to think there is a massive disconnect between being a parent and working and this needs to be taught emphatically at school

[theremustbeanotherway]

So that my people like me, as so many of you are, don't spend decades getting those top GCSEs, A-levels, the Oxbridge degree, the high-flying legal career, only to feel like I need to massively downgrade/quit work in order to have anything approaching a balanced life with my growing family? Tis truly miserable. I know part-time is a possibility but certainly not at my firm and they are like gold dust elsewhere. DH very supportive and does more than his fair share but it's not working at present and I can only see it getting worse in future.

Are there parts of the world where society is set-up so as to allow both parents to work without the family suffering? Is it because our society lacks the support of a strong extended family and community network or because our jobs are more demanding and don't acknowledge the competing demands of a young family?

I know plenty of parents who work flexibly. Surely I cannot be the only solicitor (head of department) who has the career she wants and two hours child care paid for each day? Unless people are sniffy about high st solicitors of course, not being high flying or whatever.

And to those who say it's career or children, I think that's laughable. I would be a much poorer parent if I didn't go out to work. And I don't mean financially.

I may be working FT now, since my new job started in September, but for years at my previous place I was also running the dept and working 4 days. It does happen. I think employers realise that to a certain extent they have to adapt to survive. If they don't adapt, they lose their good employee.

Are you at an early stage in your career op? Sorry if I missed that.

I would Love to work foe myself but I don't really have enough experience yet and having read a few of the threads on here about others who have set up as sole practitioners it seems the start up costs are fairly high and it would obviously be much harder to get work too. Definitely something I'd like to attempt in the future though, if I feel brave enough.

I think there are a lot of poorly performing employees, businesses and organisations out there - look at the complaints you see on here and scandals in the press. Not all of them, but plenty. And I don't think that's unconnected to the fact that huge numbers of potentially very good employees are edged out when they get pregnant or denied part-time or flexible working, so the employers massively reduce the pool they have to choose from. It does harm them, but for many, misogyny and age-old working practices and attitudes are more important. However when employers do change, become more flexible and progressive, it usually does wonders for them so I do think they will catch up. It's just a slow process and not helped by the government failing to use the law to help.

OP, although it seems tough and you feel hard-done-by, you do at least have a choice. Everyone has to make compromises one way or another, and you are entirely free to choose where your priorities lie. Have we been conned into thinking we can have it all? Probably, but the last thing we should do is to put girls off higher education and high-flying careers!

Everyone has to make compromises one way or another, and you are entirely free to choose where your priorities lie.

The trouble is that's not entirely true while there is a greater burden/expectation on women to run the house and manage children's lives, while men often really don't have to compromise as much because they don't feel they have to do that, and often simply don't do it.

Part of the solution is pushing for equality in the home so that men do have to compromise. If everybody really had to compromise, if working FT was as hard for men as it is for so many women, employers would realise a lot sooner that they need to be flexible.

I think things are changing. Slowly, but still...

I work in two different places and also come into regular contact with people in publishing, media, production etc and I really notice the presence of women. Far more so than ten years ago!

Their marriages seem more flexible and fluid, their partners more than pulling their weight.

I've come to the point now where I've just burnt out after 5 years of trying to keep the plates in the air. It is hard to have any work life balance. I've found it hard being a lower level employee let alone high flying. All the managers I know at work have the cash for a cleaner, they also give themselves the option to work from home as well and often have better support networks as well.

Often at the lower end you are not allowed to work from home, there is no cash for a cleaner and you may have a long commute on unreliable public transport.

I'm now having to reevaluate as my health suffered to the extent where I couldn't cope even with a supportive DH. I have accepted that part-time may be the way forward or more flexible jobs.

YANBU to find it hard, because raising a family and having a high flying career is hard.

But YABU to think it is the job of schools to 'educate' on this issue. It isn't an educational issue and it would be far better to have girls aiming as high as possible, as only when we have equality in the workforce will we see real change.

There are all kinds of things that aren't seen as educational issues but it might be a good idea if they were. Career planning is one, life skills like managing budgets, dealing with sexism, spotting and rejecting abusive behaviour, etc etc. The curriculum, like the ethos of many employers, is narrow and archaic. There are a lot of useful things that might really help people if taught at school.

It is such a difficult one ...I think you do have to make a choice, you can't have it all. Some careers you can work flexibly, work from home, fit your (and your partners) hours around the school, holidays etc. But some you can't.
Lots of jobs someone needs to be there ...can you imagine the shops closed on the weekends and holidays to fit in with the school hours. If someone is seriously ill at the weekend they need to see a doctor, in hospital the nurses, cleaners, pharmacists, cooks, radiographers etc etc need to be there too. If I call 999 I want a call handler to be there, the fire brigade, police, ambulance service to be available. I want to go out to dinner in the evening/stay overnight in a hotel. And the 'slack' can't all be picked up by the people without responsibilities.
And sharing things equally between two partners can be a nightmare too...for the parents (making sure weekends don't clash etc - never mind you will never see each other) and for the employer trying to make sure you stick to set patterns, holiday & sickness cover etc

I think it might have been Germaine Greer who said that we have got it wrong. All we have achieved for women with equal rights so far is that women are under more pressure, feel more guilt and exploit other women (paying low wages for cleaners/childcare who are usually also women).

I'm a SAHM and gave up the job I loved when DD1 was 6 -I found it wasn't compatible. And I will never get back in. I didn't have family or friend support. Just me and DP - I didn't even know any other parents.
I spent years constantly balancing, feeling like I was doing everything badly. It was competitive and although I COULD (in theory) work 9 -5 most days I was surrounded by people without responsibilities who worked much longer hours. In order to be successful you needed to. (Eg I picked DD1 up at 6pm. When DP got home at midnight I went back for a couple of hours - some members of my 'peer group' were still there - they hadn't gone home for 6hrs....). I remember when DD1 got chicken pox - I felt like it was a personal attack, ruining my work plans and then felt guilty about being angry she was ill (never was with her). Final straw was when she vomited at Nursery and they asked me to come and get her asap. I was in the middle of an experiment, been working on it for days, cost a fortune etc. It would all be wasted. I asked them to hold onto her for 30 mins whilst I did the best I could to save it. I have never felt like such a shit, selfish, heartless person before in my life. (Thankfully my very kind and understanding boss could and did take over for me -but I felt I was taking the piss -again) Where was DP in all this?

DP had a restaurant from DD1 being 9 months old - (take a vomiting child to a restaurant? not a good idea). He worked 9am to midnight everyday except Mondays. If he wasn't there the restaurant would have to close - imagine booking a table for dinner and it being cancelled, or deciding to pop in and it was unexpectedly closed - not a good way of doing business (we never did have to do it). A couple of years after DD1 started school he sold up (when DD2 was 1 yr old). When she wasn't at school he saw DD1 all day Monday, at school he only saw her for a few hours in the afternoon. He now earns less money working for someone else without responsibility, more freedom, starts early so is often home by school home time.
I was brought up with a 'I can do and be anything' attitude-I was never going to be a SAHM - ever. I could have it all. (Actually my first career was in a male dominated industry) It was hard when I found I couldn't -or rather I could be -just not be happy, feel like I was constantly failing everyone and everything.

So I do think whilst not discouraging girls from careers it should be made clearer to both sexes of the reality of the situation - you need a support network, at some point in your life as a parent it will be a juggling act, either you or your partner will need flexibility.

I think instead of 'forcing' parents to work with younger children, we should focus on supporting parents returning to the work place ...so either parent (mother or father) can take time off to look after their children for several years - and still return to the work place -continue their career. I think unless already well established career breaks are often career killers. And that needs to change.
(And better childcare for older children - I found going from Nursery open 7am to 6pm, every weekday except Christmas & New year's day to finding childcare around school really tricky)

Personally I'm just miffed at the claptrap we were fed in the 80's growing up. Having it all. What total tosh but ad consultants dream

I won't be making that mistake with dds.

High flying law careers aren't very typical, though op - most careers aren't so demanding. My mate is a professor at one f the very highest ranking universities in the country - she leaves at 5 every day, has the whole of august off every year and works from home one day a week. Takes home 120k (she is shit hot).

Lots of lots of careers are easier in terms of hours than what you are doing now.

And one of the benefits of a successful career in a city law firm is cash.

You will earn more than enough to outsource many of the domestic duties that sap everyone's time. Time you can then spend with your family.

It's all about choices really, isn't it? I've always said that the more you earn the more they (your employer) expect from you.

My DH made a conscious decision not to take a job which would have given us an unbelievable lifestyle because we would have had to make too many compromises to make it work.
Instead, he earns less but is still on a good enough wage to give us a lovely lifestyle and we both get the flexibility in our jobs that is sometimes necessary to deal with family life.

You CAN have it all, IF you buy in the help. You just have to decide what it is you want.

The problem is where both parents have demanding jobs. They don't need to be high flying jobs (I wouldn't consider mine to be), but they are still very demanding. You have to take a big jump in salary in order to afford a professional support in the form of the nanny for instance. It's that gap which I think is tricky. We survive because I work from home part-time and we live in a relatively small city where DH has a short commute. Even so, I'm at my desk at 7am in order to be able to leave at 4pm for the school run and I work most evenings too (mostly due to time zone differences, but still).

The thing I found was that the more senior I became in a job the more flexibility I had to be able to manage the flow between work and home responsibilities. I didn't have such fixed hours, I could be more flexible about time off for sick children, I had more options to work from home, and I had more money to pay for a taxi if it was needed rather than waiting for a bus.

I also think that my education helped me to be assertive with my partner about how responsibilities at home were shared (how we both played to or best skills in divvying up tasks, and how we paid for someone to do the things that neither of us could do or wanted to do).

I am very appreciative of the luxury of an education system that encouraged me to achieve.

I'm a computer programmer with an Oxbridge degree

I always think it's weird when people say this. I mean don't you know which one you went to?

Don't think any amount of cash would have compensated me for time missed with dds when small. Admittedly I was doing crazy hours before getting pregnant (international projects senior level associate so running deals). Sent to Far East for a month with 2 hours notice. Very exciting in ones twenties. Just no way was I going to pay day nanny and night nanny so I could keep working like that and miss my little girls no way!

Any full time career without flexible hours (needn't be high flying or legal) is incompatible with a school system in this country which assumes parents can leave work at 2pm every day and take 12 weeks off a year.

Its a fallacy to suggest that this is only a problem for high earners in the City. Anyone who works 9-5pm five days a week with primary school age children will have experienced:

• trying to do homework with a tired child at 7pm
• making fancy dress costumes/cakes/whatever at 10pm
• desperately trying to get one of the few after school club places (assuming your school even has one) and equally desperately running from work to make the 5.45pm pick up time.

The Dept for Education is stuck in the 1950s.

Not to mention covering 12 weeks a year of holidays with 5 weeks annual leave!

Million Pram, that's the point I'm trying to make, most jobs it turns out are demanding and don't work with having small children who are always getting sick and wanting their mummies for comfort (not to mention day to day care). However certain jobs are indisputably worse than others - working 16-20 hour days for weeks on end doesn't leave time for Anything else, never mind children.

I'm silver circle and work 4 days, leave at 6pm 3 of those days. So far it is broadly working - I've had to pick up some work outside those hours but not too much. I see a fair bit of DD either end of the working day as she doesn't seem to need much sleep (this has its own downsides of course!) and I earn enough to more than cover a lovely nanny so I don't feel too guilty.

So it is possible OP, but sounds like your firm has not made the mental leap just yet and unfortunately somewhere new you would be expected to "prove yourself" before moving to part time. Even then I think 4 days is probably the limit, 3 days is very rare and much harder to make work.

I agree you have to go a long way down the ladder to find a job with guaranteed good hours/part time - your best bet is making it work somewhere you have already proven yourself, I think.

Have you spoken to your firm about going to 4 days a week/shorter office days and if so what did they say? Are you a transactional lawyer (corporate/finance etc)?

Why do you feel that this has to be addressed in school? Why add another thing to the ever growing list of things that schools have to teach? Education happens everywhere.

mmgirish - because schools (like anything else) need to reflect changes in society. This isn't a criticism of teachers/individual schools at all, its a criticism of government educational policy.

Most families now have two working parents.
Working hours have lengthened.
Commutes have lengthened due to rising housing costs.
Women (finally) have a shot at financial independance with all the crucial benefits that brings.

The current school system is like continuing to insist on horse drawn carriages when everyone is travelling by car/bus/train. It isn't fit for purpose, it's archaic and there's little logical rationale behind it beyond 'that's the way it's always been done'.

I agree OP and I think schools do need to address family life balance when giving careers advice - to both girls and boys, so you can make decisions having all the information available to you.

After graduating I embarked on a lifestyle career - it wasn't fantastic money but quite a prestigious job with lots of travel and unsociable hours. At that age it never occurred to me that I would want children and that my Job wouldn't be compatible. Throughout my education I had been told I could have it all, a career and a family. I never thought to question it.

I had to give up my career. DH earned far more than me and the logical conclusion was that I would stay at home. I now have 4 kids and right now there is no way I could have a job. I run my own business from home but this generates peanuts. In the last 3 weeks I have had a child at home everyday through illness. They are all still young and I hope to get back to "real" working in the next few years.

I do enjoy my life and have no regrets, it was our choice to have 4 children after all. I do however feel frustrated that other choices are no longer available to me.