To think it’s uncommon to both work full time with small kids?

How many of the children stay in after school club rather than having parents at the school gate?

DD is 25 so this is awhile ago but we were in the minority of two parents working FT. Although DD went to a school where there many single parent households, most of the mums were PT / SAHM. Us working FT was only managable because DH worked nights / weekends so he could do most of the drop offs / pick ups, ferry DD to hobbies etc.

We chose a mortgage years ago based on only one income so there was no pressure for me to return to work if I didn't want to.

It's possible to look at various different options to make it work the way you want it to work.

Not all parents need to work full time with small children.

Oh, yes agreed. I was talking to the OP who seems to want to do PT.

I suspect more are like me having to go very part time with a universal credit top up because of the lack of family. It works well for us. Live in the North in a deprived area though.

Of those I know with young kids:

Couple 1- both full time compressed
Couple 2- both full time 5 days
Couple 3- both full time 5 days
Couple 4- both slightly part time (I.e. nearly full time)
Couple 5- one full time, one 4 days a week
Couple 6 - one full time one SAHP
Couple 7 - both full time
Couple 8 - one full time, one full time compressed
Couple 9 - one full time, one slightly part time/ compressed

So my experience is most work full time or nearly full time.

Also a London lawyer and also my experience that most people continue to work full-time or leave. Some people drop a day, but it can be tricky to stick to that if your job involves litigation and something urgent comes in. The court will not list around work patterns, clients will inevitably forget to factor it in, and your colleagues’ ability (/willing) to cover work for you is not infinite. You also don’t want to stop getting that work in the first place!

The most notable exception to that in my field is the GLD, which is more in line with the wider civil service re: flexible working patterns, although people also clearly work well past their hours.

I had a wide social circle when my kids were young; nobody was in a family unit where both parent worked full time. Saying that, we are not in the South.

XH & I both went back full time but I compressed my hours over 4/4.5days/ wks and XH was self employed so worked Long days incl Sat and didn't work Mon & Wed. We both worked long hours/long days but meant we only had to pay 2 days childcare.

It also depends on the type of work. In my area, it's very difficult to be part-time, although it varies according to the area of law. A criminal barrister, for example, can't do a 4 week Crown Court trial Mondays to Wednesdays either, although she can take on fewer cases, or cases which aren't too massively far away from home, etc. Even if you are in an area of law where you can work 3 days a week sometimes, it's very difficult to do that for definite every week without really holding your career back. If you are, for example, a teacher, nurse or GP, it's far easier to work a set number of days a week, and know it's very unlikely that you will suddenly have to work on a Thursday if you normally work Mondays to Fridays.

Everyone i knew did 3 or 4 days, until kids were quite a bit older.

I don't know anyone who doesn't work full time. I'm a lone parent, worked full time since DS was at primary.

I think it can be either very high earners or very low earners in this position, I live in a fairly deprived area and it's very common for one parent to be at home, one working a low paid job and their income is topped up by UC

Ha, yes. I work in Comms. Did 4 days a week in my old job... With a little (my oldest) but found I was just doing full-time work for part-time pay. So stayed full-time with my youngest (toddler).

I miss a day off to spend with my kids/ catch up on non-work stuff. But the drop in pay, with expectations I do exactly the same amount of work was just not great.

Out of the people I know with babies/toddlers only 2 went back full time, the rest have gone back 3/4 days.

I think most of the mums I know work part time (dads are usually full time). There are also couples where both work full time. But I don’t think I know any SAHPs actually.

It's not rude at all don't worry :)

And we're a very low income salary family, for now, it's a struggle but we manage!

Don’t know any parents who both worked full time, but we’re in the north and live rurally (ish). I’m sure if we were closer to a city it would be more common - more public transport and childcare options.

Where I am there’s very little public transport, so two full time parents would mean two cars. There’s no wrap around childcare either.

I went back fulltime after all three of my babies, when they were 1. No family help. They went to either childminders fulltime or nursery with my last baby(it suited him better). I just accepted that my wages would be utterly shit for that period.

In my friendship group all of the women are part time (usually 4 days). In my teaching friendship group, including me, most of the women are full time and many of the husbands are self employed/part time so have the flexibility.

Everyone I know works full time, children in nurseries full time

I don’t know a family where both parents are not working 30 hours a week minimum. Many where both work full time.
People may see me doing the school run and think I work part time but I work full time and only use wrap around care for the 2 days I’m in the office. Work is flexible around drop offs, pick ups, etc on days when we’re working from home and also one of us can always have time off for assembly, sports day, etc so we’re always around for these.

a lot of people I know went back p/t until the dc started school.

I went down to 3 days which worked out the best financially. F/t didn’t cover the nursery bill but couldn't afford to stop work either (nor did I want to).

struggled by and build up some debt during the nursery years, then went f/t again once both dc were in school.

I wonder if it depends on job types. We're both FT and so are almost all of our friends. I'm in publishing, DH in academia, and we WFH. Most of our friendship circle are academics, teach higher education, or in some sort of creative industry. There's a mixture of both flexibility and wanting to advance in terms of careers with a lot of them, plus quite high job satisfaction (at least in our group of friends).