Touche!
At my job there is a lot of resentment by older childless white women towards the non-white mothers; the white women don’t work longer hours, and tend to have higher positions/pay, but they resent when the mothers have to take time off (which they are entitled to) when something arises with their children. It is just naked jealousy; the white women realize pets are no substitute for kids, but it is too late to rectify that...
“It is just naked jealousy; the white women realize pets are no substitute for kids, but it is too late to rectify that...”
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I’m a white woman who resented younger women coming in late and leaving early because of children.
Guess who did their work? The rest of us.
Full disclosure : I had 5 kids.
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Not everyone chooses not to have children. You want to consider that from your high horse.
No offense, but you often have silly comments like this. Naked jealousy when somebody doesn’t show up to do the job they were hired to do? HR implements these unworkable policies so they don’t get set upon by the government and it’s the poor, besieged boss and his/her staff who have to scramble to get the work done while some broad skips work to pick up the kiddies...or as I found out in one case, have her nails done.
There’s got to be a better way.
Well said. I skipped the college/career path and went straight to the stay-at-home-mom path. And I’d never trade my six kids (yes!) for forty cats...ever!!!
Well, I can see this point of view. A woman I know, childless, complained to me that she got extra work dumped on her when the other women who worked with her got off and got paid for it. And then the countless soccer practices, problems at school, plays, dentist appointments, baseball practices, and so on when they left at noon - is that fair? I deal with the same thing from a man’s point of view with my male co-workers.
Don’t I pay enough for schools and get no benefit from it? I can’t even flush a toilet (absolutely true) around here without paying a school tax. So every time I take a dump, I do so “for the kids”.
I remember a law show episode years ago, maybe Ally Macbeal, maybe Law and Order.
A mother was suing that she was working 40 hours and not getting promoted as much, that wasn’t fair. The young childless professional woman representing the client brought up her personal (character) view - “I work 70-80 hours a week, I work weekends, I don’t take vacations while you take days off for childcare and school holidays. Why should you get the promotion ahead of me? How is that fair? And if I get the promotion when you don’t, that isn’t sexism, that is merit, a reflection of who works harder.”
The mother complained she couldn’t work those hours.
The younger attorney said, “There are women who work those hours, some hire nannies, some have husbands doing all the work. But you want to do everything, and you can’t, and while that’s not fair in your view, you getting the promotions and raises when I work longer and harder isn’t fair.”
Feminists think you can have it all - and you honestly cannot. You can have a full tilt career or full time parenting or rich social life with activities - but only so many hours in a day. There’s a reason women’s salary growth curves tend to slow or stall after having kids - because they instinctively spend more time on kids. That’s not sexist except to the degree having kids tends to put the burden on women. Some men take on the burden, some women don’t have children. But you can’t be there for the kids and be there for work ...
This “meternity” to try to say non-mothers should get equal time off actually hurts women more. How? By saying women need time off for “whatever”, without even the “my kid is sick” excuse. And if women in mass start demanding this, the childless women who work the long hours will be sidelined by employers afraid they’ll start needing random breaks, too, and hire guys instead. It is safer, then, to actually discriminate against women.
As a 52-year-old white, never married, childless woman, the rationale for their opinion is beyond my comprehension.
However, I do expect a REALLY good retirement party/gift to make up for all the wedding and baby showers over the years!!
It’s really a shame that those mothers are not caring for their own children at home.