Full time job with children: "Why am I the exception?"
"Well, Alex, what does the work do?" Asks a kindergarten mother. "Good, I'm going full time next month." She looks at me as if she has cut herself on paper: "Really, your little one is only two, that's athletic, wow."
Sporty, wow, pretty brave - that sounds like a compliment, after empowerment, after the arm muscle emoji - but I usually understand it differently. Because between the lines of this "Are you sure?" resonates. Often directly pronounced as: "Do you still see your children?" Or, "Well, I could not do that."
Only ten percent of all mothers with infants under the age of three work full time
Of course I love my kids - and I love my job. I refuse to believe that both are not possible: toddlers and full time, for both parents, at the same time. That will surely stand later on my tombstone. It's a pity that I am already stoned for that.
This text will also tick, with girlfriends, colleagues, other Kita mothers. They will feel attacked in their life plan by this one number: According to Federal Statistical Office, only ten percent of all mothers with toddlers under three years work full time. So 90 percent work part-time or not at all, as long as their children are in the nursery age. By contrast, 75 percent of fathers with toddlers march full-time to the office.
Statistically, I have to know more than ten mothers to meet any other full time working mother. Of the mothers with three to five-year-olds "at least" 16 percent work full. At the same time, however, half of all parent couples would like to divide working hours fairly, according to an Allensbach study. How does that fit together please?
"Maternal Gatekeeping": Mothers often think they know everything better than their father
Sociologists speak of a paradoxical effect of the women's movement: on the one hand, as many women today as never before work, on the other hand, we are experiencing a retraditionalization of gender roles. This discrepancy is related to an incredibly complex image of women. The cabaret artist Florian Schroeder summed it up in a talk show: "A woman has to get the right number of the right children with the right man at the right time." If she has the children, she has to work, she has to make a career Career means she has to stay home, and if she stays at home, she has to make a career, she has to be a whore, a lover, a best friend and a mother, and NEVER feel the stress she has with her! "
The one-minute video was celebrated by a quarter of a million people. Because the man is right, of course. However, what the fans of this film hardly want to acknowledge - and now comes the part that will make me unpopular - is that we women even participate in this image.
Mothers have to grant autonomy and just let the partner do it, writes educationalist Margrit Stamm in her book "New Fathers Need New Mothers". Instead, many women could not give up the still deeply rooted role of the family guardian. "Maternal Gatekeeping" is what science calls it: mothers are unconsciously looking for reasons why only they can pack their presents, why only they know best, which body is the warmest, and put the part out to Father the night before. And that while they find that equal work is very important, "but it does not work right here at home".
Women take the chance to earn more at some point
My friend K. tells me how much she strives to commute from one end of the city (job) to the second end of town (Kita) and then to the third end (home) with two toddlers in rush hour traffic. If her husband could not pick up the children more often, I ask. "He is independent, he can not work less," is her answer. Instead, she has downsized her 30-hour job to 25 hours. I'm afraid if she were a freelancer like her husband, she would have reduced her a lot: on her own, no problem, it works. Just not with him.
My friend N. also works part-time. When I get upset in our sons' music school about the fact that there are only mothers to pick them up at 4 pm, she justifies herself: "The calculation is very simple: my husband earns more, so I reduce." But the bill is not that easy. That N. takes the chance to someday even earn more, just because she suspends for years - she does not think about that.
"It's my private decision" - that's no longer an argument
And what about retirement? ChroniquesDuVasteMonde financial expert Helma Sick warns women, "whether married or not, to give up or greatly reduce the job and to rely entirely on their partner in old-age provision."
To be honest, every second marriage is still divorced."Will not happen to us", one thinks of course then. And if so? "After a couple of years, I'm backfiring," says my friend N. then.
The problem is that according to studies, only 20 percent really manage - not least because most employers do not play there until today. It remains to be seen if this will change this year. Since 1 January, the right to "bridge part-time" applies, ie the return to full-time after one to five years reduction. So far, the vast majority of mothers remain part-time, even though the children are already teenagers.
"Hello, thousands of daycare centers are missing!", Many will yell now, "and all-day schools, so you just can not work full-time!" You are right, a care catastrophe is that. Or rigid working hours that make full time with a child impossible. Nevertheless, we should ask ourselves here: Why are it in these cases, most of the mothers who reduce immediately? "That's my very personal decision," I always get to hear. I'm just wondering if this can be called a personal decision if it makes a whole generation of women financially dependent on a major earner.
Why are mothers at work immediately reducing their workload?
"Because it is always said, 'It does not work for us', the still existing inequality is disguised as an individual problem - and no longer perceived as a societal dilemma," says sociologist Sarah Speck of the Institute for Social Research of the University of Frankfurt. And the worst thing is that this thinking continues from generation to generation: In a survey by the Ifo economic research institute, 58 percent of girls surveyed said they would like to work a maximum of 20 hours a week after a child. Only 12 percent would go full time again. Of course, the guys are the other way around. It can not be that my daughter still has to deal with these role models in 30 years!
So I work full time in an editorial office. My children are five and two years old and go to a kindergarten that closes at 4pm. When my son was two years old, I was already employed full-time. My husband did not want to reduce, "because that's not worth it for me". It is clear: Although his colleagues reduced, it was of course something different with him as a man. The related conflicts (and there were many) produced a master timetable, which is still hanging on the fridge as the icing on the cake of our common relationship work: "Kita: Bring- and Abholzeiten". On Tuesdays the babysitter picked up the baby, the other days we took turns. But I had to negotiate with my former bosses (both without small children) flextime. Being the first in my department ever.
Yes, it was annoying, and yes, I had to do that under the hand. But it worked! On two afternoons, I was able to hug my son at 4 pm. On the other days I saw him in the morning and in the evening, all weekend. I never had the feeling of missing out on his childhood. And also my child was happy when it got a one to one care in the day care center.
If we want a fairer distribution, what are we waiting for?
By the way, my husband is a teacher. But before everyone shouts, "He's already at home by 1 pm!", I reply: on Friday, yes. Otherwise he will never come home before 4pm. Leaves it but already at 7.15 clock the house. In every other profession, this is called flexitime. And of course our system breaks down regularly. If someone gets sick for example. Only recently Grandpa had to move from Berlin, from 10 to 16 Watch her sick grandson and return on the same day. Madness? Sure, of course. But is not it always?
Flexible working hours, home office, 36-hour weeks. Husbands and partners, bosses, day-care centers, politics - it is clearly annoying to have to constantly strive and negotiate things. Do I want that? Always going into conflict with my husband? With superiors, my colleagues, my mother-in-law, the women around me? Do I find the courage and the strength to counter, to argue, not to let the wind out of my sails? I think that if it is true that half of all parents want a fairer distribution - what the hell are we waiting for?
Also read
30 hour week for everyone! When is it finally time?Full-time Part-time ? or something completely different? Discuss with!
Two of our colleagues discuss what they find better: a 30-hour week for all? or full-time jobs for both parents? ChroniquesDuVasteMonde editor Alexandra Zykunov has two small children, works full time - and asks herself: why am I still an exception? And colleague Kristina Maroldt, also a mother of two, demands: Let's make part-time the new standard - for women AND men! What do you think about that? How well does it work for you to reconcile family and job? Discuss in the ChroniquesDuVasteMonde community about compatibility and good working time models for the future!
