OK ... so I'm mildly ticked off right now.
No, I'm really ticked off right now. It's not completely that my planned evening out has been cancelled. It's not totally that my partner is home late. It's not that I've been sole parent for an additional hour or so this evening.
It's the automatic assumption that I WILL be present as caregiver for my child when my spouse is late leaving work.
Emergencies do come up. Projects require extra work into the evening - true. A working day can overrun - I am well aware (in my dim and distant past I too worked outside the home).
but
... it would have taken very little time, loss of face and effort to have called ahead to inform that a delay was inevitable. Two hours of notice could have been enough to arrange a sitter and I would have been able to go to my meeting.
My major grievance is that this wasn't done. It was automatically assumed that I would be there picking up the childcare needs cos apparently my 'work' is just not important. FYI I 'just' missed a meeting with the local artist cooperative - nothing life or death but they are a great bunch of people to network with and I was looking forward to hearing about plans for the giftshop where I sell.
As well as this degree of personal ire I feel there are also wider implications for the world of employment (all hail the salaried world outside the home). What would a working mother have done in the same situation? Unless otherwise arranged, would she have sat silently past her childminder's deadline? or would she have excused herself to either make that phonecall, or even politely absented herself? Since I've never been a salaried motehr working outside the home I have no idea what working women do when they are faced with demands to stay late (perhaps someone could educate me?). Do 'working' fathers face the same dilemma? How are women who 'play' the motherhood/childminder card at going home time viewed by their colleagues and employers?
I'd love some answers! As a non-earning SAHM I can be prickly about my status and perceived insults but am I really delusional?
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
automatic assumptions of childcare
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3 comments:
This is a common occurrence in our house too. My husband will often set up dinner meetings or early mornings or whatever and I am the last to know. He has a demanding job and I get that but it'd be nice to be filled in. SAHM get no respect.
As for your question about working moms. I used to be the one working late and I can tell you that the moms I worked with were pretty much always phoning care-givers and explaining why. They never seemed to assume the childcare would be taken care of. I think the thing is that no matter if we women work outside the home or not the worry about who's taking care of the kids always seems to fall to us.
I worked outside the home for 2.5 years with my first child. She was in daycare, which closed at 5:30 sharp. If you weren't there to pick the child up on time, you were charged $1 per minute that you were late. If you didn't call them, they would call you, and then the emergency contacts. Just leaving the child is not an option. So, I would either call my spouse, or if he wasn't available, I would make my apologies and leave. And everyone would understand, for the most part.
There is, of course, a flip side to that coin, though. And I felt it especially as a mother. No one ever questioned that I had to leave work to pick up my sick kid or make daycare closing time, but it definitely did not help my career. No one was going to give me a promotion or put me in a position of serious responsibility while I was on the 'mommy track'. I feel that men weren't treated exactly the same, but I suspect that if it was a chronic thing it might begin to cause others to feel he's less-than-reliable.
Thanks for the feedback and insights ladies. My DH got an ear-bashing last night so I'm hoping that maybe he has learned. I really do think that in the world of work, both employed partners should take equal responsibility for the childcare angle ie. both are 'due' for the call back to the childcare provider to establish that working late is not a problem. Only with this approach will 'working' women not be stigmatised or painted as unreliable/unpromotable.
Yes, I was pissed off to miss my meeting as I had been looking forward to some adult interaction, but what annoyed me more was that my needs were totally ignored by the simple act of not lifting the phone to let me know I needed to continue responsibility for the childcare for another two hours or more.
Grrrr.
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