How many hours did you work after going back from maternity leave?

[twoorthreeorfour]

My contract is changing to 3 days, 22.5 hours. I wondered what other people do. If you reduced your hours, at what point did you go full time again?

I personally wouldn’t ideal do negatively about my own mother, no. SAHMs who give so much and value time would find it especially hurtful to be told by their own children more than anyone else that actually, we’d have preferred more money!
I would like to think my children wouldn’t speak ungratefully about me, but there are no guarantees for any of us.

Oh and with regard to my daughter specifically, I’d be delighted if she was a SAHM and experienced the same joy as myself, my mother and grandmother. However, she may be more like my great grandmother, who always walked very proudly to her job at the post office every day! She was a very proud working mother, as was my other great grandmother, who was widowed and ran her own farm. It will ultimately be up to my daughter.

’modelling not working as an able adult as a goal’ is patronising. Genuinely how much time do you posters spend watching what adults who do not work do all day?! Adults can help and achieve plenty outside the paid workforce!

I think you've misunderstood what that poster was saying.

I think the child led advice has caused a lot of misunderstandings. Expecting a child to decide when they want to potty train is never going to end well.

Many women were also essentially forced to remain at home, either because their husband was in charge and said so, or because of societal pressures.

You can be very busy caring for the elderly and disabled, and very busy working. You’re just very busy.

I worked 50+ hr weeks towards the end of my ex-FILs life, and provided his care before and after that work. I work now, and live with a child with very complex needs.

How condescending. Many of us are doing both.

It sounds like you are doing a great deal for a lot of people and I hope you manage to find some time somehow to rest.

But the societal pressures is still there now, but it is in the opposite direction, that women must work.

I don’t believe it is, I think women have a better level of choice now.

What I think we’re finding is that more women want to work, now the option is more readily available.

Where is this pressure - you make it sound excessive. If it means greater equality - the more the better.
We brought up DS and DD to both understand that they can have equal access to study, employment, home life, family.

35 hours at 6 months. It now been 16 years since I’ve been back:) 2 salaries needed to pay for the standard of living we bought into

Is it?

Society still sees women as the default parent and society still sees childcare as a womans job. That hasn't changed at all.

It is true that more women work now but plenty of women work because they want to and they have that choice to work. I see that as nothing but a good thing.

The vast majority of women who are parents work part time because again, society still views women as the default parent.

You might understand it better if you were to impersonate being a happy housewife for a week. If you told people that’s what you do and didn’t have a single person really genuinely tell you ‘that’s great!’ (Including men who don’t even have children!). Look closely at what political parties and the media say, and more importantly don’t say.

Yet I speak to mothers who are at work who are in tears and extremely distressed that they can’t afford to stay at home. That’s wrong they’ve been priced out of that.

Maybe one day everyone will have a genuine choice either way, but we’re not there yet.

I’m pleased with the way things are moving - although still some way to go - hopefully when/if my DT’s become parents it will be easier for them to continue with their careers (can’t see either wanting to be a SAHP but up to them). They have grown up seeing generation after generation having careers and families.

I went back at 17 hours when dd was 7 months old, increased to 22.5 hours when she was around 3yo and then to 30 hours when dd was 10yo.

Dd is now 19yo and I’ve recently gone to 35 hours.

Personally working part time has given me a good work life balance even though it’s been financially tight at times, I’ve no regrets.

Was there a specific reason why you went part time rather than your DD’s father?

Why do you need so much external validation for you choices?

And it’s not the case that women are forced back to work full time. Significantly more women work part time than men.
I lost count how many people told me how terrible it was that I’d come back to work full time once I’d had DS. Nobody said that to DH funnily enough.

What is the general response?

Because genuinely - of the SAHPs I know, one of them was what you would deem a traditional housewife. She spent her days homemaking, cooking, cleaning, that sort of thing.

The others - one of them plays golf pretty much every day, and the other goes for various coffees and lunches and plays paddle tennis. Both have school aged children, and cleaners, gardeners, various professionals.

You can’t call something a calling or vocation if actually it’s just shopping and lunch.

I would agree that society’s current ideal model is Dad working FT and Mum working PT. Women who work FT or not at all are arguably more misunderstood.

Exactly.

I was asked if I was going back
I was asked how many hours I was going back
I was asked if it was worth me going back when I had twins 16 months after DS even by people who know I'm the higher earner

No one asked DH any of those questions.

Personally I think the current ideal is both parents working part time.

something like 0.8 fte for both.

then both parents get the work life balance @Girliefriendlikespuppies refers to- it means both parents can keep their careers on a reasonable level, and there’s equity in pensions etc.

it also means you’re less likely to be caught in a higher tax/child benefit trap where one partner is a higher earner FT

I can’t see any misunderstanding of mothers working full time - normal amongst my family, friends and colleagues.

Why is it considered the norm for the father to work full time ?

So I don’t really fit in anywhere.

I am aware of the SAHMs you are talking about who lunch, shop, play golf etc. I exercise on 1 morning a week, but there are those I overhear chatting in the changing room who’s lives revolve around the gym. They do multiple classes, are there most days. They have older children and very rich husbands.

I conversely know a lot of SAHMs who can just about to do it or who claim benefits as well. Some of these are doing it reluctantly. Some are extremely stressed by their own children and other relationships and are relieved to drop them off at school, that relief is palpable and openly aired. Some do use that time to catch up on much needed sleep or watch TV because they are too exhausted and stressed to do much else.

I don’t really fit in anywhere in the sense I’m certainly not rich but we don’t struggle, and I do genuinely spend any time I have when my children are out cleaning, organising, gardening, shopping, sorting their admin, use time to volunteer, trying my best to do something useful for my family. I genuinely want my family to feel comfortable and supported. I don’t want to forget anything or let anyone down. I treat it as a job M-F and don’t switch the TV on. I don’t feel unhappy or stressed by my children. I find their company enjoyable. I’m not interested in going shopping or having beauty treatments (I do them myself). I don’t really know anyone else who does the same or feels the same. My genuine friends all went back to work. The previous two groups of SAHMs know other people doing the same, I don’t really. I used to know more people doing the same when I working actually, work was better for me in terms of friendships.

I have experienced a wide range of reactions and think people react differently around me to when I was working. I have had both single and married men be extremely rude to me directly. One married male friend of my husband’s expressed extreme disapproval of us both, me for not working and my DH for not pushing for promotion, because he thinks we should be living in a much bigger house by now. We actually still like our house! My own brother has been extremely rude to both myself and our mother, claiming he could easily do what we do around his career, despite having no children, living in a flat without a garden and ordering Deliveroo most nights 😂 I have had friends say they could never do what I do, despite me never commenting negatively on anything they do.

I think the challenges you face, are because of the stigma others are bringing to what you see as a worthy cause.

If you’re in the first group you mention, a SAHM who spends their life in the gym or being a lady who lunches - you’re not a SAHM, you’re just a stay at home. You’re not actually adding anything to your family, you’re just living a life of leisure. Which is fair enough if you can afford it, but don’t dress it up as noble.

If you’re the other group, spending your day napping or watching TV because you’re so exhausted from your own children - IMO you’re just bone idle. Providing there’s no health needs of their own going on. Plenty of us are exhausted, adulthood is exhausting. Get on with it, and get help if you can’t cope to the level you need to sit down all day after the school run.

My MIL was the stay at home housewife you describe yourself to be. She sees, even now, the house is her domain to run, and she takes a lot of pride in that. She’s also 75, and got married in the early 70s, so I do think it’s a fairly old fashioned idea.

I’ve never been jealous of SAHPs, it wouldn’t fulfil me anywhere near enough, but you’re likely being tarred with the brush of the privileged and the lazy.