Working mums get all the shit and end up with no career

[farewellfigure]

Hi. I really don't know if I've just a bee in my bonnet or whether workplaces in general really are unfair and women get such a raw deal. It's all very emotional at the moment as our department has just announced that 2 out of 10 of us will be made redundant in the next month. I'm applying for an admin/assistant role in my DS's school and I really hope I get it. I'm actually really excited but I can't help pondering over the fact I will become the cliché of a career woman who has to give it all up.

Anyway, at work, there are 3 designers who are part time, and 2 part time writers. We are all mums who had careers... we were managers, department heads etc. Then we had babies and came back part time and weren't allowed to be managers any more. And how about the men we used to manage whose wives had babies? They are now managers, department heads etc. It drives me NUTS. In DS's school, there are so many mums who had careers, and are now dinner ladies, TAs, admin assistants etc, it's just not funny. Not that there is anything wrong with any of those jobs whatsoever. But it just seems so unfair to me. I know having children is a choice, and I chose to do it. And I chose to go back part time. Yes... all my choices because I actually wanted to see my DS a bit every day and have a relationship with him. But basically I waved good bye to my career and now it looks like I'll have to wave good bye to the job as well.

There are 2 young women in the office who will probably get to keep their jobs when the redundancies come because they are young and full time and 'fresh'. WIBU to say to them, 'When your time comes, and you choose to have babies, come back full time. Put your DCs in nursery all day every day and keep your management roles. Otherwise you can kiss good bye to your high-flying careers and do what all the other overlooked mums end up doing'. Bitter? Me? Just a wee bit. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts and maybe a bit of perspective! And I'm giving myself a . Is that allowed?

Before my first maternity leave I did a mangerial job. I wasn't allowed to go back to that part time - instead a new job was created for me, 0.6 fte, mainly working from home. People said I'd be mad not to bite their hand off, so I accepted. I do still enjoy the job but it's a shame to have been demoted from the managerial job, especially since my colleague who took on my old job has since been allowed to return part time from maternity leave(under new senior management).

I am just now applying for a new job within the same organisation which is 0.6fte and is a management role. We shall see.

This all totally outs me

I'm pretty sure I won't regret on my deathbed that I had an interesting, fulfilling career and could also give DCs a comfortable lifestyle, either.

Of course not hazel ! I was more referring to not wanting to 'lean in'

Agree Hazelnut. Putting food on the table is a more immediate concern than what will be on my mind on my deathbed.

The discussion just now is about the concept of "leaning in" to your career, rather than the idea of having a job to earn money to live on.

I believe that job shares are the future for all these talented mothers who don't want to remain FT. The fact is the vast majority of 'high-flying' jobs cannot be done on a 3-day week basis - while the markets are open, things can happen. Also the attitude of the employer counts for a lot. I have a great employer:

I personally chose to remain FT and keep a serious career going. I have never put my children in FT nursery, but use a combination of 'in the home' and nursery, now school, childcare. For the few years in between babies and also 2 yrs after returning from mat leave with my 2nd DC, I remained FT but did not push to move up. Then when I was ready, I let this be known to my manager and took on more responsibility which meant I subsequently got promoted. My company allowed me to 'tread water' for the period I needed to, and then fully supported me when I was ready to power on again.

I have hugely overtaken my DH in earning and seniority in the last couple of years - Before our first child we earned equally, I now earn 50% more. I am on a par with, or ahead of my male peers. My DC are 7 and 4 btw.

I am lucky I work for a great company, and while it was tough in the early years, so grateful I kept on going as I did. I am independently financially secure, I love my job, and due to excellent home childcare and help, get plenty of quality time with my DC. I find any suggestion that I would rather be a SAHM a bit laughable, as I think I have the best of both worlds.

My company has just launched a big job sharing drive, which I think is the next major development for parents who wish to have more time at home.

I have to say that a bigger regret on my death bed would be not being able to give my children some financial security and some opportunities.

I want to be able to help them
When they need it. So I need to work.

That old chestnut about 'nobody on their death bed wishes they'd spent more time in the office' is pointless. It assumes that work= 100% drudgery and being at home= 100% pleasure.

Like HazleNutt, I'm pretty confident that I won't regret the interesting and varied people I've come across and the experiences I've had which Wouldnt have come my way without my career. That's not to say I haven't also had interesting experiences outside of my career too, but there are definitely a lot of places I've seen and things that I've done which are due to my work. As my area of work is also directly very beneficial to society, I'm pretty sure I won't regret having made a contribution that way too

If I were a SAHP or part time worker, I would inevitably end up doing more of the housework and daily chores of running a household. I'm pretty sure I wouldnt be saying on my deathbed 'i wish I'd spent more time hoovering or washing up or changing nappies' either! It seems a bit disingenuous to imply that everyone's work life is drudgery and monotony and that every minute out of work is fun fun fun

Be honest- for most of us, life is about having a healthy balance of different experiences

Of course no one lies on their deathbed saying they wish they'd spent more time at the office.

But lots of people might say "I wish I'd had a fulfilling career instead of doing lowly druge work/ I wish I'd followed my dream, and become a doctor/rocket scientist/top chef/I wished I'd been able to afford a nice house for my kids and had the money to travel the world or send them to good schools". No one normal does their job because they lurrrrrve spending loads of time at the office, in and of itself.

As for leaning in. I leant the fuck in for nearly five years at my last job, I gave it everything, I was always available. To be fair I loved the work, but I got miserly pay rises, was never promoted,

Work and children are a tricky combination aren't they. I'm a teacher and I live quite close to school so I don't have to commute. I'm out of the house from 7 - 5 each weekday. However I'm so lucky, to be off work at the same time as my children during the long holidays. I don't know how anyone manages the holidays without a ft nanny.

There have been a few wrong generalisations about me above.

1. I write as much about the routes to happiness - which are lots of sleep (impossible with babies), eating only healthy foods, sunshine, exercise, being outside and other things that increase seratonin levels and beta endorphins. I have written about the reasons my graduate son might find his post man job a source of happiness as you're moving, outside, in sun (and rain) etc. Being "natural" is often a good way to be happy. So generalisations that suggest I am saying every man (or woman) should follow a certain career are wrong.

1. However I do say that many women do regret giving up a career and suffer because they do not lean in to work and instead lean in to house cleaning and bearing the brunt of the toddler's kicks. If you can keep up and develop a good career take it. Part time and short hours tend to damage women and often families too.

1. Nor have I ever hidden that after a 20 year marriage we divorced. Half of marriages fails. Half the marriages on this thread will end The divorce was genuinely not because of my working (except to the extent I could afford to do it - to buy happiness; plenty of people are trapped in marriage unable to divorce or living in the same house but apart for financial reasons). Nor have I mentioned that both my parents have died on the thread. We all have things that go wrong in our lives. I mention things which are relevant when they are relevant.

I do fear that this next current generation of women might take too long from work and not realise it could harm them and their employers generously in some cases go beyond 6 weeks at 90% pay which is still just about all you get bar some rather low state benefit level sum for the rest of the period and if that helps you come back to work it's worth the employer paying it. If instead if it's only offered to women not men it could in a sense pay you to ensure inequality in a marriage, to bribe women into being home doing chores after a baby comes and in a sense to us a kind of psychological blackmail by having you home for so long after birth that you feel you can't come back whereas if you were preparing to return in 6 week or 3 months which certainly used to be norms you might yes find it harder in terms of having to get up out of bed, dress in work clothes, get to work but that short term pain for the "jam tomorrow" that tends to come from leaning in could be worth it.

It is certainly good to see women earning more than their husbands as that has always been the key to fair equal decisions at home about childcare and dross chores.

The Times has some profiles today of stay at home fathers (for those who subscribe to the Times www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/magazine/article4424881.ece

They have similar issues to women who give up work. Most of them haev a higher earner spouse. They have all given up all work. Some have a joint account with wife and some not. They tended not to like their last jobs and they were on £150k - £40k and they worry that once the children don't need them what job will they get but all the four say they are pleased to have given up the work they do not like. The article also says 31% of women earn more than their husbands.

Lotus your post from early this morning is very balanced, I can't disagree with anything in it. I do think some careers are easier to make great strides in than others - there are very few routes for promotion in my line of work and the "ultimate" goal of being a headteacher is a poisoned chalice - stress levels that you couldn't pay me for. I achieved quite a lot in my career prior to having dcs and I enjoyed it, but it didn't bring me quite the fullfilment I was expecting.

I have achieved significantly more since having children than before, because I chose to keep going

Rainbow, budget cuts hampered me as much as or more than having dcs. How do you beat that?

Obviously you can't help being made redundant. I was myself a couple of years back. Some things are choices though neither myself or dh are default parent. We share the role, and work as a team. This has meant we have both carried on. It has at times been very, very hard work, however for me the pros far outweigh the cons

Thing is though, if I had leaned in and maintained my f/t role, we - as a family, rather than me specifically as an individual - would be no better off.

DH is a contractor which means he can't do very much of the drop offs and pick ups as he needs to show willing to earn £££. He would either have had to stick with a permie job which is much less well paid, or been very restricted in his contract choice so he could share the load. Before anyone jumps on DH, he already restricts himself to choices that mean he is home and night time and doesn't have too much travel.

Alternatively if we were both f/t we'd have to hire a f/t nanny as I'd be expected to do a lot of travel - week long trips away with little notice are not uncommon. If I had stayed f/t and potentially gone up a grade my salary would have been reasonable, but the increase would be more or less eroded by the additional childcare costs.

Therefore we'd both work f/t, see DS a lot less, have a lot more juggling and stress and ultimately not earn any more. Granted my pension would be slightly higher, but they have frozen those anyway so not a huge benefit.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe in equal opportunity, but once you are a family I feel the decision needs to be reviewed in the round and that means that both partners need to be involved and agree on something that works.

But it's also possible that you could have gone contracting and your DH could have gone permie in order to have the option of PT, isn't it?

This isn't meant to be a criticism of your own personal choices - which will have had far more reasons behind them than it's possible to explain in a post. Just that, there are many ways of achieving that balance.

I do think contracting with young children can be very damaging to family life and relationships if you take a lot of contracts that involve living away during the week - I think your DH's compromise of sticking to local contracts is a sensible one.

That's true slightly we could have done it the other way round. Dh just happens to like work more than I do, so our balance works well for us.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it's hard for both parents to fulfill their full working potential with young DCs.

It absolutely should not be taken as a granted that the female is the one to take the career hit, but it's a bit disingenuous not to take the impact of two f/t careers into account when we have these discussions.

in similar threads, people often say that kids are small for such a short time and it's a shame not to spend it with them. True, but on the other hand - kids are small for just a short time, but taking yourself totally off the job market for 5-10 years at least in my case would mean that I might as well rip up the CV and start from the scratch again, when I wanted to return.

Of course no one lies on their deathbed saying they wish they'd spent more time at the office.

But lots of people might say "I wish I'd had a fulfilling career instead of doing lowly druge work/ I wish I'd followed my dream, and become a doctor/rocket scientist/top chef/I wished I'd been able to afford a nice house for my kids and had the money to travel the world or send them to good schools". No one normal does their job because they lurrrrrve spending loads of time at the office, in and of itself.

Couldn't agree more.

I don't go in for all this cliched 'deathbed' crap; it's a bit too Fools and Horses 'mum's last words', for me.

I would bet, though, that plenty of people come to the end of their lives with regrets regarding how fulfilling their life has been. Plenty will wish they had been able to enjoy their retirement with enough money to make something of it. Plenty will regret not having seen places they always dreamed of. Plenty will wish they could have left their offspring more financially secure.

All of that takes money and, for most of us, that means hard work and often long, stressful hours in the work place at some point in our lives.

It's about balance.

I've seen a few women with children (3+) do very well in their careers, including my SiL. However, all of them stayed fulltime from the get-go and all of them have had a mother or mother-in-law to live with them to manage children/home - as well as domestic staff on top of that (because obviously you're hardly going to make your mum/mil do all the cleaning/cooking as well).

I have 3. We both work full time usually dh has cut down to 30 as we have a young baby, but will be going back to full time. No family help, no childcare, no cleaner.

We both have ambitions, mine bigger than dhs but he still is pursuing further qualifications and better positions. I can't see us slowing down until retirement, and we both want more children one day. Not yet though life is crazy as it is!

I agree OP.

Women lead messy lives.

I have part time job, professional salary that fits in with school so am very 'lucky'.... BUT....

I was in management role 'before children' but returned to be a lowly team member and use my technical skills. I have lost my management career but use my influence at work in different ways, I do get very annoyed by attitudes to women of my age in technical areas at work.

All the bonuses and accolades go to the 20 or 30 something heroic males who 'go the extra mile' to finish the job by staying till midnight or at weekends, and 'incredibly' manage to balance several projects!

I get to 'work' at 9.15 having spent 2 hours cleaning, cajoling, finding lost homework/shoes/pe kit, .. instead of accolades I get told I should go to head office more often (3 hours drive away) ...then leave 'work' in time to ... cook.. clear up the mess...hang out washing.. supervise homework... taxi to clubs...persuade them to eat/wash/switch off computer/revise/go to bed before midnight....plan next meals..shop online...phone Dad 3 hours away to say can't visit him in hospital to do his washing..

I actually 'work' from 7am to about 9pm and most of the weekend. (I have Wednesday off to keep sane.) But no accolades or bonuses.

So I entirely understand op. Have not had time to read all the thread.

I would say that if only 2 jobs are to be lost out of 10 you have a good chance of keeping your job: you are probably more experienced and better value than a full time employee. I have been at risk twice in last few years and it is unbelievably stressful but I kept my job, 1st time by moving and second time was one of only 3 left out a team of 8.

Good luck - hang on in there...

tiny makes good points. A lot of women think their good work will somehow just be noticed. Instead you need to see yourself as a brand and keep telling people how wonderful you are in some jobs (I suspect this comes more easily to men than to women). Half of it is doing a good job. the other half is making sure you are shouting from the roof tops about it.

One of my 20 something children rang today for a chat. She was asked by the NY office is she could lead a call on Monday. She said it was a bank holiday but could do it and they are happy. Now I would call that leaning int. She just needs now to ensure she is in an area with signal on Monday when she's out with friends in the country. Now that would be possible with a baby too - we've all done the thing where you put your hand over the phone to silence it when the child is shouting near you and I've had a good few male contacts with the same issue (child screaming at home) as well as women over the decades.

I don't think you need live in help if the man isn't sexist. We had our first children in our 20s with not too much money, certainly unable to afford things like a cleaner at first. That worked because we both tried to make sure we left work on time or one of us did and we had a daily nanny (can be cheapest option with 3 under 5 years rather than 3 nursery places).