good they are at their job, and however good their qualifications.

It would simply be totally unfeasible and discriminatory to insert "are you wanting a baby anytime soon" sections into their CPD. Just think for a second about the assumptions (none of which would ever be remotely relevant for any job) that I, as a manager, am making, if I ask a woman of childbearing age to discuss her plans for having children.

That she wants them
That she can have them
That she's not a transwoman
That she's straight
That she has no medical conditions pre-empting fertility
That she's not already pregnant

The list is endless.

What do I ask older women in their session? What do I ask men?

The best career advice I was ever given (and sadly totally ignored) was to never make a decision about a job based on a child that was yet to be conceived

If you worked for this kind of organisation, would that make a difference?

My sister works for such an organization. Think a big California tech where people put their pronouns in email signatures, big focus on employee well-being, organization has paid an expensive audit to find out and adress the pay discrepancies between men and women, organization has the Great Place to Work label, job offers advertise diversity, inclsuion and good work/family balance, etc... My sister has seen women being hired in top positions while pregnant, or other getting promoted upon returning from maternity leave BUT she has also seen some women getting sidelined for big projects after announcing their pregnancy.
Nothing guarantees that an organisation will truly be supportive for ALL women who will get pregnant.

I selfishly want to hear what the ethics panel say about this proposal......

The lack of insight into labor law is frightening.

Honestly this is idealistic and does not reflect reality for the the majority of employees whose workplaces are nowhere near as flexible as your organisation. Maybe take a look at ‘pregnant then screwed’ on Instagram and she would give you more realistic ideas for your research.

You didn't say unlawful, you said unprofessional. That it was unprofessional for an employee to mention family plans to their employer. Which is in conflict with your comment that it would be acceptable in the case of IVF, which is the same conversation.

You didn't say anything about it being unlawful for the employer to ask these questions. You said it was unprofessional for an employee to raise it. Those are completely different points.

Do you not think that declaring such employee-initiated conversations "unprofessional" contributes to a climate where women undergoing IVF leave the workforce entirely because they feel too ashamed to ask for employer support in terms of flexibility for appointments?

IVF comes under a completely different employment equality legislation - that belonging to medical treatment.

Conversations between any employee about any adjustments being made due to any medical needs is a completely different area to that under discussion by the OP and subsequent posters.

What would be discriminatory in the case of an employee saying they needed appropriate time off for specific medical appointments would be a refusal by the employer to agree to that time off.

And that would be the same if the employee were a woman having IVF treatment, a 17 year old going to the dentist, or a 62 year old man going to have his blood test.

Not connected even remotely to an employee being asked during an appraisal if they intend to get pregnant in the next 3 years.

I’m not sure how to make this any clearer because people seem to have got the idea the research is about employers asking employees whether they plan to have children. That is not what I am suggesting at all. I agree this would be unlawful and unprofessional.

I don’t think the employee raising it voluntarily is unprofessional, and it’s certainly not unlawful.

Don’t discuss anything with your manager OP. At all.

I once had a manager who denied me a pay rise because she guessed I might want children soon.

I also know of small companies who don’t even employ women of child-bearing age.

Also, not to put a downer on things, but I wouldn’t discuss situations with your employer that may not actually happen, due to any number of reasons.

Yes it is unprofessional because the fertility of an employee has nothing to do with their employment. The employer may have legal obligations or policy on dealing with ongoing events but until the specific event occurs the employer has no need to know.

It is unprofessional because the employer has no need to be informed of why the employee is seeking to follow career path A rather than career path B.

It also unprofessional as it places the employee's direct line manager and the employer at risk as the employee can claim that they were discriminated against as data around their fertility which the employer has was misused.

Plus trying to tap dance around the fact that women are the ones having babies is a poor foundation basis for your research.

But it has nothing to do with your employment or employer- therefore it’s unprofessional. In the same way, people have parents that at some point they might have to care for and reorganise their work for - but that’s something they sort out themselves and ask their work about flexible working etc -when the time comes. You don’t do it years in advance.

I would not share these sorts of plans with my employer, and have delayed sharing pregnancy news until almost the latest point allowed (because it was appraisal time!).

I wouldn't share plans because I would want to know that any opportunities (or otherwise) offered to me were solely on merit and nothing to do with pregnancy plans.

As a line manager, I would not want to know about an employees plans for pregnancy. I am not legally allowed to treat them any differently because of any real or planned pregnancy, and if I know then I'm open to them saying I have acted illegally.

"IVF comes under a completely different employment equality legislation - that belonging to medical treatment."

@SoIinvictus unfortunately there is no legislation protecting those going through IVF** which is why having a safe environment to be able to have conversations about this at work is so important.

So, by rights, under this idea, every employee, no matter their sex, age, marital status, sexual identity, etc, etc, can bring this up with their employer. So what’s to discuss? It would apply to everyone. Everyone has the right to request flexible working now, it doesn’t matter what the personal reasons are. The company either has a flexible working policy or it doesn’t. You could instead look at why companies turn down flexible working requests.