AIBU to give up a life's work to see my kids grow up

Honestly, it's crazy that you're thinking about giving your career up entirely, when what your DH needs to do is to go part-time. Yes, that WILL negatively affect his career, but it will allow you to keep yours!

Don't give up all that brilliant effort and all those wonderful, specialist skills. Ask your H to go part-time and enlist any help you can in getting a wonderful nanny. Personally, I wish I had put more effort into my career, not less.

My mum was a SAHM and as we got older she got depressed as she had no life beyond us.

Their must be a compromise where you can carry on being a doctor and be at home more.

You sound very stressed and like you're struggling to think clearly. Do you have access to any counselling or occupational health help at work who could help you talk through your options?

Could you not go part time, means training is extended but once the kids are older life is easier. Also why not consider relocating - drs get paid the same everywhere, money goes a long way up here, all the drs kids I know are privately educated and have au pairs

It is a head and heart decision isn't it.
Personally you have worked so hard to get where you are, then to give it all up?
Also I agree you never know what may happen in the future and from personal experience I understand you should never allow yourself to become financially dependent on your partner.
I am assuming you planned your children, what were you thoughts then on how you would manage your career going forward? Did you have more clarity then and a plan, it might be worth thinking back to what you envisaged would happen? Or is the reality wildly different.

nevergoingoutagain, with all due respect, you didn't give up teaching to be a mum, you gave it up to be a SAHM. Us WOHM (or WFHM, often, in the current climate) are still mums.

I gave up teaching to be a mum. I was only working part time but the pressure it out in is all for those days was horrible, we were all snappy and grumpy and kids got no support with their hw etc. I may have been a part time teacher but if worked for 16 years to the top of the payscale and I have it all up to be a mum. But it is different if you've already had your career.

As pp said you could take a break but my kids are 13,11and 6 and I still felt like they needed me more than I could give.

Sadly due to Covid I am temporarily back at work. One day in and I'm already worried about lack of time with them 🙄

“No-one ever said on their death bed they wished they’d spent more time in the office”.

This is trite and untrue. Some older people I know express deep regret that they didn’t have a career or the chance to fulfill their potential.

Good luck op.

Tappering good points. Several people have said they don’t regret giving up their work, but also admit they didn’t like their job much/ preferred being at home anyway. So you can’t really make a direct comparison there.

I also agree with this. I remember feeling guilty about whether DS would be better with a SAHM. Then I realised that maybe he would be better off with someone who would be really happy and fulfilled as a SAHM but, for good or for bad, he didn't get that mother, he got me and my choices were happy working mother or very unhappy SAHM.

It did really stick out to me, OP, that your dh can't go part-time because if he did it would have a negative effect on his career, but it's seemingly entirely OK for you to give yours up entirely (the ultimate 'negative effect', perhaps).

I'm afraid I can't advise as such - as you are certainly caught on the horns of a very difficult dilemma indeed - but I did want, as did some PPs, just to note that and suggest you think about it.

Good luck, whatever you decide.

I've been in a similar situation and then I got a really reliable nanny who became part of the family. However the fact that you live in a small flat, no garden, makes me think you should move. I think your husband is preventing you from having any real option except give up your career. If I were you I'd push back on that point. It's easy for him to take that view

From a practical stance, the children are at nursery around about the same time that most working mothers/fathers have, so this aspect is not unusual or related to being a doctor, so it's an issue of you potentially giving up all the training to be a SAHM.

My step mum was a doctor, in the USA, so the training was a bit different, and she specialised as a pathologist and retrained as a GP, which seemed to work out better.

However, I know lots of doctors. A close friend of mine works as a locum on the weekends, another retrained as a music teacher as she hated being a doctor. Another is a consultant, who irritatingly is at all the school functions and able to juggle. She is a specialist and mostly does clinics and some rotations, and relied on nannies when her children were younger, with her husband who also has an on call commitment.

However, as many others have pointed out, the maternal guilt will be there more or less whatever profession.

Lastly, my step mum was a doctor and from the child's viewpoint, there were some things that I missed, and maybe had fantasies that she would be the mum who would bake cookies or whatever, but she wasn't that person. She burned food, she was terrible at most things domestic, but she was a loving, supportive mum.

If your children were much younger, then maybe, but they're getting to the age where they'll be at school all day so you'll find yourself at a loose end.
I gave up on a job when I was pregnant and I really regret not do something to try and make it work. I worked hard and I loved it. Going back to the job isn't an option and there isn't anything else like it.

No time to read responses at the moment so apologies if what I have said has been said before but just wanted to empathise. I am a GP and DH is a consultant surgeon. The years in which we had young children and he was training were brutal and I have no idea how he would have got through it without having me doing the majority of the child and house care. It seems overwhelming but is just a short time. Once you are a consultant the hours are much shorter (he gets home before me most days- never make the mistake of thinking GP is more family friendly!) and you have much more control over your working life.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this upthread but the best resource for you is going to be Physicians Mums UK on Facebook. There are (I think) about 10000 women on there, all ages and stages of career, many also married to Drs, most of whom have gone through similar dilemmas and these scenarios are frequently discussed! There are some absolutely amazing female surgeons on there, as well as people who have changed career, given up or gone part time and you will get all the advice you need.

This must be such a hard decision, I really do feel for you OP.

Honestly, if I was in your position I would probably give it up and spend the time with my family. It's rubbish though as I really wish we had more female surgeons, I've hardly worked with any.

Many of my friends are hospital medics married to medics, and they have managed to make it work. They've operated as a team, shared parental leave, and both made sacrifices to their careers. None of them are surgeons, but they are anaesthetics, cardiac specialists, etc, which apparently can have better hours (they planned this into their choice of specialism). Some are still juggling their training, like you.

It sounds like your husband needs to take some of the load off, saying it's a chauvinistic field doesn't really cut it, that doesn't make change. And I would certainly consider whether surgery is the right calling for you if you're still fairly early on in your training.

We're in the NW and there are plenty of hospitals within a reasonable commute and two part time medics have a good quality of life from what I can see.

OP you must do what suits you ultimately, however as someone with now grown up children please don’t think that working parents will harm them in any way.

Honestly, my kids are bloody brilliant. Happy, successful, well rounded. People constantly say how they’re a credit to us.

I think the fact that if you continue to work you will be able to work part time in the future albeit in a good few years times might swing it for me to chose to stay in work.

I think part time working is the dream.

I used to do it and it was amazing. Literally the best of both worlds.

It seems such a shame to throw away all that hard work though OP. If I were you I would start searching for a decent nanny.

I fully understand your dilemma. I have watched my work slip away from me over the past ten years, seen all my friends who are childless thrive and take opportunities I couldn't. My career may not recover.

There will be less (if any) recognition for the enormously difficult, important and skilful work that mothers do. Being aware of that, we must be careful not to martyr ourselves. We can be 'good enough' mothers, find fulfilling work, look after ourselves and our own needs.

I am glad of the choices I made, I am a bit sad that I won't perhaps get to where I might have had I put the kids into childcare and focussed on my work more. But not very. Having glimpsed what 'success' looks like, I know that it often isn't quite as fulfilling as we hope it would be.

I have a close, loving, fabulous relationship with my children, I love them deeply and get much joy from them (and we all drive each other up the wall, naturally, as is normal and healthy).

Good luck, OP. I think you will be okay whatever you choose, and ultimately you probably know deep down what the right choice for you is. I'd also look for 'third way' - we can dither over a two-choice dilemma, it's better to know that there are several choices/paths open to us.

Tappering good points. Several people have said they don’t regret giving up their work, but also admit they didn’t like their job much/ preferred being at home anyway. So you can’t really make a direct comparison there. The OP fundamentally likes her job and has invested huge amounts of time and energy. Like any good career, it’s going to have stress points (but then frankly, low paid low status jobs and also being at home all the time have stress points too... )
Don’t make a major life change on the basis of the current circumstances

I can't offer any advice but thanks for all your work as a doctor. I really hope you can find a solution that works for you and your family.

I’d complete your training then consider your opinions.

Could you go private? Less pressure more control over your working hours? So sorry you feel this way OP. We need more women doctors xx

@Tappering your mum was very wise!