Gen X working mums - how has it worked out for you?

[Echobelly]

So my kids are 11 and nearly 8 now, I’m in my early 40s. I chose a career that I thought (correctly) would fit well with motherhood, was fairly female-led and decided I was not going to think much about ‘career’ while my kids were small. I’ve got to the stage now where I think I want to push ahead – or at least sideways. I’m in a field (editorial) where I think many trad jobs are drying up and I feel I should move more in a comms/digital direction, and I’ve been putting feelers out because there’s quite a lot of changes going on in my part of the org. Has anyone out there sort of pootled along like me and then stepped on the gas career-wise when their kids were a bit older? Is it harder to do if you haven’t been super-dynamic from the start? Interested in people’s experiences.

I'm also early 40s. Dd is 18yo. I worked part time but in a professional career until she was 16yo. Then a full time job in a different but related industry came up and I applied for that and got it. Then got quite a big promotion within a year.

So when dd was younger I definitely wasn't prioritising my career. I was doing something which meant I could be part time and get home at a decent hour every evening. Once I made the decision to concentrate on my career it took off quite well.

I’m on the cusp between X and Millenial and don’t exactly fit your description but my career has completely taken off again. 2006 I was working for a big public org and straddling the Publications team and the New Media team, helping out with the website. I remember thinking I needed to decide between digital and traditional media.

Fast forward to 2012, I’m head of Europe for digital for a global corporation. Pregnant with my first of three children. I didn’t go back to the corporate and stay at home with our children, and freelanced digital. So kind of working part time, I guess. Not making very much but doing just enough to keep my hand in.

Fast forward again to now and even though my youngest is two, I got incredibly lucky finding a digital marketing role with an awesome fin tech start up in the City. Work 37 hours a week. It’s an incredibly flexible company and so it feels like I finish at 2.30, get to come home and do pick up/ dinner/ bedtime and then jump on my laptop for a couple of hours work. I feel like my career has really taken off again. I’m not coasting - I’m working very hard and I’m very happy. It’s hard work switching between work me and mummy me but I think that’s true of anyone.

I got really lucky but I think it was also the result of a lot of years freelancing and working when the children slept. I’m 39 and feel very grateful I have a career again.

It's good to hear how flexible working is working out... I find it quite weird now to think that when I started working you were expected to be in 9-5 and anything else was slacking or wrong!

I’m hopeful it will become more normalised. So many different kinds of people need it in their lives - not just working mothers. It works out so well for me but I was used to freelancing and that flexibility. As long as I get the work done, they don’t care when.

I'm technically Gen X but very close to the Boomer end of the age range. I'm really glad to see flexible working taking off although it wasn't available when I had my kids (they're 16 and 18) so I've always worked full time. Coping with childcare cost meant we were horribly skint until they were both at primary school, but I'm glad I've always worked - my marriage broke down and we split up, then my H died so I've been a single parent for the past 2 years. Not having to restart working life after SAH for years has benefited us massively, even if I did miss a lot of nativities and school fairs.

I was actually quite lucky to be made redundant at the end of mat leave with my youngest (NB, not made redundant because I was on mat leave, I actually got a stay of being made redundant until the end of my leave while parallel colleague was made redundant at the start of it). It meant I got time with him plus DD was at school by the time I got another job. Two kids in nursery would have been 150% of my salary. I earned just under national average, but husband's salary meant that we weren't eligible for any help other than childcare vouchers, which is a drop in the ocean of London childcare fees.

I cleared very little after childcare, but I was fortunate to have my own house that I rented after moving in with DH - without that money I'd have had nothing to myself.