Would you take this job with a 3 year old?! I’m torn!

No brainer! Go for it, you can always quit if you don’t like it or it doesn’t work

Take it, and then if it doesn’t work out, at least you’ve tried. Get a cleaner in a few times a week for a few hours so you don’t need to worry about that. Get an ironing service. Online food shop.

I didn't 'need' to work &, in fact, was under pressure from DH not to work, but to be available to help out in his catering businesses. However, I felt it important that I earned my own money & contributed to my own pension - all independent from him. All our children worked in the business as they grew up & received a proper pay packet (in those days a little brown envelope with a pink slip telling them how it had been worked out). As a partner in the business I only got dividends which I packed away.

I'm so glad that I did. After 40+ years of marriage, although we're still going strong & love the bones of each other, I have so many friends who didn't work, devoted their lives to the family & got divorced & then, in their 40's were having to start from scratch.

I have a good pension & healthy savings which means I can go out & buy myself a nice brand new Mini convertible without consulting DH -as I did recently. I can treat my children & grandchildren to a day out, a holiday, a meal & he can't ask how much it's costing or object in any way because it's my money, earned by me. It also means that when I buy DH a present it comes from my money so it really is a present, not something that he contributed to.

God I earn quite a bit less than half of that, and I still manage to make dinner (ok I don’t work long hours due to childcare). In fact my household income is below that.

70k is an amazing salary to turn down because you have a 3 year old. Use some of it for a cleaner and some meal prep kits.

Or maybe see if the job is prepared to reduce your hours and give you a lower salary? That might ease you in better!

I'll starting to wonder at this thread. 💩Incompetent woman who has dd in permanent childcare, doesn't need the money, hasn't worked fir years, can't clean and get an evening meal prepared, gets offered dream job. Hmmmm .....

Please tell me this is a joke 🙄

It is not just about the money, it is whether you want to be back to work, feel that corporate drive, get mental stimulation, expand your network and conversations with professionals, etc etc. Do you love what you do? Lots of women look forward to returning to work for that extra kick in their lives. Others are totally content with their lives around family and house, up to you to decide which camp you belong to!

Absolutely! She’s 3 years not 3 months!

Agree with all OPs who say do it. With your extra earnings you can afford to pay for a cleaner, your DP will need to do his share & you can batch cook at weekends. I wouldn't be over-stressed about 'proper' meals - there's nothing wrong with beans on toast with grated cheese or baked potato with beans & cheese.

When I had little ones DH had his own businesses, I worked 3 days a week & 3 children born within 5 years of each other, we used to live out of the freezer. Every weekend I'd make either a batch of bolognaise sauce, or 5 cottage pies, a vat of curry, 5 tuna/pasta bakes and so on so that for 3 or 4 evenings in the week we would live out of the freezer & the other 2 we would have baked potatoes with baked beans, tuna mayo, egg mayo, scone-based pizza or similar. Sometimes we'd have beans on toast with grated cheese on top - nothing wrong with that.

On summer weekends I'd be having to help DH in his (catering) business as he was particularly busy then. MIL or my parents would have the children & when I picked them up I'd make a pile of sandwiches & we'd have a picnic in the garden, or if raining in front of the TV.

I had food on 2 weekly cycles so Week A Monday would be cold chicken (left over from Sunday roast), baked potato & salad, Monday week B would be chicken curry (I'd roast 2 chickens every 4 weeks & make a vat of chicken curry to freeze), Tuesday week A spag bol, Tuesday week B I'd turn the bolognaise sauce into a pasta bake, or, to ring the changes, baked potato with bolognaise sauce on it. Yes, DH would moan that he could tell it was Tuesday week B, but he could always make something different for the family if he chose & he often did.

These days I find that the prepared ravioli tortellini & similar are brilliant -I'm talking along the lines of Rana, but I buy supermarket's own brand. I freeze them, but they don't take long to cook in boiling water from frozen, in fact easy to over-cook. Stick some garlic bread in the air fryer, some tomato sauce (batch home-made with chargrilled peppers etc at weekend & frozen) in the microwave, make a salad if you've got the energy & inclination. Job done in 10 minutes. I wish they'd been available when I had young children.

Well yes and no, you can get into it through non traditional routes. I have 20 years experience and degree. But you really don't need that to get into it. Its mostly based on experience and what you can say you have done for someone else. Like if you can bring a business more business through your marketing efforts and prove you have done it for someone else, then qualifications are not needed. There are loads of online courses. There is a website Successful Mums that does courses for it, there are free courses on google. There are loads of different areas within it to specialise in like social media or paid media. Have a look. I really enjoy it :)

Do you have / need specific tech skills and qualifications? Sorry for hijacking the thread, feel free to DM me .

OP I agree with a lot of advice given here - you won't know until you try, you'll probably find you thrive on the juggle and if it's extra money then you can always quit if it's really not for you...

I would go for it, as PP have said even sticking it out for a few months is going to top up the family income well and it will look good on your CV.

I work for much less but similar conditions and I have a cleaner every other week and often drop off some ironing to be done. For that salary please don't spend all your spare time doing household stuff - outsource what you can.

I totally understand how daunting it can be going back to work (DD was nearly 3 when I went back) and sometimes struggle to balance everything but its really too an opportunity to pass up.

It sounds like a great set up and a great salary. It will be a huge shift for you and your DD. Don't expect that you will be able to maintain the same level of housekeeping, cooking, cleaning etc that you did before returning to work. If you can afford it, get a cleaner, have a regular takeout night. Otherwise just resign yourself to things being less than perfect or you'll go mad with exhaustion and stress. Revisit what your partner currently does so you are not working and doing majority of the childcare and housework. It will be a shift for the whole family. I went back to work when DD was 4 and DS 6. I was fulltime in the office. It was a very hard transition and it was a little bit sooner than I would have wanted. It was also a change of career for me. Give yourself some slack. You can't always be acing it in your job and as a mum and that is okay. Oh and get some great childcare in place so you have peace of mind. We were lucky enough to find an amazing childminder who stayed with us until the children were in secondary.

Of course you should take the job.

Your DD will benefit from the extra money you bring in and from the positive role model you provide.

And she won’t be 3 forever. The older she gets the easier it will be.

My job is the same, digital marketing and tech consulting in consumer sector. I haven't worked in an office since covid and earn more than 70k.

For some reason the edit has to be reloaded lately.

There's typo in my post but the site won't let me edit for some reason. Meant to say 'don't pass up'.

You get a cleaner, and you and your DP split the cooking responsibilities - 2 nights a week each and takeaway on Fridays, and you share/take turns at weekends. It's not just about the salary and the flexibility, OP. Presumably you won't want to be a SAHM for ever, and an offer this good might not come up again. As the mother of a daughter, it's especially important to model for her that women's careers matter as much as men's, that mums are not just people who clean and cook and meet everybody else's needs. You also model financial independence, and if anything should ever go wrong in your marriage you're not left high and dry by having no money of your own and no work history. Your DD already goes to nursery, and I can't imagine how you can spend several hours day cleaning currently. A few germs are good for kids, nobody will die from eating pizza occasionally, and your daughter will reap the benefit of having a fulfilled mother with money of her own.Don't pass up what sounds like an ideal job that is easily compatible with your family life, with a few tweaks.

Go for it you’ll learn to adapt. Get a slow cooker, prep meals the night before and put it on before nursery drop off and there you go a meal ready in time for dinner. If you don’t really NEED the money then consider a cleaner a few days a week to help you if you don’t think you can manage it although it’s not really difficult to keep on top of it all without once you get a system in place.

It sounds to me like what's going on is that you've lost your mojo by not doing enough. You know the phrase- "If you want a job doing, ask a busy person."

You have one child in nursery from 9-4, you are either making a huge meal out of cleaning the house or you're spending a lot of time drifting around doing nothing.

You're clearly highly skilled if you're able to earn £70k from home. Don't waste your potential on cleaning the house for 7 hours a day.

Generally expertise/experience I would guess. I do loads less actual work now than 10 years ago and get paid loads more as I’m really good at problem solving

You need to make it clear to your partner that everything you currently do in your new working hours now needs to be split fairly. The default isn’t that you continue to do everything. Same with nursery runs, bedtime routines, night wakings, etc. you need to get equal down time now you don’t have any during the day.

make sure nursery and other activities have your partner as the primary contact and not you by default. Make sure partner has details of child’s doctor, dentist, etc.

sit down up front and come up with a plan so everyone knows the expectations and are on board with the plan so no one can harbor any resentment.

I NEED to know what sector/job this is. Please tell us!! 70K remote with 2 days a month in office, flexible working - THIS IS MY DREAM !!

Also would the job consider you only doing 4 days?

I am assuming that you have been searching for a job? Therefore, you've polished your CV, filled in an application, been through the interview process, beaten several candidates who have possibly not been out of touch with the industry, and that as the successful candidate it has only now occurred to you how this will actually work in practice?

If this is real, then congratulations. Sit down with your DH and plan your life - nursery runs, life admin, food shopping. Be prepared to "pay to make the problem go away"

I earn similar, I work in similar circumstances, mainly WFH but it takes discipline, Make sure you've got emergency childcare arrangements in place and that you and DH agree who does what, where, when and how.