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Mom calls out daycare for always contacting her and not the dad. Sparks gender inequality discussion.

'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.'

Mom calls out daycare for always contacting her and not the dad. Sparks gender inequality discussion.
Cover Image Source: Twitter/Dr Raina Brands

Gender inequality is so firmly rooted in our society that most of us encounter it even in the most unexpected of places. Dr. Raina Brands, a professor at London's UCL School of Management, recently took to Twitter to call out one such example of gender inequality. In a now-viral series of tweets, Dr. Brands shared how her son's daycare always calls her when they need something despite repeatedly being asked to contact her partner first. "Our son has been in daycare since the beginning of the year. If he is sick and needs to come home early, they call me. If they want to give him paracetamol, they call me. If he has injured himself they call me. So what?" she tweeted.



 

"I have repeatedly asked them to call my partner first. I have asked them to put a note on my file about that. I have asked the manager. Today they called and I asked them to always call my partner first and 2 hours later THEY CALLED ME AGAIN. What makes this more absurd is the fact that my partner has always been the main point of contact! He filled out all of the forms, he did all of the settling-in sessions and he drops our son off every morning. But they are incapable of viewing him as a primary caregiver," Dr. Brands continued.



 



 



 

"When I say gender inequality is a self-reinforcing system, this is what I'm talking about," she concluded. Dr. Brands' tweets kicked off an important discussion about gender inequality in childcare as several parents shared how they've faced similar problems. "I'm a stay home dad. Primary caregiver to the kids. My wife is a busy corporate executive and they still insist on calling her first. Often she can't take the call, so they'll try her again later rather than call me like they should. It is beyond frustrating and disrespectful," tweeted @logical_one57.



 



 



 

"I did this a few times: OMG you called their Dad and he's not answering??? Wait a minute let me call 911 and get someone to him at home ASAP. He's the primary contact and the only way he'd not answer is if he was unconscious or... that always fixed the problem," shared @No1CDAtty. Talking to Bored Panda about the responses to her Twitter thread, Dr. Brands said: "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."



 



 



 

"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 added. Explaining how gender inequality is a self-reinforcing system, Dr. Brands said: "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."



 



 



 

"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."



 



 



 

However, Dr. Brands noted that childcare workers can't fully be blamed 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," she said.



 

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