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View as: GRID LIST

The Career Gap

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I’m not the sort of person who keeps, or remembers where they keep that small plastic funnel with which to add dishwasher salt. So when I eventually decided to refill, I did so leaning in over a bottom tray already stacked with filthy plates and pans. I poured as gently as I could, nevertheless it sprayed about like sugar in a candyfloss machine. At that moment our toddler grabbed my ankles and somehow, like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, I tipped full body into the dishwasher. A bread knife from the top rack caught up in those awful plastic hair
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clips I can’t do without. My stomach smashed a plate and my face slammed into the reservoir of now soggy salt. The baby cried and I thought that maybe if I tucked my feet in I could enjoy a few moments’ peace.

As it was, the two older children wandered in and asked what’s for breakfast, so I clambered out, refilled the salt, washed off the ketchup, threw away the broken plate, pulled out a bleached bean I’d discovered in the filter, turned on the dishwasher, made breakfast, helped the boys with their spellings, took the children to school, the

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baby to playgroup, did the shopping, cleaned the loo, hovered downstairs, fed the baby, picked the boys up, fed the boys, started dinner for me and my husband, read with the boys, moped up a spillage, and on and on until bedtime.

Now apparently I have made what is known as a “lifestyle choice”. In deciding to look after my own children, I am one of those wicked women who contribute to the “motherhood pay penalty” that admirable economists such as Kate Andrews so cleverly point out is more of a reality than the alleged “gender pay gap.”

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Figures are cited that demonstrate women between the ages of 20 and 39 earn more than men but after 39, wages fall off a cliff. Job shares, part-time work, career downscaling are cited as explanations.

As ever, labels can be glib. They can be deceptive. Labels, such as “lifestyle choice,” can suggest a level of planning and decision making entirely absent from what for many women is a biological imperative. And the problem is, that once the “lifestyle choice,” to look after one’s own children has been embarked upon, it can be remarkably

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tricky to embark upon another “life-style choice,” otherwise known as “getting a job.”

What is often ignored during the on-going discussions on the supposed gender pay is: The Gap. How are women to fill the yawning chasm in their CVs hollowed out by childrearing? While I have previously edited three national magazines, my last full day in an office was December 2006. I’ve written the odd article, two unpublished novels, and worked part-time for a local book festival. Two years ago I earned enough to pay £97 tax and last year HMRC wrote

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stating I need not fill in another tax return, “unless circumstances alter considerably.”

This is not to suggest that stay at home mothers should be treated as the latest victim group rather than a lucky band of women with partners earning enough to pay the bills on one salary. However the problem of once capable women spending their days hunkering down in dishwashers is surely worth a bit of thought.

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- 5 Apr 17

I’m not the sort of person who keeps, or remembers where they keep that small plastic funnel with which to add dishwasher salt. So when I eventually decided to refill, I did so leaning in over a bottom tray already stacked with filthy plates and pans. I poured as gently as I could, nevertheless it sprayed about like sugar in a candyfloss machine. At that moment our toddler grabbed my ankles and somehow, like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, I tipped full body into the dishwasher. A bread knife from the top rack caught up in those awful plastic hair clips I can’t do without. My stomach smashed a plate and my face slammed into the reservoir of now soggy salt. The baby cried and I thought that maybe if I tucked my feet in I could enjoy a few moments’ peace.

As it was, the two older children wandered in and asked what’s for breakfast, so I clambered out, refilled the salt, washed off the ketchup, threw away the broken plate, pulled out a bleached bean I’d discovered in the filter, turned on the dishwasher, made breakfast, helped the boys with their spellings, took the children to school, the baby to playgroup, did the shopping, cleaned the loo, hovered downstairs, fed the baby, picked the boys up, fed the boys, started dinner for me and my husband, read with the boys, moped up a spillage, and on and on until bedtime.

Now apparently I have made what is known as a “lifestyle choice”. In deciding to look after my own children, I am one of those wicked women who contribute to the “motherhood pay penalty” that admirable economists such as Kate Andrews so cleverly point out is more of a reality than the alleged “gender pay gap.” Figures are cited that demonstrate women between the ages of 20 and 39 earn more than men but after 39, wages fall off a cliff. Job shares, part-time work, career downscaling are cited as explanations.

As ever, labels can be glib. They can be deceptive. Labels, such as “lifestyle choice,” can suggest a level of planning and decision making entirely absent from what for many women is a biological imperative. And the problem is, that once the “lifestyle choice,” to look after one’s own children has been embarked upon, it can be remarkably tricky to embark upon another “life-style choice,” otherwise known as “getting a job.”

What is often ignored during the on-going discussions on the supposed gender pay is: The Gap. How are women to fill the yawning chasm in their CVs hollowed out by childrearing? While I have previously edited three national magazines, my last full day in an office was December 2006. I’ve written the odd article, two unpublished novels, and worked part-time for a local book festival. Two years ago I earned enough to pay £97 tax and last year HMRC wrote stating I need not fill in another tax return, “unless circumstances alter considerably.”

This is not to suggest that stay at home mothers should be treated as the latest victim group rather than a lucky band of women with partners earning enough to pay the bills on one salary. However the problem of once capable women spending their days hunkering down in dishwashers is surely worth a bit of thought.

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