Full time or Part time

[MrsPatrickDempsey]

What has determined why you work the hours you do?
Have the option to increase from 28 hr to full time and I am interested to hear opinions that might help me make a decision. Haven't worked full time since before having children and now I don't need childcare so feel I 'should' be working more and feel a bit of guilt that I don't. Fortunately its not a financially driven decision.
But honestly, deep down, I enjoy my day off at present.

Totally agree with @Wilker. I have worked FT, 3 days, 4 days and honestly 4 days is the worst. Especially in the type of job where you have to finish what comes your way rather than a fixed number of days/hours. When I did 3 days I only worked 24 hours. Everyone took my part time setup seriously. Totally worth the pay-cut. Then I changed jobs and entered management. 4days. However it was a 'role' rather than a 'job'. My tasks waited for me they didn't go to anyone else. So my Mondays and Thursdays were stressful long days. In a few months I had to move FT and it's been a huge relief. My workload is the same but I have more time to do it and get paid 20% more. On my 5th day I try to keep my workload less and stay online and available but can do my own thing. So it's worked out rather well.

I went part-time after having dc1, 8 years ago. Youngest is now in reception but still part-time. I’m a secondary teacher/joint head of department and work 3 days a week. I originally went part-time so I could spend more time with my children so they didn’t need to go to the childminder 5 days a week or to breakfast/after school club every day. It also means we don’t need help like a cleaner because I can do it on my days off. Now that my youngest is in school it means I’ve got my weekends back. I always do some school work on one of my days off, but this means I don’t need to do it at the weekend. Dh is a primary deputy head so always has work to do on weekends so it’s better if I don’t have to as well. Once my youngest is older I’ll likely look to go back full-time because of pension contributions.

It depends on the job. I worked 3 days and then 4 days when my DC were little. But it was a client/ project type job and I was always behind and always working in the evenings and having phone calls on my day off while the children screamed etc.

Next job was full time and I preferred it, able to keep work at work and it didn’t get in the way of my home life. DH fully contributes to our family life though, would be hard if I also had to do all the cleaning, cooking, child drop offs, gardening, sports etc as well as full time.

Just switched to have one afternoon off a week, mostly because I think I can manage my work in 4.5 days, and create some more time to catch up on things as weekends are quite full-on with children’s sports.

I would also be very happy if DH chose to drop a day or a half day, but money isn’t too tight anymore.

28 is enough. Why would you want to increase it to 37.5 or 40 hours?
Don't do it!

I work 4 days a week. My children are teenagers or young adults now but I still like a day off in the week to catch up with things/ do a shop etc and sometimes meet a friend. I also have 2 dogs so they get a long walk on my day off and have a dog walker the other days.
I am not adverse to working full time for the right job, many jobs seem to only have full time hours available.

I started working four short days to reduce my sons time in nursery, now he is at school I do the same hours. It means he requires minimal after school care and I get Fridays to myself.

I’ll continue working part time for as long as I can afford it. I do have a second job, but it pays very little and is done for enjoyment not financial reasons, working part time means I have the time and energu for my second job.

I did 3 days for 15 years since dc, now I do 4. 4 is perfect. I will never work full time again.

What days and hours do you do?

I'm part time (20 hours) but this time last year I was doing full time until around June, wasn't planned, just necessary.

What I found over that time, was it was fun-the adrenalin took us through, but actually it wasn't right for me. It's a mixture of things. Firstly, I was exhausted. I'd often come back and just fall asleep without even dinner. Secondly I lost flexibility. Normally if I get a call from school to pick up, or one of the children are ill, or I have an appointment, or even I'm having a bad day and need to clear my head, I can choose to go home early and make up the time later, and no one worries. When full time I didn't have that as an option, so, even though dh was wfh so could pick up the kids things, it just felt more restrictive.