Many of my friends are terrified of having babies. It’s the childbirth process that frightens them. And once upon a time I would laugh at their concerns and say something, like: ‘yeah, but it’s all worth it.’ Because I love babies.
But now I’m terrified of them too, for different reasons. I was recently asked to prepare a talk on the gender pay gap. With an open mind, I spent hours combing over research – to find out if my sex is really underpaid, and – if so – why this is. I came to the conclusion that babies aren’t a good idea for any woman who values her career. Indeed, not the cutest one in the world can distract me from what I saw over those weeks; evidence upon evidence that they’re going to destroy my career.
I’m safe currently, at 27 years of age. Between the ages of 22 to 29, government data shows that women actually get paid more than men for full-time work – so that’s two more years I can enjoy of pay supremacy. Then something happens. We start to settle down, enticed by men with beards, ukuleles – and who knows what else – and have babies.
This is when everything goes wrong – even if our husband said he was a feminist. The Women and Equalities Committee has found that women routinely take the brunt of childcare, which forces us into flexible jobs (the worst paid across almost every industry). From then onwards, we’re stuck. The career ladder doesn’t just stop, it completely falls away.
Why does no one tell us this at school? I was educated about STDs and pregnancy, but was never told that children might cost me my dream job. In July, the chairman of the British Fertility Society suggested that schoolgirls need more information about their expiring fertility. But, seriously, the only lesson they need is that they better make a choice: career, or motherhood. Because that’s the reality at the moment.
Though I am normally loath to agree with pontificating celebrities, I nodded along with Keira Knightley this week – who criticised this country’s ‘archaic’ maternity laws. These are structured in a way so as to force women to spend the most time at home with their baby. Knightley also spoke about the staggering costs of childcare, which now essentially mean wealth is the great decider of whether you can prevail in the workplace. Given that most of my generation are struggling to feed themselves, one can only imagine what happens when you throw children into the mix.
Time after time, the Conservatives and previous governments have made it clear they want to close the gender pay gap, but no one has tackled the childcare issue properly. This inevitably means that women have to mitigate the effect babies will have on their lives – whether they’re putting motherhood off, finding a rich husband, or saving like mad so they can get a nanny. Or just deciding they don’t want them at all. Statistics over the years show that it’s already happening; childbirth rates are declining in this country. Who can blame anyone for not bothering with babies – the main driver of gender inequality.
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