Professionally successful women who give up their senior roles to parent (thinking of Kate Forbes but the rest too)

I’ve done all sorts - stayed at home for a bit when the DC were little, worked part time and when my youngest was 9 I started working full time and pushing at my career a bit (mostly for my own sense of worth and for my pension!) none of these have been about gratitude - I dont Think people expect their kids to be grateful that they stayed at home

It's great that you've got that choice.

But someone choosing differently doesn't also mean their choice isn't valid.

The second 6 months is absolutely not a luxury!
I was still bf my first at a year. You'll be sleep deprived and the adjustment to going from child free to Mum and Dad is not to be taken lightly.

I don’t see the issue with it. I cannot fathom mixing motherhood with the role that I have without basically having strangers raise my children.

It’s fine if that’s the model you want but preferring to give up paid work to only focus on unpaid is fine too.

The SNP is comprised almost entirely of woke idiots. Kate Forbes didn’t stand a chance of becoming leader of the SNP because of them. She would probably have liked to be leader of the SNP eventually. This is why she stood down. As a PP pointed out she will likely move on to something else career wise. There was an incredibly long and tedious thread at the weekend arguing about career versus SAHM. I won’t therefore get into that suffice to say that in an ideal world everyone should have choices.

Well we know why. We know women are still picking up the lions share in their families, that's why family-friendly policies are generally designed to attract women in the first place, and when the policies fail or are performative, women take the hit.

We also know from the GRR bill that the SP isn't particularly disability friendly either.

You don't become a SAHM for some notion of longer-term 'gratitude' from your children. What a weird and transactional mindset. You do it because -

• you genuinely want to and you know you have more to offer than a nanny or childminder
• you believe your children's day to day life, in the here and now, will be better for it.

I would never in a million years give up my career to raise kids. Why would i give up a good career, with great people, in an industry I love, that I have literally worked myself to the bone to get into and qualify within to go to mess, clingyness and the general myasma of children?

I would honestly prefer to work extra for the neccessary child care, etc than to be stuck with sticky hands, clingy people, mess and noise for years.

I'm not particularly fussed about kids, the OH is dropping hints - and I honestly want to say - then you'd better find a way to carry them yourself.

He knew getting together with me that I'm not particularly keen, (said at the time he was fine with that) and given that my mum had to work 3 jobs to provide for us both growing up as my dad was a deadbeat - I dont want to have to worry about that, and would prefer to be able to support her now, than deal with babies.

afaik, modern feminism is about choice not being constricted to only one role/decision. That choice means blokes can be SAHDs, too. Having Choices is the ideal, not "there is only one good choice".

I mean, for me, I would say it's incredibly anti-feminist if women choose to do the below things, that they are setting terrible examples for their daughters of what women should care about. But I'm probably unreasonable, because tbf, personal choices should prevail over "all society" considerations in such domains.

Wearing high heels : ever!!
Being "house proud"
Dying your gray or white hair away because gray hair is "aging"
Insisting that women without make up on aren't professional looking
Not giving your teen daughters freedom to go out alone
Insisting that unshaven legs or unpainted toenails are disgusting

I would love to stay at home but sadly have a well paid (nearly six figure) job that’s pretty much entirely wfh and I’m logged off by half five. Even after childcare costs I’ll be 4k a month better off working. Nothing to do with what is best for future kiddo, purely selfish on my part as I’d rather be with them.

have negotiated a year off with the first, but dh definitely feels the second six months is a luxury and that if he has to work I should too 😂

Thank you for sharing this. It resonates with me a lot.

I've been struggling with the fact I'm not exactly where I'd like to be career wise, despite being in a good job (think accountant when I would like to be a senior accountant). I have two young children, one 5 and one 18 month old. I came back to work part time after having the second because the juggle would have otherwise been impossible for me. I feel I'm missing promotional opportunities, but I also feel that I am needed at home in a particularly intense and demanding way during these early years.

If you don't mind sharing, were you able to 'make up' the promotions when you returned full time, and your children were older?

So the job isn’t family friendly.

how many male Scot’s politicians have families?

makes you wonder why lack of family friendly jobs seems to exclusively affect females…

It should be noted that Kate Forbes husband was a widower with 3 children to whom he was a single parent before he married Kate F and that his 3 children primarily stay at home in Dingwall with him during the week. (According to reports I've read)

Maybe she did because she was close to burn out / her own well being was hanging in the balance.

Honeslty I make good money and am not especially "maternal" but I think about packing it in.
The pressure of holding down a 200k pa job while keeping your mariahe alive, being a present parent who plans nice activities and facilities a nice family life, AND doesnt look and feel like worsel gummage because you preserved some space for yoursef is A LOT.

My role is FT only.
If i could job share with someone for 3 or 4 years life would be SO much better but companies arent interested in thst because "it's harder"

If this truly is the case, why is it almost exclusively women doing it?

my general rule of thumb is if something is genuinely the best option, we’d see roughly 50:50 split between the sexes, or a majority of men doing it.

the fact that men so rarely allow parenting to affect their work and become financially dependent on another person, suggests that it’s not “the best job in the world”.

In Kate's case, and other female politicians in Scotland who have explicitly cited this, the Scottish Parliament isn't family friendly. It made a HUGE thing about years ago, most family friendly parliament in the world etc etc, but it's not. A lot of other professional careers are the same - just been reading about a female journalist and the juggling she has done and how she was ultimately lucky to hit on her current situation. So in those situations I don't think it's a mistake, I think it's a tough decision.

I disagree actually, I think they do it because it's what they want - the best thing for them. And that's valid too.

Grateful?

Kids don't need to be grateful towards their parents for providing adequate care for them, that's ridiculous. It's literally expected of a parent. It's the bare minimum you need to do when you choose to bring kids into the world.

The grand majority of mothers sacrifice their careers to provide adequate care, because they can't afford to buy it in. The kid doesn't need to be grateful for that.

Perhaps the father needs to be grateful though, as the sacrifice either had to be made by him or the mother, and the mother took the hit.

I gave up a high paid very senior role to stay home with my children. My husband and I had similar career paths, I was a little ahead of him at the time, but with the travel we both did and the commitment the roles required our kids would have been raised by a nanny which, whilst a perfectly valid choice for those who choose it, wasn't for us.
Having me at home made sense, my husband could give the time required to his job and I gave the children stability and ran the house.
My opinion changed though ten years in when he had an affair. I realised I'd not just stepped out of work I'd lost ten years of career progression. I'd supported my husband in getting to where he was and he could have been walking away with a big pension, huge salary, and everything that goes with.. yes I could have fought for a fair settlement but I wouldn't gain back the career I would have had if I'd stayed in work.
It can work great for a family to have one step back in their career, but it absolutely makes that person very vulnerable to the other.

Is this the kind of feminism where women are fully entitled and allowed to make their own choices for their own lives and what works best for them and their families, apart from if they make the 'wrong' choices?

We see the same sneering and criticism the other way around, in the (granted far fewer) situations where it works best for the whole family to have the father as a SAHD. I mean as an actual full-time hands-on parent, taking the bulk of the burden; not using it as a pathetic excuse to ignore the kids and sit on his X-Box all day.

Yes, we all need money to live; but not everybody is purely driven by earning as much as they possibly can to the detriment of spending time with their children.

Best decision I ever made and have no regrets. Loved being at home with my children. Yes we made sacrifices but they were worth it. Both my husband and I firmly believe that two parents cannot have careers working long hours, and young children and children benefit from having a stay at home parent. Are my sons grateful, not sure and tbh I don’t expect them to be as all they know is me being there for them. What I do know is they remember me being there for them, that itself is priceless.

Having an active, motovated and educated mother is worth her weight in gold for young kids.

As exampled here.

Kate Forbes learned very clearly from her last run as leader of the SNP that, rightly or wrongly, her personal beliefs put a real ceiling on her political progression. I'm not surprised she has decided she doesn't want to seek re-election. I think she'll probably get a new, probably better remunerated, job rather than become a SAHM.

Yes, because successful business women aren't normally married to successful men who will also provide money and contacts for grown up kids who will be equally ungrateful (who expects gratitude for this??)

And as if they won't eventually return to successful jobs after if they wish.

I'm doing more good when I'm at home with my kids than any job.

I dont think women should be afraid to say they enjoy being home with their kids. It's a valid choice and can be very beneficial for their famil.

It's just unfortunate that the contribution of women has been looked down upon so much that you are only thought to be contributing if you're working.

Women are frequently expected to care for kids. Do work. And housework. Obviously there are those unicorn men who may do their equal share but it's not wrong to say most of it falls to women. And unfortunately the work that they do- caring for kids, caring for elderly relatives, cooking, housework isn't valued.
It's only if they're working that they are thought to be contributing.

You can see the effect in the community now that more women go to work. High childcare costs. Care home costs etc.

I'm glad women have the choice now. And any woman who decides they would rather use their skills to care for and help educate their kids shouldn't be thought of giving up on opportunities and letting themselves down.