Are you married to an investment banker and have kids?

[Lisbon83]

My husband is an investment banker at ED level and we recently had a baby.

I'm looking for advice from people in my position who get the hours they do and the particular stresses of the work. It's not 9-5 as we know and it's not possible to be 50/50 split on childcare during weekday evenings for example.

How did you manage family life, looking after yourself, baby etc without tearing your marriage apart? Night feeds, childcare, household chores, life admin, weekends, time for ourselves.. how to organise and any tips or ideas?

Pandemic has made it worse and harder to access outside help but hoping this will become easier soon.

I just wouldn’t have a baby with someone who wasn’t willing to be around for 90% of our children’s early childhoods for work.

Hope that’s helpful 👍🏼

Throwing money at the problem - nanny, cleaner, gardener etc etc.

I work FT as well but 9-5 M-F so do the bulk of the emotional and mental labour, and planning.

But also my husband doesn’t work insane hours, and is decent about boundaries on weekends, so we have loads of family time on weekends.. weekdays kids don’t usually see him except for a brief hi in the morning but if they get up v early he usually bounds out of bed to hang with them.

We always knew it was going to be skewed going into the marriage and into parenthood. His earnings allow us a lot of other privileges and we know we’re very lucky for that.

I’ve only recently gone back to work after spending years on a PhD, which he had supported (emotionally, not exclusively financially since my PhD was funded).

Some day if my work gets more demanding and busy then I know he’ll scale back at his to br more around for the kids.

Nanny. Gardener. Housekeeper.
Does the firm have a concierge service?

Tips:

• throw money at the problem (part time nanny, cleaner coming more often, supermarket food delivery, batch cooking and takeaways, Cook etc)
• as someone said, book holidays with crèches (Lucury Family Holiday chain, for example). Then even if he’s working, you get a break.
• make sure that he still understands you’re not his personal skivvy and does tidy up after himself and, you know, does the dishwasher when he can
• Make sure any savings you both acquire are going to equally into YOUR personal pension and ISAs etc. Money is the last thing you think about in those circumstances as you are busy and have enough of it, but in 5 years time you’ll take stock and be left with nothing in your sole name. Also, his income is joint so you should have full visibility on what comes in and goes out. Don’t be pushed off with a monthly housekeeping fund.

@JennyBond me too! But I try and balance things out by only going once every 6/8!weeks - it is infinitely more exciting than another reading of The Hungry Caterpillar

Oh and also - get a part time job when you can. Justifies the nanny, stops things feeling like Groundhog Day, and makes you much much happier in the 20-30% chance you split up (not being pessimistic, that’s the rate it seems to be in city jobs).

I think the rate of divorce is much higher than that.

My advice could be to arrange your life as you need by paying for things rather than doing everything yourself. So, cleaner, farm out the laundry if you need to, get someone in one night a week to do night feeds. It won't be perfect, but at the moment it's the life you've chosen. It will get easier as the DCs get older.

Screw that for a game of soldiers! That sounds like a very tough life. DH used to do night shifts - now that was hard work! Luckily he moved into a more family friendly role within the company. Always around from 3pm onwards each day now. Couldn't imagine him going back to the shifts.

Looks like outsourcing is your best friend if you can afford to. I personally would not be impressed with DH working such long hours though 😱

My first husband wasn't an investment banker but had his own business and worked 7 days a week. He worked very long hours. We had 2 children. I don't really know what you're asking. If you don't work you'd just do what I did and get on with it without any outside help. It's honestly not that hard.

@Llamasinpajamas

I just wouldn’t have a baby with someone who wasn’t willing to be around for 90% of our children’s early childhoods for work.

Hope that’s helpful 👍🏼

Same here. It would be a non starter. No amount of £££ would be enough if they couldn't spend quality time helping with drop offs and pick ups at school and nursery etc.

It’s though. I am a banker, having gone back FT to work after taking a break. The COVID is helping as I am at home but I am dreading the day when we have to back in as my bank wants us bank 5 days a week.
As others have suggested get as much help as you can. Cleaners, gardeners, nanny etc. Don’t hold back. A friend is married to an IB and “doesn’t want to spend his money”. Daft.

She's managed to respond to that @JennyBond

@Llamasinpajamas

I just wouldn’t have a baby with someone who wasn’t willing to be around for 90% of our children’s early childhoods for work.

Hope that’s helpful 👍🏼

What are you suggesting at this stage? That the OP puts the baby up for adoption?

I am curious. How much does an investment banker earn?

@Llamasinpajamas

I just wouldn’t have a baby with someone who wasn’t willing to be around for 90% of our children’s early childhoods for work.

Hope that’s helpful 👍🏼

how unhelpful and pointless. are you incapable of understanding that people have different circumstances to you?!

mds or heads of desks could be 7 or even 8 figures. but high 6 minimum otherwise

for an ED that is. grads start of less than six figures usually

Depends on the bank, but base, for an ED from £200k upwards. And the same again at least in bonus. The bonus can be substantially more if you deliver a few good deals that year.

It’s very cut throat though. If you don’t make target one year, you’re out. And in the current climate it is very difficult to find another job. Which is why the sensible ones try to save as much as they can to account for periods when they are not working.

@Zigzag77

I work in investment banking although not at senior level. All fathers in my team basically forgo their parenting for their career. It’s an industry where you become more and more power and money hungry and if you want to do well, you cannot be distracted by home stuff. The solution is to throw money and outsource any help. All the more senior bankers in my team have cleaners, housekeepers and nannies. It is understood amongst the wives that they put up with essentially being single mums because of the lavish lifestyle this job affords. It’s a strange industry - it’s absolutely silly money but no life at all. I watch so many go off on stress leave because of the ridiculous demands on time. The juniors get 3-4 hours sleep on a good night because of the workload. The seniors can travel in three different continents in a week alone (pre-covid anyway!) and can go weeks without seeing their family. It’s really not for everyone. It was definitely eye opening when I started work there. I was on a tradefloor before that and it wasn’t as bad as this.

Covid 19 has made it clear no one needs to be travelling over three different continents in a week though? Working from home, using video conferencing does the job surely? Unnecessary to be jetting off like this, many jobs will now have to rethink how they do things🤷

The huge salary is meaningless without work life balance.

Wow that crazy money! How much is a typical bonus?

I don’t actually believe the posts that say they would pass on a million pound salary per year for a few nursery pick ups!
Seemingly not realising that many many industries demand long hours and get paid nothing like IB bonuses.
Of course it’s demanding, but an opportunity to have security for life - and the peace of mind it brings. As long as there are long weekends of uninterrupted family time, and dh/de is home in time for a family dinner, bath and story time then I fail to see how it is vastly different! Yes maybe slightly longer hours, earlier starts but early retirement is possible and then they are around for dc every day! If they want to.

Unless you are 100% responsible for day-to-day childcare and rearing and 100% responsible for the bills then please don't describe yourself as a single parent

Generally, if you’ve made target, you’d expect around 100% of salary. Or to put it another way your total ‘comp’ or compensation comprises 50% basic salary and 50% bonus. But it’s not always cash, as you become more senior you can be given shares in the bank you work for too.