The Parenting Parity. Shifting Gender Paradigms
On Gender Imbalance in Parenting: How Can We Challenge Societal Norms?
In the UK, where only 1.6% of full-time stay-at-home parents are male compared to 13.5% women, and 36.1% of women work part-time (compared to 7.2% of men), the gender imbalance in parenting and work adjustments is stark1.
The issue of bringing up children and making adjustments to work is still a significant challenge, especially considering the societal values of progressiveness, inclusivity, and equality. The idea of a man reducing his working hours to stay at home with children, allowing his wife to increase hers, remains elusive in a society that considers itself progressive. Even with the acceptance of men as birth partners, we need to go further. We must normalise and share stories about part-time dads, stay-at-home dads and dad’s sharing paternity leave with mothers; it's not just women's responsibility.
Discovering these statistics was a shock for me, despite living in one of the G7 countries, the UK. Why did I delve into this topic? I never considered myself a feminist. Perhaps life hadn't given me many opportunities to become one until now—until both of my children fell ill for an entire week with a persistent virus, likely leading to another challenging week juggling the trifecta of kids, childcare, and work.
This is how I feel while juggling the trifecta of kids, childcare, and work.
After returning from maternity leave following the birth of my first son in 2019, I reduced my hours from full-time to four days. Our arrangement involved him staying with me on Mondays and with his dad on Fridays, who had agreed to take Fridays off. After my second maternity leave in 2023, I was hesitant to increase nursery hours for my children. Call it a trust issue, but leaving my children under the care of teenagers felt challenging. I wanted them raised in their family home, with immediate attention to their needs. Simultaneously, I didn't want fractured family weekends now that we had two children. So, in typical British household fashion, I reduced my hours again, now working only three days. Fair point, it was my choice, influenced by what my friends were doing. As a mother, sacrificing parts of yourself seems inevitable and widely accepted.
These societal expectations are not abstract notions; they materialise in subtle yet powerful ways. From casual inquiries about work plans post-maternity leave to the unspoken assumptions about a mother's willingness to sacrifice career aspirations for the family, these expectations permeate our daily interactions. Consider the next family gathering or workplace conversation, and you'll likely notice how these expectations subtly influence our decisions as mothers. Interestingly, the unspoken assumptions and expectations in that area towards fathers are starkly different.
This week, with both boys at the nursery/preschool for only one day, I cancelled my clients, supervision sessions (I am a clinical supervisor), and meetings to stay at home with them. It was taken for granted, as it always is, that it would be me due to the perceived flexibility of my work. Attempting to send them to the nursery on Thursday, only to receive a call about the older one having a fever, added to the challenges. The joy of conducting therapy sessions in my bedroom, as the unwell preschooler demanded TV time in the living room, left me with nowhere to hide.
In the evening, we discussed the next week and sorting out childcare, with the expectation that I would be taking care of them if needed. This made me angrier at societal expectations than at my husband. It's not his fault; it's what society imprints on us. It's what I observed growing up, and it's what he witnessed. This shared expectation on mothers to be selfless and self-sacrificing, a woman-martyr, seems ingrained in all of us. Conversations with my husband about both of us reducing our hours to four days did not progress. He claimed it was not possible, and I believed him without questioning it. Now, upon reflection, it seems to me that every contract can be negotiated in terms of hours, but this awareness is absent in our minds as women, in the minds of our partners, and in the minds of institutions, companies and government.
As I read these words, there's a part of me that hesitates to press the "send" button. That part of me wants to go back and add bits about how much I love both my husband and my children, right after expressing the desire for them to be with their dad and for my husband to also sacrifice his career. However, I've decided against it. I will leave this text raw. As mothers, we've internalised the expectation that any expression of difficulty or unhappiness in motherhood must be promptly followed by deep reassurance of endless love toward our children and loved ones. But why? What happens if we don't provide that reassurance? Exactly, what happens then?
I would like to invite you to reflect on your own experiences. How have your societal expectations shaped your journey as a mother? Share your stories, engage in conversation - the change starts with the collective narrative.
Warm wishes,
Economic activity and employment type for men and women by age of the youngest dependent child living with them in the UK. August 2023.
Yes, yes, yes. Yes on the permission to have negative experiences without having to add the frosting of endless love and gratitude for our kids.
Yes on challenging norms about working while parenting.
Yes about having intentional conversations with spouses about what happens during weeks that are the 'exception' because of sick kids or closed daycares... Because the reality is the exception is so common it's basically constant.
I often work with my career coaching clients who are moms about coming up with a game plan for the 'exception' weeks, else they find themselves frequently in the chaos of unexpectedly picking up all pieces and suffering because of it. I love that in the Fair Play deck by Eve Rodsky this type of thing is a card, recognizing the invisible load this often brings.
It is possible! Scandinavian countries have a much more balanced attitude and it's very commonplace for dads to leave work early to do the school runs or stay home with their kids altogether. Plus support for parents is so much better that the juggle is much, much easier on everyone. It takes a shift in the cultural narrative and a willingness from governments to make change. Right now in the UK we have a government that wants women to be disempowered and picking up the work of childcare for free. In Finland, all women went on strike for a day to draw attention to how valuable their unpaid labour was, and things changed pretty dramatically after that!