Expected by colleagues to work full time with a family

[Tilly0921]

Just out for opinions...I work in accounts and used to be full time prior to children, my kids are now approaching school age and is now the expectation within the team that I should increase my hours potentially to full time. Is this the new normal? I was born in the 80's, this would have been frowned upon in their day. Why is it so different now and expected of mothers to do this?
In my opinion, I want to be there to nurture and support my children in their education and out of school hours activities.

My boss made a joke I could increase my
hours once my kids were in school. I said no way! With homework / clubs it’s a different chaos.

What I can suggest OP is to split your working days if possible. Example you work 3 days:

• term time you work 4 days worth of 3 days (9-3), shorter days
• school holidays work 3 full days

Depends how much of a stickler your company is. We just had someone forced out because they wouldn’t go full time and I heard of someone else having to take redundancy. On the flip side I needed to go back to work full time after being part time but my company wouldn’t let me.
in my line of business even if you worked part time you’d still end up doing so!!!!!!

It seems a strange mindset for them to have as most mothers with school age children do work part time. I worked full time to establish my career and don’t regret it for the long term benefit it gave us but went part time as soon as able and personally did feel it benefited our children. However every case is different so I don’t say that to offend anyone. During the pandemic, I actually felt working was more beneficial to us all compared to the alternative e.g toddler being able to attend nursery was better than them being stuck at home all day, for both of us!

Hardly anybody where I work increases their hours again after they have children.

I didn't expect to receive so many responses for my post, maybe 3 at most but there is currently 78, so thank you for this.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone with my nurturing statement. I admire all you mumas out there who can juggle a FT job and a family. For me personally, I'm not a very organised person and struggle in that respect and feel for my family that it's best I'm available and part time. I guess this answers the question, we are all very different with extremely different household incomes/ support networks. My husband has a FT demanding job, therefore all family demands generally fall on me. It is all what works for you as and individual/family.

I think regarding my job role, it's more of a - why wouldn't you want to do more hours when you have the capacity to do so.

Regarding my comment "frowned upon in the 1980's". This clearly wasn't the correct phrase. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a middle class area. Back in the 80's, as far as I'm aware the cost of living wasn't as high, therefore, it was the minority in my local area for woman to need to work full time or even to have full blown careers. If they did it would have been their personal choice which again was ultimately their decision. A lesson learned from this post is that everyone is entitled to do what is right for them and their families and it really is no one else's business.

I was born in the 60s and always worked full time with a family, it certainly wasn't frowned upon so not sure which 'those days' you're referring to. Mortgage rates were colossal in the late 80s/early 90s so there wasn't much choice then either!

Mortgage rates were colossal in the late 80s and 90s. Not disputing your experience, but for me, my memory is that is really was frowned upon to be a full time working mom.
I remember no sympathy for my finances and criticism that EXDP couldn't support us from a lot of people.

That's my memory too, and it is amazing just how many other people have such short ones. Until extremely recently (and in some quarters even now), working mothers were looked on in a variety of ways:

Dirt poor and had to work to feed the children.
Were working for 'pin money'.
"Oh, so you're a career girl are you?" (accompanied by a look down the nose).
Having to work because their husband was a lazy good-for-nothing/ in prison
Abandoned their children to a fate as latchkey kids.
Their husband was looked on as inferior and couldn't support his family.

Plenty of parents work full time. I do. I've never heard of a father being frowned on for working FT.

However, if your choice is to work PT and you can afford that, it's absolutely none of their business. Even if the reason for working PT is because you'd like to spend more time sitting with your house plants or crocheting, that's up to you.

This is a gracious post, OP

Yup "latch key kids" and just "isn't it a shame" type comments. Really unusual in my world in 80s. Even had a few still going home for lunch too.

It depends on your job though. If you have to work 9-5.30 you’re not going to be able to pick up from school and do after school activities.

I agree with all of this.

I was born in the 80's, this would have been frowned upon in their day. Why is it so different now and expected of mothers to do this?

is just nonsense. Why would it be "frowned upon" ?
If anything, the rights of people to work PT have been considerably strengthened in the last 40 years. It seems you are talking about things you don't know anything about.

Regarding my comment "frowned upon in the 1980's". This clearly wasn't the correct phrase. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a middle class area. Back in the 80's, as far as I'm aware the cost of living wasn't as high, therefore, it was the minority in my local area for woman to need to work full time or even to have full blown careers.

This also shows you don't really know anything about the period - which is fine (and to be expected) if you were only born in the 80s, but it makes your posts nonsense as you are completely disregarding the high interest rates and therefore high mortgage rates and the huge % of income people were having to spend on their housing. You are forgetting the high unemployment, the YTSs, the miners strikes and so much more.

Maybe you just moved in very small-minded circles. Because absolutely there was still widespread workplace discrimination, a substantial pay gap and the marriage bar was in the very recent past, but I don’t remember any of those attitudes among people I actually knew. Maybe among a certain type of tabloid journalist.

It does depend on the job. In mine, the more senior you are, the more flexible you can be because at a certain point, you get to control 99% of your diary.

In some roles, working full time with young children pays off in the long run because it comes with more flexibility as you progress professionally.

If I had gone part time, I wouldn't have the flexibility that I have now and will have once mine start school.

Plenty of parents work full time. I do. I've never heard of a father being frowned on for working FT.

Exactly.

I agree with the comments about the type of job bring important but also found that being more senior offers more flexibility.

This applies to dads too though, they need to share the responsibility of schools runs and sick days.

Ah so because "I am senior and can work full time flexibly and do school runs and still take them to 4oclock swimming/early rainvows/playdates after school" other women should find it easy to work full time even though that means clocking off at 5.30 and home by 6.... Just n time to do bath and bed.

Lets not pretend that for most people fulltime allows them the possibility of school runs and activities and the type of present parenting the OP was taking about.

I think people's experiences of full time are quite different here and pershaps those that move in quite senior circles aren't aware of what it's like for most families trying to juggle 2 full time jobs and after school care.

That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying that it's not impossible or unusual for women with children to work full time.

What makes it easier is a job that offers a high degree of flexibility (and these are often senior roles) and another parent sharing the responsibility.

The seniority issue is also an important one when it comes to dads.
I've lost count of the amount of times women say they HAVE to work part time because their husband has a big, important job and can't possibly be expected to do the school run or look after sick children.
More often than not that big, important job will have a significant amount of flexibility but they choose not to use it.
What would help women the most in this situation would be more men working flexibly.

I wish you well Op. I worked full time as a mum out of necessity. The only negative comments I got were from SAHMs. I didn’t judge them. Why did they judge me? They had all day every day to do what I had to cram into a weekend with a child. Hubby was away 2 weeks a month. I would hear them saying they were heading to the gym/ for coffee after drop off. These were wealthy women who were incredibly judgmental and didactic about things. Perhaps they were bored? Who knows but they certainly were catty about what I was doing “wrong” in working so very hard for my family.

Anyway, each person has to do what is right for them and their families. People should live and let live in that regard.

Good luck!!!

@BlackCatBlackDress

What are you on about? I'm doing no such thing.

I grew up in Harlow new town. Make of that what you will.

The type of ‘present’ parenting is only talked about when it comes to mothers and it isn’t fair.

When people use emotive language such as OP that implies working mothers aren’t present for their children, of course working mothers are going to start explaining their set ups and how they might be full time but more flexible.

I'm not sure it's frowned upon that much in real life (just disproportionately on MN, it seems! 😂) to work full time with school-aged DCs but I suppose being PT then is just not the norm given they're in school and there's at least 10-2 free each day. (I know illness resulting in days off school is a nightmare and we will have no family around when it happens.)

Do whatever you want and whatever works best for your family. I appreciate it's a luxury to be in the position to decide but I'm a SAHM while my DC are not in school and I don't really care what people think (other than my husband, family and close friends). But I work in an industry where's there's no chance of WFH and no chance of being at the level I was at PT or in a job share.

On here, it's sometimes made to sound so easy to work FT and do everything you want to do as a parent. It's so great that this is the case for many industries but mine certainly hasn't caught up. I know many women (some men too) who do PT with school age kids simply to keep on top of their workload in the week so they aren't doing it at the weekend when they should be spending it with their family/doing nice things themselves.