I quit my job because they wouldn’t let me pick up my child from nursery – then I got my revenge

Some 54,000 women every year lose their jobs for simply having a baby. I was one of them: I left, I quit, I broke – and I felt redundant, writes influencer and activist Anna Whitehouse. But then I decided if the law didn’t work for women, it was time to change the law

It was 12 March, 2015. I had just quit my job as a senior copywriter because my flexible working request had been denied. I asked to arrive 15 minutes earlier so I could leave 15 minutes earlier to make nursery pick-up.

The reason given for refusal: it might “open the floodgates” to others seeking flexibility. I left, I quit, I broke, and I felt redundant – like the 54,000 women every year who lose their jobs for simply having a baby.

When I quit my job, I set up Flex Appeal – a campaign to push for flexible working – with one mission: to ensure that no one would have to leave their job because they needed some flexibility. It’s been eight long years, but fast-forward to now, and come 6 April the new Flexible Working bill will be introduced.

We did it! Everyone who got behind Flex Appeal, and campaigners everywhere – we got a flexible working bill through the doors of number 10, into the house of Lords – and most importantly, into the hands of employers.

From this year every single employee will be able to request flexible working from day one – not week 26. Employers will now need to justify their response using hard facts, not “business reasons” often slanted by personal preference; this is what we need. And they will need to respond more quickly – and this is essential: because those who need flex can’t wait for three months.

But as with any parent who’s struggling to keep a healthy work-life balance, even this campaign coincided with personal loss.

For while this campaign was moving forward, in the background my relationship was breaking down. It’s challenging being a public face for such a powerful movement whilst navigating a relationship breakdown, and some of the highs of this campaign have collided with personal lows.

I could never have imagined divorcing the man that I married with such love and optimism. The words “until death do us part” ringing in my ears. I was very much a “til death do us part” optimist. I made those vows truly believing it was forever, that I’d found my happily ever after and that we would, indeed, grow old together.

So, among the noise, there have been challenges as my ex and I have navigated the big D. There was no Big Bang or dramatic exit; it was more defeat than divorce. And that’s where I think we retained some semblance of friendship through separation. We decided to get out before we were on the floor before things went from bad to worse, and we were left slinging lawyer letters at each other and acrimoniously wrangling time with the kids.

The thing that kept us together for longer than we should have been was the kids. We didn’t want to disrupt their lives. But I will never forget the moment that we sat down together to tell them that we were getting divorced. My eldest asked, “Does this mean you won’t argue any more?” and secondly, “Does this mean you won’t be crying at night times any more, Mummy?”. They could see what was happening, and actually, divorcing has brought greater happiness.

As we move through this year, campaigning continues – albeit with the challenges of new childcare juggles. We need to get all companies advertising their flexible working and we need to campaign against office roll-backs from dinosaurs who value presenteesim over inclusion and productivity.

This International Women’s Day, we must recognise that those who need flexible working the most are being left behind. I want to pave the way for my daughters to laugh about the time that we once had to request flexible working, in the same way that we laugh about recording songs on cassettes. I want it to seem laughable; preposterous, even – that women aren’t given the option to pick their children up from nursery.

Flexible Working has moved forwards lightyears in the last eight years – but we’re not there yet. We can’t stop now.