to want to accept amazing job opportunity without being judged for "deserting" my three children.

[Shreddiez]

I have three children aged 8, 5 and 1. I have always worked a 3 or 4 day week since having them. DH works full time and travels quite a bit. We have no family help but we do have a live-in nanny.

I have been offered an amazing job. An opportunity like this will never come-up again: fascinating work, good money, chance to make a real difference.

The new job would mean a lot of travel and when home I'd hardly see the kids Mon-Thurs, by hardly I mean maybe 20 mins in the morn. But I'd usually be home all day Fridays and I would get nine whole weeks leave a year that I could take over school holidays.

I intend to accept the job but am shocked by people's reactions. A friend referred to me deserting my kids, my MiL (who NEVER helps with the kids) keeps making veiled references to how sad it all is, even the nanny keeps joking how the one year old will think she is the mother.

Is it normal to suffer such passive aggression for wanting to work? Is it so bad to be out of the house 4 days out of 7 if you know you can be fully present and involved for the other three days? Doesn't nine weeks leave actual mean I will see the kids as much as someone who works three days if averaged over a year? And why do I have to justify this? Why can't people celebrate my efforts to do well at work and at motherhood? I feel so judged and its making me second guess myself and my choices.

OP, it's a little unclear just how much travel you're doing - I got the impression it was almost every week 3-4 days a a time, outside the EU. So 4-6 hr flight with 1-2hr time difference? At least twice a month?

I use to travel about that far 50% of the time when I was younger and single. I did not come back "refreshed". You may be underestimating just how gruelling travel / living out of a suitcase is when you're picturing yourself home for those 3 days. I would write off 1/2 day on each leg of the trip to "sort crap out". The kind of stuff that you don't even factor in at the moment because you're not traveling.

It's interesting Jaded how most of your posts have a really negative, passive agressive vibe to them.

As for your question about the Nanny "raising a newborn" there's this new fangled concept called maternity leave.

Why would she not feel able to take ml because it's a 'big job'?

Is ml only available in 'little jobs'?

Ffs.

OP take the job and good luck. Terrible double standards here, sexism plain and simple.

Nothing to do with sexism. If they (OP & her OH) do this they are just as bad as each other.

I really don't understand how feminism can be used as a reason for shit parenting.

Big job?!?

Women are allowed to have "big jobs" and have children, but clearly you're of a "little job" mentality.

I do feel that 'well, you might not want to take maternity leave' is flailing around a bit. Frankly, it's freelancers who tend not to take maternity leave (I should know, I am one) not people with proper jobs with terms and conditions and lovely things like that . I have known precisely one woman who didn't want to take maternity leave and her job wasn't that big.

I don't think both of you should have jobs that involve a lot of travel.One of you needs to be close at hand for the children.

"Shit parenting" good grief that's a barrel full of assumptions right there.

So now posters have moved on from assuming things will go tits up for the OP if she takes the job, to inventing babies and refusal to take ML...

Seriously, why shouldn't the OP try it? If it doesn't work out then ok, a rethink.

But not to take an opportunity because it might not work out, seems terribly fearful.

Why all the assumption that "high flyers" or people with lots of responsiblity or "big jobs" won't take their holiday and will work every weekend, bank holiday, won't take maternity leave etc.

I take every day of my 7 weeks holiday entitlement, I took a full year's maternity leave for both my children and I don't find myself working weekends and bank holidays and all night.

I do sometimes work in the evenings or at weekends but it doesn't affect my children as usually it's when they are at a sports event or at a playdate etc and I fancy doing some work because I enjoy it!

So pleased you are taking the job, OP. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for you. Ignore the nay-sayers and anyone who tries to play the guilt game.

FWIW, my husband grew up in a country where everyone (or almost everyone) worked. His mother went back to work when he was 6 months old, which was pretty standard. When I compare all his friends from that country with people I know whose mothers were SAHMs, I can see absolutely no difference in terms of emotional stability, achievement, ability to form lasting relationships, etc. No difference whatsoever.

I don't think it is the fact that it's a 'big' job, so much as the fact that it involves a lot of travelling, and the Dad travels a lot too.One of the parents really should be in reasonable distance IMO

The women with the "biggest jobs" that I know involving travel/long hours both have 4dc and took a year's mat leave for the last child. Big jobs usually means big moolah and a lot of domestic help and ime these women are much less stressed than me other working mums as they never have to put on the washing machine/wait in for the plumber. And well done them.

Their children are happy too.

I think a lot of the vitriol on this thread is from people who don't know anyone with a nanny and can't believe such a set up can work successfully and women whose mothers never worked and can't believe it's possible to have a wohm and still grow up to be happy. Both are entirely possible.

No more babies planned here. I love having three and am done. Fwiw I took nine months maternity with each and loved it, then I loved returning to work.

Some of the posts here surprise me with their aggression. Many people disagreed with my choices with reason and an open mind but others seemed to want to hurt me, a stranger, just because my career balance is different to many others.

I get that some people think working long hours out of choice is a poor decision but why be so rude and judgemental? How can people feel justified in assuming that I don't value family time, don't prioritise my kids or don't enjoy being a mum? I love my kids, they know this as I tell them every day, and I hug them every day and I laugh with them and play with them. I may not believe I need to be there all the time to make them feel loved and valued but don't mistake that for me not loving and valuing them. I am so sad that people feel justified in drawing such mistaken conclusions.

Won't you look at the time?!

Oh goodness, sorry, wrong thread.

Childcarers don't love the children in their care the same way as parents do. If they did there would be something far wrong. I don't doubt that love is real but it is not the same. If someone told me I would never see my child again I would be devastated, and would never, ever get over that. Do nannies feel the same when they leave, get sacked, apply for new jobs. Of course not.

Fifty years of research on attachment shows that children don't form the same attachments to secondary care figures as they do/should to parents. A strong, consistent relationship with one or two primary figures for the first five or so years is essential to healthy development. Children can attend/receive childcare of course, but they need to have their parent/s as a safe base. Hopefully the op and her husband will find some way to achieve this but it will be extremely challenging for them.

Would also just repeat I work out of home and travel, I am not against wohm, I am one. But parenting involves sacrifices. For us it is DP putting his career on the backburner. Everyone has to find a way.

Sorry op, cross posted, not attacking you after your latest message. Just adding to the wider debate.