Motherhood and Careers

[MissStepcut]

I didn't want to threadjack the other thread anymore, but dang it... I have more to say

 

[MissStepcut]

So, the on-site child care is an incentive to be there 24/7?? Like, you don't need to go home, we're looking after your kids...work, already!

Seriously, I can't imagine how hard it must be,but I do I hope you can find a way to balance both parenthood and law, if that's what you decide to do. Maybe you'll be a trail blazer for family rights.

The firm I was talking about, only allows you to bring your child in the first 6 months after taking maternity/paternity leave. I guess to buy you some time when looking for a long term solution, and allow women to breastfeed?

I don't think the trail is ready to be blazed at all. I think women who sacrifice work in any way due to motherhood don't stand a chance at making partner or other "big league" legal career advancement. The only way I can see making it work is live-in help and a pregnancy with no or few complications.

 

[Jennifer W]

Best to get it off your chest, then...

I am going to watch this thread with interest, but I'm living in a very different culture when it comes to work and family, so my experience and expectations will be very different too.

 

[Circe]

It's not just the legal profession, either. I work in academia, and in a female-dominated field, at that, and we got nadda when it comes to childcare. I mean, AT LEAST the Early Childhood Development program affiliated with my university offers "subsizidized" daycare to the tune of only 18K or so per year, but on an academic's salary? Yeesh. Yeesh twice over when you consider that the average daycare center in my city (and I think on the urban northern East Coast overall, frankly) costs easily twice that.

And I'm still considerably better off than my best friend, who works at a public university in the same city - there IS daycare at her university, but it's for students only. The profs can go hang.

So unless you have, a) a well-paid partner, b) a well-oiled support network, or, c) a genie in a bottle, it becomes a bit of an internal battle as to whether it's worth it to basically pay for the luxury of working. And, you know, as to whether you can AFFORD to: for a lot of women, it comes down to a choice of keep working OR have kids ... one or the other, but not both.

I compare this to the situation in Sweden, and I just want to start laughing hysterically, and never stop. We use the word "socialist" as a pejorative, when it means ... gender equality, comprehensive health-care, and subsidized education, just for starters? What a mad, mad world it is.

 

[MissStepcut]

And Circe, don't forget the tax penalty for two high-earning married couples. When you consider the insane cost of childcare + the taxation penalty we face + ridiculously employer-friendly family leave laws... it starts to feel like the government doesn't want me to work. "Luxury" of working, indeed.

The part that really burns my britches about it though is the erosion of women's rights in divorces. Courts have cut back quite a bit on what they'll award a woman as alimony, but IMO women make MORE sacrifices now for children than they used to, because their opportunity cost is so much greater.

Not to mention that people absolutely sneer about women quitting work for children if they have high-earning husbands. "Trophy wife" and "kept woman" and all of that language -- it's really upsetting.

 

[stephbolt]

I'm currently pregnant, and work in a male dominated field (chemical industry). I'm very curious to see how my pregnacy and subsequent motherhood affect my career. Right now I'm hopeful the impact will be minimal, but we'll see.

My boss is a woman with school age children. So I feel like I won't be negatively judged by her if I have to leave work at a fixed time every day to pick up a child from daycare, or work from home due to a sick child, because she currently does this. I plan on asking to work from home three days a week so I don't have to deal with the 1.25-1.5 hours a day I currently spend commuting, and can put in more quality hours without sacrificing time with my child. I'm lucky enough to have a job that I can do as long as I have my computer and an internet connection, so I can do work at home after my child goes to sleep and keep up during busy times even if I did have to leave work earlier than other employees.

But the flexibility my job offers could also hurt me, because my husband doesn't have the same kind of flexiblity, so I fear I will always be the one compromising my job to deal with things like doctor's appointments, picking up a sick child, etc. Over time, even with an understanding boss and coworkers, I think those sacrifices will add up. I might only meet expectations instead of exceed them, which affects my compensation. But for my family, I think I'm willing to trade that because the benefits we will get from me being able to be flexible outweigh the slight reduction in salary. But ask me all this again in a year when I have a five month old...and we'll see how my answer has changed.

 

[Skippy123]

So, the on-site child care is an incentive to be there 24/7?? Like, you don't need to go home, we're looking after your kids...work, already!

Seriously, I can't imagine how hard it must be,but I do I hope you can find a way to balance both parenthood and law, if that's what you decide to do. Maybe you'll be a trail blazer for family rights.

The firm I was talking about, only allows you to bring your child in the first 6 months after taking maternity/paternity leave. I guess to buy you some time when looking for a long term solution, and allow women to breastfeed?

I don't think the trail is ready to be blazed at all. I think women who sacrifice work in any way due to motherhood don't stand a chance at making partner or other "big league" legal career advancement. The only way I can see making it work is live-in help and a pregnancy with no or few complications.

also goes for accounting firms not just law firms. I think they say they are pro work/life balance but it is never the case, it is just a corporate jargon to throw in their handbooks to make them feel happy that they are doing the right thing.

 

[Jennifer W]

Why aren't American women angrier about this? Why aren't American men with families angry too? It isn't just women who are losing out when there is no work-life balance - they might be losing the more tangible things, but their husbands are losing the right to be equal parents. They are going to be the ones who don't know what their kid likes to eat, who never do the bath and bed routine, who don't know where the diapers are kept, who have to be coached and instructed before they can be left alone with their own son or daughter.

I keep hearing people here saying they have to return to work or quit altogether when their baby is under 2 months old. 2 months? I can't imagine how hard that choice must be. Cannot fathom. DH and I were BOTH on family leave until our kid was 4 months old, then he went back part time with flexible hours and home working for her first year. It was so important to us to bond and settle in as a family, as two equal parents. It was every bit as important for him to have that time at home as it was for me to have it (and as it was for me to be able to return to my career with no detriment to my position).

Why isn't there more disquiet about this?

 

[Circe]

Why aren't American women angrier about this? Why aren't American men with families angry too? It isn't just women who are losing out when there is no work-life balance - they might be losing the more tangible things, but their husbands are losing the right to be equal parents. They are going to be the ones who don't know what their kid likes to eat, who never do the bath and bed routine, who don't know where the diapers are kept, who have to be coached and instructed before they can be left alone with their own son or daughter.

I keep hearing people here saying they have to return to work or quit altogether when their baby is under 2 months old. 2 months? I can't imagine how hard that choice must be. Cannot fathom. DH and I were BOTH on family leave until our kid was 4 months old, then he went back part time with flexible hours and home working for her first year. It was so important to us to bond and settle in as a family, as two equal parents. It was every bit as important for him to have that time at home as it was for me to have it (and as it was for me to be able to return to my career with no detriment to my position).

Why isn't there more disquiet about this?

I.
Have.
No.
Idea.

If pressed, I would guess it was a combination of Extreme Capitalism - it's a sport, practically - and religious extremism that still pushes women to stay in the home, with a healthy dash of Feminism Resentment, where the Establishment (and dudes in power thereof) think, hey, you wanted equal rights ... and provide them in the form of equal suckiness for all concerned instead of granting a break across the board.

It's also a very me-me-me society: you'll frequently hear people who either don't have kids yet or who don't want kids period whining about how they feel it's unfair that Sally in accounting got 12 weeks of unpaid leave to recover from her c-section, but they're not allowed to take a snow-boarding holiday, with no consideration of the fact that, hey, when they're octogenarians, Sally's kid will be the one prescribing their medicine/driving their public care vehicle/replacing their cybernetic eye, or whatever.

Money, sexism, and an unhealthy focus on individualism: it's a bad combination. More to the point, though - to what would you attribute your country's shift towards egalitarian childcare practices?

 

[fleur-de-lis]

So, the on-site child care is an incentive to be there 24/7?? Like, you don't need to go home, we're looking after your kids...work, already!

Seriously, I can't imagine how hard it must be,but I do I hope you can find a way to balance both parenthood and law, if that's what you decide to do. Maybe you'll be a trail blazer for family rights.

The firm I was talking about, only allows you to bring your child in the first 6 months after taking maternity/paternity leave. I guess to buy you some time when looking for a long term solution, and allow women to breastfeed?

I don't think the trail is ready to be blazed at all. I think women who sacrifice work in any way due to motherhood don't stand a chance at making partner or other "big league" legal career advancement. The only way I can see making it work is live-in help and a pregnancy with no or few complications.

It's so easy to become a Debbie Downer on this topic, isn't it?

My friend worked at a law firm which has been particularly noted for its great work/life balance, and they loved her-- she has a winning personality and was the associate they "put on display" when the recruits for the following year(s) came 'round. She and her husband brought in live-in help (au pair from Europe program) and she switched to her firm's "part-time" program, so she "only" worked 50-60 hours a week, with one day per week in her home office. So, smooth pregnancy, live-in help, putting in 8-12 hour days... and still laid off earlier this year because she wasn't putting in the hours of her F/T male compatriots.

Disillusionment seems justified sometimes.

 

[MissStepcut]

fleur-de-lis, that made my stomach drop. Awful.

 

[eleguin]

This post hits close to home for me because this has been the reason why I've been delaying having kids.

I'm a corporate lawyer working in NYC. In my practice group, all the men are married, the majority with kids. Of the women, I am the only one married and am also the youngest (turned 30 this year). As I became more senior, I grew more reluctant on the issue of kids because there was suddenly more to lose. I've spent a lot of time proving myself and feel like I've gotten to the point where colleagues and partners trust me with having more responsibility. When new deals come in or interesting projects surface, I am often called to work on them. I was afraid that would change if I was no longer fully available.

Last year I was working on a team that had a female attorney from another practice group. She had 1 child at home and was pregnant with her second. She had worked out a schedule with the firm where she worked 9-5 Mon-Thurs and worked from home on Fri. It sounded like a really promising flex-time schedule and made me think that maybe motherhood + career can work together. But I soon learned that whenever urgent matters arose or something important came up in the team, more senior team members would never delegate to her. It was never spoken, but assumed that she was less reliable. In one instance, a senior male associate asked me to handle a pressing matter involving a deal that she had started working on. When I mentioned "Oh I think ___ is working on that", he just waved his hand and said "yeah but she's not here Fridays and she has to leave early other days..." Over time I saw how obvious it was that people didn't depend on her and didn't see her as a valued member of the team.

DH and I recently decided that we want to try for a baby. Despite all the challenges that come with being a lawyer and being a mother, I think in the long run, I would not want to give up having a family, even if that means being less valued within the firm.

 

[MissStepcut]

eleguin, do you think there's any truth at all to firm's claims of being more motherhood-friendly? I am thinking specifically of Fried Frank, which always sells itself as being more family friendly.

I am doing my summer in another city but my SO is starting in NYC next fall, so I am not sure where I will end up.

 

[NovemberBride]

In my experience, biglaw is never family friendly (with a few notable exceptions). I was a corporate associate (doing M&A) in NYC for several years. There were no female associates in my group with children. There were a few female partners with children, most of whom had them after they made partner. There were a few female associates in somewhat less intense areas (tax, employment) with kids. Not to belittle these specialties, but they were known for being easier because they mostly supported other departments so did not have the demands of being on call 24/7 that my department did. After NYC, I was a corporate associate at one of the largest firms in Philly for a few years. They spoke a lot about being family friendly, but every female corporate associate I knew with kids left within a year or two of having their child. Again, several female partners with kids, but mostly who had them after making partner. Corporate law is extremely demanding and deals are very time-sensitive. There were months I worked every single day for 10-12 hours a day if not more (including weekends). I knew that lifestyle would not afford me the kind of family life I wanted (and I was still several years from making partner). I went in-house to a larger financial services firm 3 years ago and I never looked back. I absolutely love my job. For me, I have found the perfect balance of exciting legal work and work-family balance. For the most part, I work 9-6. However, there are times when we are doing a deal or have a SEC filing due that I work late and don't see my DD before bed for a week or two. Those weeks are hard, because I miss my DD, but tolerable because I know it will end soon.

I would really recommend this track to anyone. Yes, you have to put in a few years in biglaw before getting a job like mine, but if you don't plan on having kids for a few years it can be a great option.

 

[Bella_mezzo]

I'm not in law...I work for a high-profile non-profit in NYC. My previous company was fairly family friendly, my current company is not at all...

-no paid leave
-company pays 100% of individual's premium--which means in NYS that you are not eligible for any other insurance but your employers'--but employees pay the full remainder of their family insurance premiums ($1250/month we have to pay for my family)
-virtually no flexibility (completely unnecessary as I could do 80% of my job from home with a phone, computer, and internet)
-crazy boss who leaves me voicemails throughout the night (literally, 1 am, 3 am, 5 am, etc.)

JenW-I don't do anything about trying to influence global change in the US b/c I have no idea what to do and b/c I have to work right now (DH is unemployed) so I am afraid to rock the boat too much. but, I firmly believe the system sucks!!! I've written three other posts and deleted them b/c I can't quite articulate what I want to say, but really, the system SUCKS!

 

[mrscushion]

If you think the States are bad, try working in Germany.

Just an example: one of the very few female partners in my consulting firm just told me she recently entered her kid into pre-school (ages 0-3) here. Out of 90 kids, 3 (!) have moms who work.

I am optimistic this is going to change over the next decade. Due to the aging society, they are running out of qualified workers, fast. They're not making it easy for immigrants to come, so they HAVE to keep women working. But thus far, the availability of early childhood care and societal acceptance of working mothers is shockingly low for one of the world's biggest economies.

 

[Jennifer W]

What people are describing here is really shocking to me. I can't quite get over the hurt and the unfairness and the just downright wrongness of what you're saying. I don't think that these firms' policies are family unfriendly (although they are that too) so much as they are misogynist. I don't hear of men being downgraded because they have a child, although granted, they won't be able to spend much waking time with their child, so in effect their disadvantage is perhaps even more significant than loss of earnings and status. I could live without being a lawyer and my husband could live without being an architect, but neither of us want to do without being parents to our child. I don't know what else to say. It just sounds so painful.

The other thing that strikes me - 60 hours a week is PART TIME???

 

[Jennifer W]

I'm not in law...I work for a high-profile non-profit in NYC. My previous company was fairly family friendly, my current company is not at all...

-no paid leave
-company pays 100% of individual's premium--which means in NYS that you are not eligible for any other insurance but your employers'--but employees pay the full remainder of their family insurance premiums ($1250/month we have to pay for my family)
-virtually no flexibility (completely unnecessary as I could do 80% of my job from home with a phone, computer, and internet)
-crazy boss who leaves me voicemails throughout the night (literally, 1 am, 3 am, 5 am, etc.)

JenW-I don't do anything about trying to influence global change in the US b/c I have no idea what to do and b/c I have to work right now (DH is unemployed) so I am afraid to rock the boat too much. but, I firmly believe the system sucks!!! I've written three other posts and deleted them b/c I can't quite articulate what I want to say, but really, the system SUCKS!

I totally understand that - sorry if I came over as a butthead on that point. I know that we have to do what it takes to pay the bills, especially when people we love are depending on us.

 

[Jennifer W]

Why aren't American women angrier about this? Why aren't American men with families angry too? It isn't just women who are losing out when there is no work-life balance - they might be losing the more tangible things, but their husbands are losing the right to be equal parents. They are going to be the ones who don't know what their kid likes to eat, who never do the bath and bed routine, who don't know where the diapers are kept, who have to be coached and instructed before they can be left alone with their own son or daughter.

I keep hearing people here saying they have to return to work or quit altogether when their baby is under 2 months old. 2 months? I can't imagine how hard that choice must be. Cannot fathom. DH and I were BOTH on family leave until our kid was 4 months old, then he went back part time with flexible hours and home working for her first year. It was so important to us to bond and settle in as a family, as two equal parents. It was every bit as important for him to have that time at home as it was for me to have it (and as it was for me to be able to return to my career with no detriment to my position).

Why isn't there more disquiet about this?

I.
Have.
No.
Idea.

If pressed, I would guess it was a combination of Extreme Capitalism - it's a sport, practically - and religious extremism that still pushes women to stay in the home, with a healthy dash of Feminism Resentment, where the Establishment (and dudes in power thereof) think, hey, you wanted equal rights ... and provide them in the form of equal suckiness for all concerned instead of granting a break across the board.

It's also a very me-me-me society: you'll frequently hear people who either don't have kids yet or who don't want kids period whining about how they feel it's unfair that Sally in accounting got 12 weeks of unpaid leave to recover from her c-section, but they're not allowed to take a snow-boarding holiday, with no consideration of the fact that, hey, when they're octogenarians, Sally's kid will be the one prescribing their medicine/driving their public care vehicle/replacing their cybernetic eye, or whatever.

Money, sexism, and an unhealthy focus on individualism: it's a bad combination. More to the point, though - to what would you attribute your country's shift towards egalitarian childcare practices?

That is a hard and complex question to answer. Indulge me while I pontificate? I'd love to say that it's because Scottish people aren't money-minded, sexist or focusing on individualism, but of course we are, in our own way. I'm afraid I'm going to have to use a dirty word: the S word. Socialism. At heart, an awful lot of Scottish people are socialists. We have a strong interest in social justice. We came about it the hard way - a combination of a brutal and controlling presbyterianism (ambition, working for more money than you actually need and focus on the individual were traditionally viewed in a pretty dim light here, were seen as outright sinful) and some appalling abuse of entire communities of effectively indentured labour in the coal fields and urban industry for over two centuries.

I think that here, employment rights in general have been fought for, bitterly. My great grandparents marched, protested, campaigned and fought bitterly and to their own detriment to achieve a living wage and some basic employment rights- my great grandfather had a full time job, underground for 12 hours a day with no leave, no pension, no entitlements or basic health care and STILL did not earn enough to protect his family from near starvation at times. Our family was one amongst hundreds of thousands. We generally dislike extreme capitalism because over the last two or more centuries, many ordinary Scottish people were its victims. There's no equivalent of the American Dream here - oppression of the workforce was combined with a rigid class system, so if you were born poor, you could work as hard as you like and it made no difference. You stayed poor. Although there were a few exceptions, it was not generally expected that one day you or your children would have a better life. A lot of Scotland's industrial history is about hopelessness and bleak, bare survival. This is a large part of why we treasure the notion of a welfare state, even if we abuse and disrespect it at times.

Every little advance towards equality has been hard won, but it's shaped our modern history and our national psyche. In the midst of all that, somehow the wider notions of equality have flourished at the same time - our Scottish government has legislated to protect people from discrimination, both direct and indirect, to protect minority groups from 'hate crime' and to actively promote equality and social justice. Some of that was in response to European legislation from the European Convention on Human Rights, designed in the aftermath of the Holocaust to protect individuals from oppressive actions of the State. A lot of employment here comes directly or indirectly from the state, so ECHR is very relevant in protecting equality in the workplace. The implementation of ECHR in Scotland is still developing and we've had some 'wake up and shake up' moments recently, so it's still a time of change. We still have a long way to go. A very long way. Things are far from perfect, there is still inequality in Scotland, no question. However, we are making sustained and demonstrable progress.

None of this is in anyway a comment on US history or politics, of which I have only a very limited knowledge. It's just a view on why Scotland has the outcome of more egalitarian employment practices. I can't even comment on the rest of the UK, because although legally, it is broadly similar, I think there is a very different political mindset elsewhere in Britain.

 

[Pandora II]

I'm with Jennifer here.

I see so many posts on PS from women who are so upset at having to leave their very tiny babies to go back to work and if they are very fortunate they might have the choice of leaving work. It shouldn't be like that... mothers should have the option to be with their child in the first year without having to sacrifice everything they've worked towards career-wise.

I don't think anyone realises just how hard a job being a mother is until they are dropped in at the deep end, and also how much their priorities will change. I've seen a lot of friends who 'would go nuts being at home' being more than happy to do so once the baby arrives. Going back to work after a year is still a wrench for many women, but it's not the same as going back after 12 weeks where you are still exhausted, potentially suffering from PPD, still trying to get into a routine and make breast-feeding work to say nothing of the emotional distress.

It makes me feel sad to read about it the way I used to feel sad when I saw the cows on the local farm whose calves had just been taken away.

If the vast majority of women on PS are unhappy about the maternity leave/work-life balance in America then that must translate into a HUGE number of women in the US being equally unhappy about it. What are your female politicians doing to help change things? Why aren't they angry on your behalf? That is where it has to start, with legislation. Women also need to start demanding better leave and better conditions.

In Parliament itself, women managed to get the working hours changed so that it was more family friendly - before it was a bit like a boy's club where you stayed all evening in the bars and in the voting chamber. Now Parliamentary business is done in the daytime for the most part. They also insisted that they opened a creche and made it acceptable to bring your baby to work - MPs don't get maternity leave officially. Many of them sit and feed their babies openly in the voting chamber.

Our Deputy Prime-Minister has a rule than unless there is a National crisis or he is too far away, he is at home to bath and put his 3 young sons to bed every single night.

Here, good companies pay extra so that they can attract and retain good staff. The company I worked with (whose CEO managed to completely screw things up - I blame him not the company) offered 3 months full pay, three months half pay, 3 months on statutory maternity pay (about $200 a week) and 3 months unpaid. On top of that I also got to take the year's holiday I had accrued during the years leave - another 6 weeks on full pay, plus all statutory days (around 11) plus a week for xmas. They were by no means the most generous - my SIL got 12 months on full pay from her company, and most of my friends got at least 6 months on full pay.

My sister who works for the police (at a low level) got the same as I did and when she goes back to work they have altered all her hours so that she can work them around her son's nursery hours.

If you adopt a child you also get the same maternity leave as you do if you give birth to one. And the UK is far from being the most generous in Europe.

I feel terribly sorry for mothers - and families in general - in the USA. It seems to outsiders that your population are told that the US is the best country in the world for everything to the extent that people actually believe it, whereas you actually seem to have been given a very bad deal and shame on your government for not doing something about it.

 

[vc10um]

If the vast majority of women on PS are unhappy about the maternity leave/work-life balance in America then that must translate into a HUGE number of women in the US being equally unhappy about it. What are your female politicians doing to help change things? Why aren't they angry on your behalf? That is where it has to start, with legislation. Women also need to start demanding better leave and better conditions.

Pandora, while I can't comment much on what's being done by female politicians on this issue, I CAN say that frequently, matters of the family and "work-life balance" seem to be belittled or overlooked by our society as being "unimportant." They are often met with retorts of things along the lines of "we're fighting two wars and our economy is in shambles and you want PAID MATERNITY LEAVE?!?" How DARE we!

Also, this may have something to do with it: "While the partisan composition of the Congress is fairly close to that of the electorate, there are larger disparities between the Congress and the general citizenry in term of sex and race. In the House, there are currently 362 men and 76 women. In the Senate, there are 17 women and 83 men."

17%. That's it. 17% of Congress is female. Several Congresswomen have introduced legislation to at least offer 4 weeks of paid leave to female federal workers, in an effort to at least attract and keep better candidates, but that gets shot down every time because it's the taxpayer's money and it shouldn't be going to pay someone to stay at home and not work. But don't even get me started on THAT argument.

I started my job (with the US Federal Government, so I get no paid maternity leave, just for background) in July 2007. Since then, I've only taken one vacation longer than 5 days because I have had to hoard my sick and annual leave for the time when I am pregnant. Right now, I am fortunate enough that I could take 6 weeks off after birth and receive full pay through that time. And it completely drains my leave, so I would be screwed if something came up with the baby, or I would have to take Leave Without Pay. But that's only a month and a half with a newborn child. How is that fair to either of us!?

Ugh...I should stop now before I get even more angry.

 

[Jennifer W]

VC10um, this sort of goes to the heart of my bewilderment - why don't male politicians have an interest in family life and equality? I understand it would be very hard to pass legislation that only women wanted, given the gender imbalance amongst those involved, but surely positive family policies benefit almost exactly equal numbers of men and women?

 

[vc10um]

VC10um, this sort of goes to the heart of my bewilderment - why don't male politicians have an interest in family life and equality? I understand it would be very hard to pass legislation that only women wanted, given the gender imbalance amongst those involved, but surely positive family policies benefit almost exactly equal numbers of men and women?

I really wish I knew, Jennifer. I really do. And maybe when my generation is finally starting to push out those who grew up on "Leave it to Beaver" and antiquated ideas that women are the ones in charge of the kids and men bring home the money...something will happen. The average age of Congress at the beginning of the term (January 2011) was 58 years old! But the median age of the population is about 37. Obviously there's some sort of disparity here. But until people think that raising a family is just as important as fighting a war or the state of the economy (and frankly, until people understand that it's even MORE important because these people are the future workers, blue collar and white, the future politicians, the future soldiers, and somewhere out there, the future Congressmen, Senators, and President) I doubt we will even see legislation introduced to extend FMLA beyond 12 weeks.

 

[TravelingGal]

You know, you all are right. We should be angrier. And I'm one of the lucky ones. However, let's define "lucky"...

- I am the only woman hired in my sales team in over 6.5 years. I've gotten to know my boss, and while he has never said it, he doesn't seem interested in hiring women. I honestly don't know how I got hired. I believe part of why he doesn't hire women is because of the 4.5 month maternity leave our company offers - long by US standards.

- My boss adores me. Because while I was on maternity leave, my child was 2 days old and I was breastfeeding with one arm and blackberrying with my other hand. My male colleagues later gave me crap about "sucking up" but I told them..."Hey, when YOU go and have another kid, everyone pats you on the back. If I were to announce another pregnancy pretty soon, my boss' mind would be spinning on how to cover my workload and I'd know that he wasn't 100% thrilled from a work POV (although he would be happy for me, certainly). Sadly, I have to "suck up" because if I want to have another kid and want to have my senior executives comfortable with that, they have to feel like I don't let the ball drop." All of my male colleagues totally agreed with me and shut up.

- BECAUSE I work hard, my boss is SUPER flexible with me. Never giving me any crap about all the appointments I had to take for my kid (and working from home, of course it was me that did it, but that's another story). Totally encourages family time. Tells me to take a lot of time off. But he also knows that's HUGELY valuable to me and makes a point of telling me when I'm sort of sick of our company and thinking about leaving that I have that in my job. It doesn't matter if I don't get promoted, or have big bonuses (and to be fair, none of the male colleagues do either as the company is not doing well), but he KNOWS I will not leave because I have it "good."

So I guess we are a "me" society. Even in my favorable working conditions, I know things are good only because I am a certain way in my job - which shouldn't have to be the case. And basically I deal with it because life is good for *me* in my job, but it doesn't promote the well being of motherhood and careers in any way.

Sad, eh?

 

[vc10um]

- BECAUSE I work hard, my boss is SUPER flexible with me. Never giving me any crap about all the appointments I had to take for my kid (and working from home, of course it was me that did it, but that's another story). Totally encourages family time. Tells me to take a lot of time off. But he also knows that's HUGELY valuable to me and makes a point of telling me when I'm sort of sick of our company and thinking about leaving that I have that in my job. It doesn't matter if I don't get promoted, or have big bonuses (and to be fair, none of the male colleagues do either as the company is not doing well), but he KNOWS I will not leave because I have it "good."

So I guess we are a "me" society. Even in my favorable working conditions, I know things are good only because I am a certain way in my job - which shouldn't have to be the case. And basically I deal with it because life is good for *me* in my job, but it doesn't promote the well being of motherhood and careers in any way.

Sad, eh?

Aside from the fact that I don't actually HAVE children yet, people in my unit do, and everything above applies to all of us and our manager. We don't leave because, even though it's far from great, it's better than most, and we don't dare tempt fate elsewhere.

 

[MissStepcut]

TG, the only thing that really bothered me about your post was the getting back to work 2 days after giving birth. That's a really common narrative among working mothers (or people who are praising them). It bothers me because, usually when I hear people saying it in praise of others, it sounds like some signaler of dedication. If you really were dedicated to your employee, you'd be working in the middle of labor! Work through your maternity leave! Give birth in the morning and be in the office by the afternoon! And okay, maybe that is impressive... but what about women who, due to medical reasons, can't bounce back like that? Or, heaven forbid, just want to take advantage of the benefits their employer promised them? Gah...

 

[Circe]

VC10um, this sort of goes to the heart of my bewilderment - why don't male politicians have an interest in family life and equality? I understand it would be very hard to pass legislation that only women wanted, given the gender imbalance amongst those involved, but surely positive family policies benefit almost exactly equal numbers of men and women?

There's still a fair amount of contempt for activities associated with women here. Sadly, that extends from vapid nonsense like vajazzling to matters of crucial importance ... like child-rearing. I dunno about Scotland, Sweden, or the rest of the EU, but 'round these parts, men get complimented for "baby-sitting" their kids when they take them to the park, or cover for their wives while they do work-related things. A major portion of our advertising sends the unsubtle message that, a) men are incompetent, b) incompetent men can't be trusted with kids, c) incompetent men ARE big kids who need to be taken care of, and, d) women are nagging harpies who don't let them have any fun, just like their mothers, and that's why they should drink Bud (or whatever).

Conversely, women-type things - cleaning, child-rearing, etc. - are seen as simultaneously mind-numbing and simplistic. People who engage in them are lazy and dim ... a natural state for the ladies, but a condition of emasculation for the menz. And what sane man would legislate and/or vote for that? It'd be the social equivalent of slumming it.

We are so messed up.

 

[MissStepcut]

Suddenly I regret starting this thread. How depressing.

And the only other language I know is German, so I guess fleeing is out.

 

[TravelingGal]

TG, the only thing that really bothered me about your post was the getting back to work 2 days after giving birth. That's a really common narrative among working mothers (or people who are praising them). It bothers me because, usually when I hear people saying it in praise of others, it sounds like some signaler of dedication. If you really were dedicated to your employee, you'd be working in the middle of labor! Work through your maternity leave! Give birth in the morning and be in the office by the afternoon! And okay, maybe that is impressive... but what about women who, due to medical reasons, can't bounce back like that? Or, heaven forbid, just want to take advantage of the benefits their employer promised them? Gah...

MsStepCut, I agree. At my last job, a taiwanese company where the mindset was very asian, we were repeatedly told of a story where the VP, a woman, delivered in the office and then came back to work 2 days later. As if that was something to aspire to.

I didn't know at the time if I wanted more children. Had I known then that I was one and one, I wouldn't have bothered to work so soon because I wouldn't have to worry about it for the future.

 

[vc10um]

VC10um, this sort of goes to the heart of my bewilderment - why don't male politicians have an interest in family life and equality? I understand it would be very hard to pass legislation that only women wanted, given the gender imbalance amongst those involved, but surely positive family policies benefit almost exactly equal numbers of men and women?

There's still a fair amount of contempt for activities associated with women here. Sadly, that extends from vapid nonsense like vajazzling to matters of crucial importance ... like child-rearing. I dunno about Scotland, Sweden, or the rest of the EU, but 'round these parts, men get complimented for "baby-sitting" their kids when they take them to the park, or cover for their wives while they do work-related things. A major portion of our advertising sends the unsubtle message that, a) men are incompetent, b) incompetent men can't be trusted with kids, c) incompetent men ARE big kids who need to be taken care of, and, d) women are nagging harpies who don't let them have any fun, just like their mothers, and that's why they should drink Bud (or whatever).

Conversely, women-type things - cleaning, child-rearing, etc. - are seen as simultaneously mind-numbing and simplistic. People who engage in them are lazy and dim ... a natural state for the ladies, but a condition of emasculation for the menz. And what sane man would legislate and/or vote for that? It'd be the social equivalent of slumming it.

We are so messed up.

So. Unfortunately. Right. On.