Comments on: Work and family balance over the life cycle

By: Deb

Deb — Tue, 20 May 2008 04:17:46 +0000

In an ideal world where cost was an issue I would love to see 2 years paid parental leave, to allow one parent to remain at home and care for their child. When that parent returned rto the workforce I would hope that they were able to find universally available, free or low cost child care delivered by a university trained teacher (not just for 15 hours per week as is the government promise) and where staff: child ratios were a maximum of 1 adult for 3 children aged under 2 years, one adult for 5 children aged 2-3 years and one adult for 8 children aged 3-5 years. The parent returning to the work place would be welcomed back to their former position, with no career disadvantage. If the child got sick, either parent had flexible work arrangements that enabled them to take adequate time off to appropriately care for the child rather than what currently happens where parents dose the child up with medication and send them back to chhild care because the pressures on them in the work place are huge …. I can but dream … and I know it has massive costs to dream like this … but just imagine what it could be .. and how we could build a society that really cared for all .. from babies just born, to working parents, to respecting carers responsibilities. What could society really look like? And how many issues could be resolved if we increased public expenditure in this vital area.

By: John Stannard

John Stannard — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:50:23 +0000

My partner and I can relate to the story of Matt and Lisa.
We are both tertiary qualified but junior workers, and when we decided to have a child, we also determined to do the parenting ourselves together.
This meant spending equal time with the new baby, (now twelve years), for the first two years, not placing him in daycare until he was of pre-school age, and never in after-school care once at school. We achieved the first goal, a little of the second, (long day care no more than 3 days a week) and so far all of the third.

Toward the end of his first year, my partner was told by her employer that she had to ‘return or be fired’. This was a State Govt organisation, and we were shocked.
So before the baby was even one, she was back at work, all maternity leave used up and no time without pay offered.
So I approached my work for a year without pay, they said I could either resign or stay on. There was no other option. Luckily we are a bit older and had less mortgage stress. My community job paid less, so we decided that I would resigned when my son was ten months old. That meant losing long-service etc, but she returned to work and retained her career.
I was full-time at home for 20 wonderful months. The best time and still valuable for the bond I have with my son.

Almost two years later, I found some three-day a week work which lasted three years. I still had to be paying off my HECS debt, while we juggled hours at home with no extended family.
I have had full-time work since, most years at lower rates than my partner. My super never recovered and is around 25% of my partner’s.

Work life balance remains an issue for my partner and me. She does four days work spread over five so she can be home after school hours. It means she leaves early and finishes in time to collect him from school or to be home before or not long after 3:00PM. I do the mornings with him and start late and finish late, which has its own workplace pressures. We juggle annual leave to cover all the school holidays, sometimes asking favours of friends. It puts a strain on our relationship as we see less of each other.

My partner’s employer still wont allow a choice of hours per week that falls between four days and full-time, and we have to plan six months ahead for any change we would like to make. So even though she earns more than I, she does four days and I work five. You end up with some hours worked for free.
Regards and thank you for listening.
JOhn

By: Stacey

Stacey — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:28:25 +0000

I can relate to the story. I am a huge advocate for paid maternity leave. My situation is not unlike a lot of women’s in this country whereby it is now the norm for a mother to be working outside of the home helping to contribute to the household finances.

I would love to have another baby but cannot afford to take anymore than 3 months off to spend time with my baby, which I feel is not good enough. My income of $620 a week contributes significantly to the running of our home (my husband’s income pays for our ever increasing mortgage payments) leaving no money in order to save to self fund any sort of maternity leave.

Whilst I am grateful to the government for the assistance of $4,000 (soon to be $5,000) this is a huge shortfall in the amount of money our family would lose if I was to take 6-12 months off to care for my baby – a shortfall of $27,240 to be exact!

If the government does not want to dip in their pockets to help assist the modern family then there should be a change in legislation to help working women access their superannuation in order to help fund a period of maternity leave. This withdrawal should also be exempt from any taxation implications.

They allow you a withdrawal of funds if you can prove financial hardship, well as far as I am concerned having a baby puts huge financial stress on a working families and in our case would put us in financial hardship.

The government need to stop putting their heads in the sand on this issue. Bring on paid maternity leave!!!

By: Juliet

Juliet — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 06:15:33 +0000

I can certainly relate to Lisa and Matt. My husband and I don’t have children yet but we are starting to think about it and when would be a good time. I’m starting to see that it is NEVER a good time. Waiting has the obvious health and chance problems attached - now means working out how to pay the mortgage and survive on one income. My parents tell us that it isn’t that hard and much better just to get started. But I am worried about getting my job security back - being a teacher, working parttime isn’t outwardly discouraged but the reality is that many can’t arrange it. I want to spend the first 2 years with my child but in order to keep my job that mightn’t be an option. It gets a bit much sometimes and I can understand why my friends with children have aged 10years and why those without are happy that way.

By: Anon

Anon — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:51:14 +0000

I’m not really sure I understand the idea behind paid maternity leave. To me the way that it is now is completely unfair that government workers receive it whilst others don’t except for the small percentage in the private sector.
I think paid maternity leave for all would only result in more discrimination to females and working parents. I fully agree in the need to have more flexible working arrangements for all including parents, but that if you have a family I can’t see why employers/goverment should be financing it.

And in answer to the questions

* Can you relate to Matt and Lisa’s story?
In a way. When we had our first child I found out whilst I was in hospital after the birth I had been made redundant after management had negotiated and agreed to me coming back part time.
We didn’t find ourselves going that much further into debt as we had planned that our debt committments would not exceed what we could manage on one income, even before thinking about having children.
I was lucky/fortunate that I found work 2 days a week, and that when I was first pregnant I had put my baby’s name down at daycare centres so I had no problem with care once I found the work.
It wasn’t what we had in mind as my new workplace was now 1 1/2 hours away instead of 15 minutes.
I think Matt and Lisa were very fortunate to have such flexible employers and its a shame that they can’t live within their income so that they could live their ideal.

* Do you feel supported to balance work and family responsibilities?
I feel that if I had to balance work and family I could do it with my partner. I guess I’m not really sure what is meant by supported. in this question.

* Are the issues different for men and women?
Yes. Men and women no matter how hard we want them to be equal, are different.

* Do men want to get family-friendly working arrangements? Do they find it harder to access them? Why?
Yes they do or their partners want them to!
Really not sure on this to comment as partners working arrangement had some flexibility in the starting/ending hours of his day, but had no choice in the full time hours.
No body at his work had the flexibility of part time so it was not a gender issue. .

* What one thing would make the biggest practical difference to this area of your life?
Having more employment opportunities in our area. The unemployment rate in this area is much higher than the national. Having to commute for over an hour to access employment is the biggest barrier.

* In a perfect world – where money isn’t an issue – what work and family arrangements would you have?
I would love to be able to commit to one or two days a week work and have my partner work 3-4 days a week, allowing me time out to work and my partner a chance to enjoy and parent the kids without me.
I guess Lisa and Matt’s situation is what I would like to be able to have without their financial problems.

By: Rad Dad

Rad Dad — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:53:16 +0000

We’re lucky that the grandparents can take our kid for a day a week, saving us a fair bit on childcare each year, as well as giving them more contact with the baby.

It does bother me that we’re sucking up their time and I guess it will get worse when he goes to school and we run out of holidays.

I can’t really see much else of a solution though - childcare is barely affordable as it is.

Affordability of childcare would be one aspect that would make things easier.

By: Liana

Liana — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 03:15:33 +0000

As a parent of two primary school children I can totally understand the frustration of “Anonymous”. Not only do we as a family spend hours trying to work out alternative care for our children to cover holidays but we also then feel guilty about not spending that time with them. It is essential that employers become more aware of the needs of those employees who have to balance the needs of the family to those of their employer. It is becoming critical in today’s employment landscape that discussions take place between all parties to ensure that desired outcomes are achieved. It is also essential that public policy moves with the times to ensure that those employers and candidates who actually want to work together are not held back by antiquted policies.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 05:59:25 +0000

The great frustration for me is the big mismatch between so much public policy relating to work and family. Consider education arrangements and industrial relations policies: eg. all state school students get 12 weeks’ leave each year (it’s more for students in private schools). But the mandatory leave provision for parents is only four weeks. This means the vast majority of working parents cannot cover the leave of their children, and this is a source of great anxiety when they are primary school age. The same with the working day - there is a great mismatch between school hours and working hours, and again this is the source of enormous stress. My family uses enormous ammounts of emotional resources just planning to ensure we are able to provide care for our children around work - before we even begin to look at whether we can have time off together as a family. This suggests IR arrangments are still written by men for men in the sense that they don’t address this mismatch and therefore assume the woman will either remain at home or take a ‘hobby’ job so she can provide care in the hours and weeks their children are on leave. The only other alternative is to pay for care, making child rearing even more expensive and stressful to both parents and children - yet our population policy suggests we need women / families to choose to have children and our health policy suggests families need down time together, and that children need to have deinsitutionalised time. Our public policy is not helping us - we have to negotiate everything in an environment which is sometimes hostile and often hamstrung or unwilling to be flexible. I’d like to see a minimum of six weeks’ annual leave for parents, and opportunites for primary care givers to work split shifts or additioanl hours at home as a first step toward genuine family friendly hours.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 05:39:39 +0000

I was very pleased to see that the new Sex Discrimination Commissioner was undertaking a listening tour. I hope in unpacking some of the issues related to Work and Family Balance the Commissioner is able to reframe the debate… even if it’s only to begin by describing it as Family and Work Balance.

I am particularly keen to see some work done to investigate the impact of high quality, affordable, accessible child care has on women’s ability to return to work and later on the availability of high quality, affordable before and after school care. In my experience women often take the lions share of responsibility for sourcing these support services and for covering for them when they are not available due to curriculum days, sickness etc. An ability to access high quality support services can significantly impact on a women’s ability to return to work and additionally feeds into her ability to be promoted at the same rate as her colleagues whilst there. Government also has a role in the delivery and funding which allows these supports to flourish. The Commissioner may also wish to investigate whether the Australian Government’s current spend on childcare (almost the lowest in the OECD) is discriminating against women and children. (See OECD Starting Strong II Report).

I would also support the Commissioner in pushing the new government to increasing the maternity provisions both in length and in availability so that it meets OECD averages at a minimum.

Finally I would encourage the Commissioner to investigate whether the built environment (particularly lack of adequately designed public space and inadequate public transport services) in our cities and suburbs discriminates against families (and children) and discourages them from living happy, healthy, active lives.

Good luck

By: Joan

Joan — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:28:38 +0000

Hello,

There are so many parallels in the stories above and I’m afraid that these messages speak for thousands of families. I have been researching into the social structuring of the family and have come across two important and relevant texts: the first is Love’s Labor, by Eva Kittay and the second The Autonomy Myth by Martha Fineman. The essential argument is that the state and the market are dependent on the family as a repository for care and dependency (infants, the infirm aged and the incapacitated). If there is to be real change policy and practice needs to be reformulated so as to accommodate the caring needs of families within the wider social system. We are continuing to operate as if the traditional and gendered family form were still the case, even though there have been huge changes in both the workplace and the education system. There is a significant need to reformulate family policy and practice across the board (government departments) recognising contemporary aspirations.
best,
Joan