AIBU to feel uneasy about mothers leaving successful careers?

Yeah it sucks. I stopped doing management roles when I had kids. I now have my own support business and make $70 an hour roughly but I have had to sacrifice my career that's true. I don't regret it. My husband has to work extremely hard, harder than me probably. When he was made redundant from a very lucrative role I had to go full time again for four years. I did love it but both of us full time just doesn't work and his role is not flexible, it's full time or nothing. But you are correct. If women didn't have children we would probably have an equal number of female CEOs and politicians I think.

Why are you so offended by the suggestion that men can work flexibly?
You seem to suggest that all men are still employed with zero flexibility or that all the important work happens at school pick up time.
Suggesting men work flexibly to facilitate childcare isn’t silly. It’s what millions of parents do. I’m not sure why you think it’s specifically difficult for men?

Most couples with two working parents figure it out between them. Despite your assumptions working patents can and do manage this effectively. Someone only has to take a backseat if one parent refuses to compromise.

My DS has just left primary school. We live in an area with lots of people working in senior professional roles and people who run their own businesses. Out of a class of 30 there were only 2 dads who never picked up or attended any school event. One of those men doesn’t work and the other works but his wife says he refuses to do anything with the kids.
All other dads make it work including the doctors, solicitors, client facing business owners, academics, senior civil servant… it seems to me that if men want to be active parents they will make it work.

Your views a massively outdated.

MIRAS was phased out then abolished altogether approaching 30 years ago. Thatcher deregulated the financial markets to allow banks to sell mortgages rather than just building societies, and on higher earnings multiples, in the 80s.

Houses can only be sold for what people can and will pay for them.

The more income a household has the higher the price that can be paid.

In the absence of an excess of supply, the market will dictate that the higher household income are, the higher house prices will go.

@minipie And who is going to do that? Who is going to run the business and see the client when dad hops off early? Who is going to supervise a difficult job late in the day? Women face thsss issues too and some women do work long hours. Life in a marriage with dc can rarely be equal. Forcing people is counter productive. It’s better to have a routine that both can manage and ditch the silly 50:50. Most people who are working cannot do it and don’t do it. Something or someone always takes a back seat or you hire in help which is one reason to keep working. Farm out the kids.

This!

Seriously look at the financial issues that arose in the 80s , specifically MIRAS and Financial Deregulation
That is why house prices rocketed not women joining the workforce as PP suggested

There is a very valid theory that increased purchasing power in families absolutely does inflate prices. There’s nothing misogynistic about it.

Read what the Pp wrote -inflation and increased house prices were not caused by women working!
Same old misogynistic bullshit

@Melograno Please educate yourself on basic inflation.

The short answer is, get men to take on an (at least) equal share of all the parenting.

Everything - not just equal time physically looking after the child/children, but equal getting up in the night, equal knowing what works in a tantrum or a sobbing fit, equal knowing what snacks they like, equal googling what that weird rash is, equal batch cooking of child meals, equal checking what clothes have been outgrown, equal calling round nurseries for spaces and so on and on and on.

Most of the women I know who stepped back (including me) didn’t do so because they absolutely loved spending all day with their babies and small children. They did it because they were knackered from trying to juggle their job with 80-90% of the child and home demands - something had to give, and it couldn’t really be the kids.

Get fathers to step up more- and crucially to do this even if it impacts their career - and you’ll see more mothers staying on.

The unintended consequences of financial freedom for women has been horrible inflation and house prices going through the roof.

Its the other way around.

The unintended consequences of financial freedom for women has been horrible inflation and house prices going through the roof

Oh dear god not that old chesnut!!

Please educate yourself on the deregulation of the financial markets, and MIRAS

There's more to life than working for someone else. You feel uneasy because it's against the narrative of getting women into work. The debate has always been too simplistic. Women can work, be at home with kids, then go back to work again (if they want). Kids grow up. But happiness can come from both home life and career and depends on the individual woman.

The unintended consequences of financial freedom for women has been horrible inflation and house prices going through the roof.

I don’t have kids and I would GLADLY quit my high flying career. I’m burnt out, bored and fucking hate it. Unfortunately I literally can’t quit (expat on a non-transferable visa) so I’m stuck here.

My dream would be to re-train as a fitness/pilates instructor and live/travel around somewhere low-cost like SE Asia (I also absolutely love travel).

I know both men and women quitting the rat race, in fact it has become something to aspire to in some circles (FIRE, child-free, nomads etc.). It’s really not limited to mothers…

All I am saying is that it is immoral to mis-sell degrees to (vulnerable) adults. It is cruelty.

As opposed to the other section of the industry that makes its money from minors committing to 10’s of thousands in student loan fees before they are even legally an adult. Got it.

Why on earth would someone be “vulnerable” because they are retraining as an adult?
Your logic is very, very odd.

So a whole load of sexist, ageist nonsense that’s not related to the thread and not based on any sort of facts.
Merely the incoherent ramblings of a loon.

Stop dissing the OU. I have now been a student with them for 4 years and counting. I have a chance to do a degree I am interested in and add something to my CV before rejoining the workforce in a few year's time.

@HollyhocksandPeons
But an accounting course doesn’t mean the person has to go into accountancy and do client work. Every company has a finance function that requires people with accountancy qualifications. They won’t all be chartered.

I don't have the statistics on old re-trained dogs being gainfully employed in later life by police as sniffing dogs either, but I shall hazard a guess that police would rather select puppies?
I don't know about accounting from personal experience, but from personal experience in the litigation and arbitration field, there is zero chance that any firm would employ an Open University young graduate, never mind a 50-year old graduate, to be a paralegal, never mind anything else. I have also seen an LLB from Open University with the slogan 'it is never too late to change your career'. Aye, right. All I am saying is that it is immoral to mis-sell degrees to (vulnerable) adults. It is cruelty.

Can you share the statistics on accountancy degrees that make you think women who retrain later in life have no substance to employers and are unemployed with their “mis sold” degrees?
The employment figures for the OU graduates are generally pretty high.
This all seems like a sweeping generalisation based on your own bias.

What are you talking about?

How is saying the situation is nuanced making sweeping generalisations?

Yeah, I’ve already acknowledged that.

Well you didn't hras that did you. ?

It was people becoming accountants AFTER having been dinner ladies

Of course - I meant substance for employers, not for their families or in general. Substance for employers - sorry, I forgot to tag the person I was replying to. It is a specific reply - I was only saying that mis-selling OU courses to older people, telling them they will have substance for employers with an accounting degree is wrong and to employers they won't have the same substance, as accountants, as those who stepped away from a corporate career and came back, that is all.