Long working hours are unravelling the very fabric of society

It’s no surprise that Britain has slipped to number 26 in the World Equality Forum Report behind Rwanda and the Philippines.

It’s half term, and my ageing mother, (she heartily objects to this description) has kindly agreed to take the kids for a couple of days so I can work. This morning, she took my daughter to her hearing test across town to be told she needs a further barrage of tests requiring further extra mornings off school (and due to the clinic’s inhospitable location far from a public transport hub, additional mornings off work for me. Despite arranging a pleasant day for them afterwards – an eye-wateringly expensive show in town in the hope I could meet them in central London for dinner on the way home for work, I was unable to leave work on time, and thus everyone was left disappointed. As a working parent, I am constantly being pulled in two directions. It is a cliche, but I feel often unable to do either job – parenting or work, which happens to be in advertising, particularly well. I can’t be in two places at once, and so someone, usually me, is always being let down.

It’s not fair that, as a parent, I am unable to work the hours necessitated by big corporations enabling childless staff to get ahead. It is unfair that I don’t have the time to contribute to society in a way I would like – be it helping out at the school fair, or seeing my family more often; or even have time to address my own issues, like getting on the list for the doctor recommended CBT- offered free on the NHS, but Where will I find another couple of hours a week just to get there and back? I am usually too wrung out to do much more than vegetate in my spare time. It is unfair that, because I sometimes need time here and there to do things at home that can be done by noone but myself, despite my two childminders and bi-weekly cleaner, I am less likely to be able to put in the hours that enable my overworked, less responsibility burdened colleagues, to get ahead. However society might view parenting (a hobby? Certainly a choice) it is a whole other job that it makes no senses, from a societal perspective, to skimp on.

I can’t do it any more. I get too annoyed when senior staff come in late (it seems that a home emergency for some is more equal than a home emergency for others) requiring me to work outside my contracted hours. I get too annoyed that my colleagues get to bond in the pub earning themselves a hangover and a raise while I must get home to cook, clean, read bedtime stories and help with homework. I get too annoyed that I earn less – will always earn less than someone who did not take time out to be with their young babies, whatever considerable societal benefit this may bring in the long term. I get too annoyed by the fact that, though I had babies when my body was at its peak, saving the NHS buckets on the need for fertility treatment, hospital care and all that stuff that comes with being an older mother, I have been relentlessly penalised by society simply for being younger when I did it. I get too annoyed that I am regularly told that, sadly, the industry I’m in isn’t very family friendly. Why the feck should I have to change occupations because I have become a mother? And I don’t even have it that bad – mostly I leave on time, at a reasonable hour, but there is always the threat that I shouldn’t, and if I do, it will be frowned upon. I get too pissed off that while, granted, several of my male colleagues actually live away from their families in order to work in London, there is a tacit acknowledgment that as a woman, I either play with the big boys or get out; that like their wives, perhaps it would be better if I just stayed home with the kids and let the men provide. The fact is, I probably can afford not to work, these days ( thanks, finally, to Tom getting lucky and half his adult life spent working in the City) But why should I have to give up on my own ambitions? Flexible work is moreorless a right, but the grey area allowed by law (ie. businesses don’t HAVE to give it to you) means in practise, most corporations pay only lip service to it. In many industries, it’s just not the done thing. And that’s why so many industries are male dominated. It’s not that women can’t stand the pace at the top. It’s because, when push comes to shove, many of them can’t shake off their biological priorities. And if society wants to be fairer, indeed, nicer, more humane, it must acknowledge this, and set in stone flexible working hours to all who want them, curbing long hours, not by an oft waive red working time directive but by making it illegal to work outside of contracted hours, so those who have other commitments, be it caring, hobbies, interests, or whatever – a gambling habit, do not get elbowed out of the workplace by who those who have nothing better to do – or who are more, and increasingly desperate. Society would be a better place if everyone had more time on their hands, not least by removing the polarisation between those who work too much, and those who can’t work enough. I’ve simply had enough of either being in the one desperate camp, or the hyper stressed other, but then, in free market competition, the idea, like in evolution, is that you either sink or swim, but if you’ve treading water awhile, it can be much harder to stay afloat. But, as one of my colleagues kindly put it, when I tried to cut the banter to try to finish on time so I could have dinner with my children, (we didn’t), I’m not being held to ransom.