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Daycare Keeps Calling The Mom Instead Of The Dad When They Need Something, So She Calls Them Out
Interview With Author
Gender inequality is still firmly rooted in areas you wouldn’t expect. It’s shocking that you’d find it in a place like a daycare. However, that’s exactly what happened to Dr. Raina Brands’ partner.
Dr. Brands explained how the daycare always calls her when their child is sick, despite her repeatedly having told them to call her partner. According to her, the staff working at the daycare “are incapable of viewing him as a primary caregiver” despite all the effort he puts in.
The tweets went viral and prompted other Twitter users to share their own experiences with gender inequality in a variety of areas. Scroll down to read them, dear Pandas. And when you’re done, let us know in the comments what cases of inequality you’ve recently seen.
Bored Panda reached out to Dr. Brands, who is a Professor at the UCL School of Management, to have a chat about her viral tweets. She was kind enough to answer our questions about gender inequality which she sees as a self-reinforcing system. “I am happy to have started a conversation on an important topic. I was appalled by some of the stories that women shared in their replies, which recounted seriously egregious examples of sexism,” she shared her thoughts with us.
“I was also quietly amused at the small number of people who took offense to me referring to my partner as my partner instead of my husband (even though we are not, in fact, married),” she said. Scroll down to read our full interview with Dr. Brands, dear Pandas.
More info: Twitter | CareerEqually.com
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Dr. Brands tackled the issues of gender inequality in daycare
Image credits: RainaBrands
Image credits: RainaBrands
Image credits: RainaBrands
Image credits: RainaBrands
Dr. Brands reiterated that gender inequality is a self-reinforcing system. “Just take my experience as an example. If nursery workers, doctors, etc., assume I am the primary caregiver and call me and not my partner, I will end up doing more childcare than him. An hour here, a day off there—any single instance doesn’t matter. But the cumulative effect is significant,” she explained to Bored Panda that this has a knock-on effect on every aspect of a woman’s life, including professionally and at home.
“Perhaps my employer notices I am more distracted at work, or that I am more unreliable than before I had a child, and I don’t get that promotion I wanted. At home, I will likely find it more difficult to balance work and home commitments than my partner because I’m doing more childcare, so I might start to think about a job or career change that will give me more flexibility,” she continued.
“But flexible jobs tend to be paid less than demanding ones, so if I take one, suddenly the earnings gap between me and my partner is a lot bigger. And then we are in a situation a lot of couples find themselves in, where it doesn’t ‘make sense’ for my partner to contribute an equal share to the childcare because his career is so much more important to the household,” Dr. Brands went into detail about how a small decision by a daycare has a far wider effect than it might seem at first glance.
However, she noted that childcare workers aren’t the ones to blame for assuming that the mother is the primary caregiver. “It usually is the case. Why? Because men in the UK rarely get more than a week or two of parental leave! This is what I mean when I say it is self-reinforcing: gender inequality in the home is reinforced by gender inequality at work/society which leads to more gender inequality in the home.”
Dr. Brands also told us a bit more about herself. “I co-founded Career Equally, which I use as a platform to give women free advice on how to de-bias their careers. We do this by educating women through our newsletters and webinars on what bias to look for, how to measure it, and by giving them tools and tactics to confront it. We want to inspire women to take collective action to de-bias their workplaces and create meaningful connections to other women to further their careers.”
The mom’s daycare post got over 20.5k likes, and revealed just how deeply rooted inequality is in certain areas. It’s 2022, yet dads are still seen as secondary caregivers by some, which is ridiculous.
Something like this would probably very rarely happen in any of the Nordic countries which are very big on gender and parent equality. And dads are naturally seen as being very involved in their children’s future. In other words, the basic assumptions there are that parents are parents, no matter their gender. Dr. Brands agreed that some countries “are more egalitarian, others are more gender unequal.”
However, it wasn’t always the case. When shared parental leave was first introduced in the Nordic countries in the 1970s and 1980s, at first, few fathers actually took advantage of it. However, over the decades, attitudes changed and Nordic dads embraced their more involved roles as parents. And along with that changed societal attitudes.
Here’s how some people reacted to Dr. Brands’ post. Some even offered some spot-on advice
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Unfortunately, in many countries, gender equality continues to fester. During an earlier interview, human rights advocate Elizabeth Arif-Fear told Bored Panda that the most obvious indication that such inequality exists is the gender pay gap in the workplace. To her, the pay gap is “a gross violation of women’s rights.”
In Arif-Fear’s view, women are most definitely recognized for their talents in the workplace in the West. However, they still face numerous obstacles.
“Discrimination includes women being denied work, in preference for men due to maternity leave allowances. Due to the imbalance between caring for children and housework among male/female partnerships—which is still prevalent across the globe—women are left juggling a high amount of childcare and work which places extra demands on women,” Arif-Fear said.
“Practical barriers add an extra burden onto women. Beyond childcare, women in leadership is an area that is evolving but there is still a massive glass ceiling. We need more women in leadership positions,” she added.
Twitter users shared their own experiences with gender inequality in childcare
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Some women shared other areas where they experienced sexism
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What do you think ?
Gavin Johnson 3 years ago
My ex-wife and I split over 5 years ago. We went through the process of changing details with our daughter’s school and explained that we now needed all correspondence to come to both of us. Not something that’s difficult to do I thought. Roll on five years. My ex, gets the updates on the emergency system that is designed to quickly update parents, , I get text messages, we both get the emails. We’ve stood in reception and the school admin have confirmed on 5 or 6 separate occasions that it’s sorted, it never is. Gave up. Luckily we are on speaking terms and this is just another thing that causes amusement. Next year our daughter is changing school so we get a fresh page and hopefully a system that can cope with the horror of a divorced couple!
Caro Caro 3 years ago (edited)
As if you're the schools first divorced couple in the world !. Sigh. Glad to see you 2 get along relatively well, that's nice for your little girl. I hope she's doing fine.
Load More Replies...
E2U&U2 3 years ago (edited)
I wanted to buy a new SUV. I went to the Toyota dealership by myself, wanted info, a test drive, and the number it would take to drive it home. The salesman practically patted me on the head and told me we could talk when I returned with my husband. I walked across the street to the Ford dealership and pointed to a sweet Explorer (this was years ago). A little over an hour later I drove off with my new best friend. Our first stop was the Toyota dealership, I just honked and waved at the salesman as I drove by smiling from ear to ear.
Vivian Ashe 3 years ago
It's not just childcare. I have had all my insurance with the same company for decades. When I got married, we added my husband to those policies. Nothing else changed. I still pay all the bills and handle all the paperwork. But now, every bit of communication we get from that insurance company is addressed to him alone. The only time they ever called and asked for me was when they wanted to talk me into carrying more life insurance on him. The (female) agent's sales pitch was that with more life insurance, I wouldn't be forced to remarry right away if my husband died. (This is one of the biggest insurance companies in the USA, in Los Angeles, and that call was about 5 years ago. And at the time, I made considerably more money than my husband.). I got married in my late 30's, and it was really eye-opening how much sexism like that suddenly reared its head as soon as I had a husband.
Izzy Curer 3 years ago (edited)
I had a landlord who wouldn't stop calling me about the rental property even though hubby was listed as primary contact. Even after specifying several times that I would likely be unavailable, even though his name was the one signed on all the checks. Apparently it's the wife's job to know things about the house and relay any information to the family
Kathryn Baylis 3 years ago
Must make day care and school employees’ heads explode if they have to decide which parent to call when a kid has two dads and no mom (legally, I mean).
Kai David 3 years ago
I am a dad that took custody of my 3 sons. Triplets. Late 80's and 90's, being gay parents was such a joy. We would list my husband as pc since I travel 45 days for work, home for 3 months, repeat. Every school demands the mothers contact. She lives in Prague. I look at them and tell them point blank, my husband is the mama bear and he is the pc since he is a sahd. After seeing me pull into school in my truck mid school day a couple of times for meetings, they finally started to call my husband. Their reason was gay men can't be parents. This was a private k-12 secular school. After things were finally sorted, whenever I drove my truck onto school grounds, the office staff went into a panic.
Gavin Johnson 3 years ago
My ex-wife and I split over 5 years ago. We went through the process of changing details with our daughter’s school and explained that we now needed all correspondence to come to both of us. Not something that’s difficult to do I thought. Roll on five years. My ex, gets the updates on the emergency system that is designed to quickly update parents, , I get text messages, we both get the emails. We’ve stood in reception and the school admin have confirmed on 5 or 6 separate occasions that it’s sorted, it never is. Gave up. Luckily we are on speaking terms and this is just another thing that causes amusement. Next year our daughter is changing school so we get a fresh page and hopefully a system that can cope with the horror of a divorced couple!
Caro Caro 3 years ago (edited)
As if you're the schools first divorced couple in the world !. Sigh. Glad to see you 2 get along relatively well, that's nice for your little girl. I hope she's doing fine.
Load More Replies... E2U&U2 3 years ago (edited)
I wanted to buy a new SUV. I went to the Toyota dealership by myself, wanted info, a test drive, and the number it would take to drive it home. The salesman practically patted me on the head and told me we could talk when I returned with my husband. I walked across the street to the Ford dealership and pointed to a sweet Explorer (this was years ago). A little over an hour later I drove off with my new best friend. Our first stop was the Toyota dealership, I just honked and waved at the salesman as I drove by smiling from ear to ear.
Vivian Ashe 3 years ago
It's not just childcare. I have had all my insurance with the same company for decades. When I got married, we added my husband to those policies. Nothing else changed. I still pay all the bills and handle all the paperwork. But now, every bit of communication we get from that insurance company is addressed to him alone. The only time they ever called and asked for me was when they wanted to talk me into carrying more life insurance on him. The (female) agent's sales pitch was that with more life insurance, I wouldn't be forced to remarry right away if my husband died. (This is one of the biggest insurance companies in the USA, in Los Angeles, and that call was about 5 years ago. And at the time, I made considerably more money than my husband.). I got married in my late 30's, and it was really eye-opening how much sexism like that suddenly reared its head as soon as I had a husband.
Izzy Curer 3 years ago (edited)
I had a landlord who wouldn't stop calling me about the rental property even though hubby was listed as primary contact. Even after specifying several times that I would likely be unavailable, even though his name was the one signed on all the checks. Apparently it's the wife's job to know things about the house and relay any information to the family
Kathryn Baylis 3 years ago
Must make day care and school employees’ heads explode if they have to decide which parent to call when a kid has two dads and no mom (legally, I mean).
Kai David 3 years ago
I am a dad that took custody of my 3 sons. Triplets. Late 80's and 90's, being gay parents was such a joy. We would list my husband as pc since I travel 45 days for work, home for 3 months, repeat. Every school demands the mothers contact. She lives in Prague. I look at them and tell them point blank, my husband is the mama bear and he is the pc since he is a sahd. After seeing me pull into school in my truck mid school day a couple of times for meetings, they finally started to call my husband. Their reason was gay men can't be parents. This was a private k-12 secular school. After things were finally sorted, whenever I drove my truck onto school grounds, the office staff went into a panic.
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