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Chat with other users about all things related to working life on our Work forum.

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anyone else feel their career sidelined overnight after birth of 2nd??

35 replies

MissChief · 30/03/2006 11:11

..or is it just me? Unlikely, I'm sure!
Seemingly overnight upon ds2's birth we've gone from being dual career couple with 1 kid (though p/t my job was senior) to me becoming by default a SAHM of 2.. Meanwhile dh's career has really been taking off and I don't feel 7 mths on that I've actually had time to properly take stock or choose whether or not to be a SAHM. I'm probably being overly precious and guess this feeling is normal in the post-natal craziness of life.
I'm pleased for dh as he's very ambitious and wants to succeed but he's now v reliant on me to pick up the pieces as it were, deal with stuff/ school drops etc that previously we might have shared more..just waffling really, not after advice as such just any thoughts from others would be good to hear.. Just to clarify I'm currently still on mat leave and in 2 minds (at least!) about whether to go back.

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MissChief · 30/03/2006 11:31

That'll be a "no" then. Or a statement of the bleeding obvious?!!
Just wondering as I'm feeling this more 7 mths on - realise dh expects/wants actually needs me to stay at home..Or maybe i'm just looking for someone to blame to avoid the responsibility of making a decision..

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JackieNo · 30/03/2006 11:38

Yes - definitely more so after the second, but in my case that was at least as much because DD was also starting school, and I've changed my hours to accommodate that. So by losing any flexibility (on my part) over the hours I can work, and working part time, my 'career', such as it was, has become a 'job' - and a part time one at that. I'm not entirely unhappy with it, but struggle to come to terms with the whole thing - the 'why on earth did I bother to go to university' feeling. And yet part of me would love to be a SAHM as well. Very torn.

Bugsy2 · 30/03/2006 11:40

but surely when/if you go back to your job you will still be in the same senior position.
Don't let yourself be sidelined into all the home/ childcare stuff unless you are absolutely sure it is what you want to do. Have you actually sat down with your dh and had a chat about what you might do?

MissChief · 30/03/2006 11:41

IKWYK - why did I go to uni, why did I ever bother working so damn hard etc etc?? The career becoming a job path seems to be well-trodden.. I'm just anxious for the future fighting my way back up again a few years on. How long ago did you have yr 2nd, Jackie and what makes you still feel torn rather than resolved about yr decision now?

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MissChief · 30/03/2006 11:44

yes, I know, I have the right to a similar job back so would also be "senior" in theory.. I suppose it's because I'm sensing the inevitable fact that I may not return and even if I do we're planning to move so wd not carry on with my current job in the long-term anyway. I have sat down with dh but he's sick of hearing my mullings tbh and too stressed out by the demands of his job to have much patience.

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hovely · 30/03/2006 11:46

yes, this has been my experience, the second child makes a huge difference (and the first child's needs change as s/he gets older).
That book "3 socks and no hairbrush" (or something similar) makes the point that the first child takes up the slack in your life and when the second arrives there is just no 'space' for their needs to fit into. Also to my mind the extra aspect of life which is their sibling relationship adds yet more to the task, when you have to deal with jealousy, arguments, and so on, and just the simple fact that the two children don't need the same thing at the same time. For example a 4 year old can get her own coat on but needs her bottom wiping. A baby will stay where she is put but cannot go and fetch her own shoes. So you always end up doing double the work at every stage of the day.
When you have one child and 2 parents living together it doesn't seem too tricky to balance work and home. But the second child tips the balance, to the point where I think you absolutely need to have 'home cover' available every day when they are still young. How that is achieved depends on your circumstances. I guess the majority of 2-parent families solve it by one parent becoming a SAHP. Our own solution is for me to work 4 days and we have a live-in nanny. I am not at all sure that this is the best solution for us, but it is OK. Other families manage it by both parents working part-time or flexi-time. Even if you have a nursery or childminder, there are 2 x as many days for one or other to be sick, or just miserable and needy, 2 x as many doctor and dentists appointments. I also found that the "post-natal craziness" (excellent phrase) was more intense than I had expected, and still to this day 2.3 years after my second child I have not managed to 'take stock', although I have gone back to work and taken on a new role, all without really having a clear decision about it all.
The only suggestion i can offer is to try to think about what your own personal growth was going to be pre-children. I mean, were you thinking in terms of promotion, career change, sabbatical to study or travel the world? next, think about whether your feelings about that changed following your first child. Did you have to cut back hours, is that when you went part-time, and how did you feel about that at the time? I am assuming that as you mention school drops, your elder child is 5+ and things had settled down a bit. If you had not had second child, how would your work life have developed?
next, is there anything you can do or must do to keep a foothold in any of that? If you do step away from work for a substantial period of time, what would make it easier if/when you wanted to return?

is your Dh any good at talking these sorts of things through with you? it can be hard to express these thoughts without putting your partner on the defensive, I find. Whever I have tried to think aloud around these issues, DH gets cross with me and starts demanding what i want him to do.
not sure how much help this is, I think my rambling response just shows how I have not oragnised my own life let alone being able to formulate a response to anyone else's.

Rojak · 30/03/2006 11:47

I had my second child in 2004 and while I was on mat leave was made redundant not once, but twice! - Made me redundant, changed their mind and offered me job again and then made me redundant again until I threatened them with the Equality Commission.

But I do find working FT with 2 kids extremely challenging and do find that it's no longer a career I'm after but a job that brings in the wages while I plot to reduce my hours.

In the last 2 years I have seen a male colleague who was a grade below me, sail a grade above me to senior management. And when such things happen, I long to be able to compete for more senior positions but I always remember that I wouldn't be able to juggle home and family with any more pressure on.

Rojak · 30/03/2006 11:49

Hovely - that's it exactly!

katyp · 30/03/2006 11:52

Not just sidelined but stopped dead in its tracks! Like JackieNo My second arrived as my first started school and I went from working full-time to being a sahm. I was quite happy with this for a long time but am now starting to think about what to do when no. 3 starts school in a couple of years time. From previous threads it seems that jobs that fit around school hours and still fully utilise your hard-earned skills are few and far between. I know dh will be unable/unwilling to do 50% of the childcare/housework etc and I wonder if there is any point in running myself ragged to fit in a career as well (though the extra money would be nice). If I have to pay for after school/holiday childcare and maybe a cleaner I don't know if there would be much to show for it financially anyway

JackieNo · 30/03/2006 11:55

My 2nd is now 2.3, and at nursery, but I do feel that although we need the money (big mortgage etc) DD, now in year 1 at school, does need me more in some ways, and you have the whole school holidays thing to cope with. It feels wrong somehow to be constantly sending her off to organised activities, no matter how much fun they are, when I think she ought to be chilling out and relaxing more. I think I'm thinking about this more now because a friend and colleague of mine with a DD the same age as mine (though no second one as yet) is about to leave work and do some freelance work. I'm kind of jealous, but I also like having the adult company (and of course the money) that working gives. And of course I know that staying at home is a very valid (many would say the only valid) career choice if you're a mum, but I still feel that my worth is based on my job. I could talk myself round in circles forever on this one, I'm afraid, and not very coherently, either. Could you do some freelance work, maybe?

MissChief · 30/03/2006 11:55

thanks, both.
Rojak - IKWYM "longing to compete" yet needing to juggle..Age old dilemma, isn't it? You're doing well though working f/t with 2 - just the thought exhausts me at the moment!
hovely - not a ramble at all - you put it much more succinctly than I could! I'm starting to see what you mean re 2x the work at every stage of the day/ 2x apointments etc..these definitely fill up any space I had left both physically and mentally..I just can't imagine doing all this and working though I suppose some of those daytime chores would not then need doing/could be off-loaded to someone else, aupair etc

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VeniVidiVickiQV · 30/03/2006 11:56

Mine stopped dead too. Not by choice or design. I couldnt go back to my previous job and am currently taking them to tribunal.

I am finding it very difficult to find another (part time) job that pays enough for childcare or doesnt query my ability to be "flexible".

fuzzywuzzy · 30/03/2006 11:58

Yes I feel mine slowly dieing and I am so desperate ot hold on to it....... what's worse I know I am going to make a completely crap full tim sahm... So wish I had an idea about how to keep my job and get good childcare at the same time, but it doesn't seem possible.

Bugsy2 · 30/03/2006 11:59

I have worked part-time since my children were born (I have two aged 6 & 3). However, I have resigned myself to the fact that as long as I am part-time I have stepped on the career ladder. As I see it at the moment, I am just holding my place.
I suppose I think I went to Uni because I wanted to & had lots of fun. I developed my career pre-kids because it is what I wanted to do as well but currently it is more important for me to spend some time with the children, than push my career - if that makes sense.

MissChief · 30/03/2006 12:01

yes, I feel I'd somehow be a fraud as a SAHM too. I love cooking but hate some of the mindless drudgery of being at home - endless picking up toys, washing, wiping, whining kids etc. I'm also v selfish and impatient as a person and therefore feel a professional childcarer some of the time might be better company for my kids than me esp on one of my shouty day

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hovely · 30/03/2006 12:04

yes, I am much nicer to my children now that I go out to work for more of the week

Rojak · 30/03/2006 12:06

I'm shouty too! Far more shouty with two than I was with just one. DS who is older notices and has said to me that I'm always shouting .

But I think it's because I'm trying to juggle it all and I do shout when I need DS to hurry up and get dressed so I can get out in the mornings.

fuzzywuzzy · 30/03/2006 12:07

On the days I am at work, when I return I am so much more into playign and talking to the girls, when I'm at home all day, there are days when I just want to put them in bed and drown myself i nthe bathtub....
I'm good at my job people respect me (or they're plain scared to get my back up), but I'm so impatient as a mum, at times I feel I am missing an essential maternal gene......

spacecadet · 30/03/2006 12:09

it happened to me after baby number 4 who was dh's second child with me, so technically our second child together.
i went on maternity leave from my nursing job and never went back, now im on my own again, im looking to return.

hovely · 30/03/2006 12:20

sounds like a big part of it is that your DH may be oblivious to the problem, so you may feel envious or resentful even if the arrangement where he goes shooting up the ladder while you stay home is, in fact, the solution that you would opt for temporarily? (albeit not ideally)
one approach could be to negotiate a long-term plan. Could start by listing all the responsibilities that need to be covered (ie school drop-off and pick up, availability in case of children's illness, ability to take sleepless nights without an 8am meeting to get to, as well as the obvious routine things like food, shopping, etc). That way, you demonstrate the reasons why it is not a full answer simply to arrange child-care for working hours. These are things which need to be done, and your DH needs to work with you to find a solution. If it emerges that one of you needs to rein-in on working, then he must see that it is a choice which you make as a family, not something which you will attend to without him being troubled. There is a price to pay for one of you having a developing career, and usually that price is the time and effort and lack of career of the other parent. But it needs to be a concscious decision as to which of you that is going to be.
If it is going to be you, for the time being, who focuses on the home, what can you put in place for the future? Can you sign up to some training which will get you back on the ladder later? Can you, as suggested, do some freelance work? and can you get DH to commit to a deal whereby he will in turn take on some of the home responsibilities at the time when you are ready to go back? or would he agree to looking at flexible working when you children are (say) both at school? obviously this depends on what jobs you both do.

MrsMuddle · 30/03/2006 12:43

I had this very conversation with my friend yesterday. I was in a responsible, high-earning job before DS was born 11 years ago, and every job since then has been less money than the last. I'm now earning less than I earned when I first started work after leaving uni. In the meantime, my DH's salary has soared. I'm only working 20 hours a week, because I have no childcare. I have a reciprocal arrangement with a friend for after school. My DSs are almost 10 and almost 11, so it's not like I can't work during the day, but then, if I get a full-time job, what do I do in the numerous school holidays? Sorry to moan. I just wished I hadn't bought into the whole "having it all, studying at uni, being equal to men in the workplace" thing, cos it's a big fat lie! I wish I'd done something more practical at uni that would enabled me to have a part-time career, rather than a series of short-term jobs that I'm only doing cos I can work them round the boys.

MissChief · 30/03/2006 12:50

yeah, indeed, "big fat lie". Book-keeping, teaching, admin work (not knocking any of it btw) better choices unless you are/choose to be
sufficiently highly waged to afford a nanny on yr salary. Our combined salary would comfortably cover the cost of a nanny, but it is my wage realistically which is the only one to take into account as to whether I return or not and my wage alone wouldn't pay a nanny.

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MissChief · 30/03/2006 12:52

hovely - thanks for the suggestions, will think them through.
Rojak & fuzzy - I can join you in slack mum stakes, that gene passed me by too (though I do cook a mean carrot cake!)

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WideWebWitch · 30/03/2006 12:56

I've only read your first post but we seem to manage ok with both of us working full time oth but possibly in our case it's easy because of a large age gap - 6 years. So ds, who is 8.5, can do lots of things himself and he can look after dd to an extent. I think it's hard becoming a SAHM IF you haven't established the rules on all the other stuff, washing, shopping, cooking, cleaning, appointments, lunches, blah blah blah. Because, actually, if you're a WOHP and that's ALL you have to do, i.e. you don't have to participate in the running of a house/children/social lives/all the million things that need doing then it's a piece of piss. IMO.

WideWebWitch · 30/03/2006 12:57

I mean WOTH is a piece of piss if you don't have to do anything other than get yourself up in th emorning, go to work, come back and go to bed!

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