Pre-school versus school dichotomy

Kylie McIntosh
Stay at home mother and Sunshine Coast Business Women’s Network (SCBWN) Executive Coordinator, Chelsea Hunter believes Australians spend too much time focusing on mothers staying at home with their children in the pre-school years. Chelsea believes having flexible workplaces during children’s’ school years is also important.

“We tend to concentrate all our efforts on the early, pre-school years. And while I know this is a crucial time in terms of children’s development I think we need to be there for them when they go to school too.

“It’s time workplaces got their act together and became more flexible. Parents should be able to negotiate, for example, a day off a month to attend their children’s assembly. Or do tuckshop. We need to be part of their school culture as well.

“The old way of separating work and home doesn’t work any more. Society has moved on. There is a real dichotomy here and employers need to start addressing it.

“They need to realise there is no separation between work and life. We need to work to live and our lives impact on our work. We need to breakdown the division between our working and home lives.

“If you look at Gen Y you’ll see what I mean. They check Facebook when they’re at work and if they don’t have the capacity to do this in the workplace they will walk,” Chelsea said.