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?

I agree OP, to an extent.

This time last year, DH and I were both in full time employment, with the same job title (senior in house lawyers at different companies). In fact I was probably a bit senior to him, technically, as I was at exec level (albeit at a smaller company) while he was more senior to me in term sof years of qualification and pay.

Fast-forward a year and I am on mat leave with our first child, he has just been head hunted to a v senior head of legal role and I am preparing to start a new job at 20 hours a week because my old job couldn't make a part time OR flexible working request work (despite the fact they were more than happy to make use of "flexible working" when it meant me being contactable out of hours or while I was on annual leave).

I am very privileged to be complaining about this, and not how to pay the mortgage or put shoes on DS' feet. I'm lucky that DH has a well paid job, I'm really lucky to have a found a job where I can work 3 days 9 - 3 and a few hours from home, they're not exactly common in my industry. But I have to admit to feeling a real twinge when it all came about, I felt really jealous of DH. We have the same degrees, I know I'm as smart as him, but somehow my career has taken the typical "part time mum working school hours" route while his is forging ahead!

I've had to remind myself that we can't both be going full steam ahead while we have young kids, I'm lucky to be able to spend some time at home with DS and any future DC, and that this job is a great way to keep my skills current while I have young children and hopefully a few years down the track opportunities for promotion will arise and it will be DH's turn to support me in my career.

I would never quit work to be a full time SAHM though - obviously there's nothign wrong with that if you want to, but I do think taking 3+ years out irreperably damages your career if you're a lawyer.

And you can have it all. You just can't have it all at the same time. Men with big jobs don't necessarily "have it all" by the same definition - they work long hours and they don't spend much time with their kids. Maybe it bothers them less, or maybe they just have to suck it up.

I think it's unrealistic to expect to be getting senior promotions while only working 3 days or whatever

Gen - fully agree with your post

I don't really understand this. It's nothing to do with having children, it's about wanting to work part time. If a bloke announced that he wanted to take a year off and then come back part time, he's likely to see restrictions on his career because he's taken time out and then not come back full time.
I get that this sucks because women have to physically have the babies, so not only have to carry them and go through birth, but then also have that bond which makes them want to stay at home, but that's not society's fault and there's nothing we can do to change that.
I'm pregnant with DS2, I came back after DS1 making it clear that I was totally committed to my work full time. I work in a company that expects travel and being on call out of hours, virtually 24 hours as we work globally. I spent the first 6 months after mat leave proving that I was back in the game and gained respect for doing that as the men I worked with expected most women to come back part time, it means they support me when I need to work more flexibly. They also empathise when I say that staying at home with my son isn't for me, so we feel like we're on the same wave length.
If you want to spend more time at home in working hours with your children, then your career will falter, whatever your gender.

It is only this way if you let it be. Apart from bearing the child you can choose to be no different to the father of the child. You can choose to go back to work after 2 weeks and leave the baby with his father and a bottle. You can choose to be the one who works 12 hour days, commutes and then comes home to a tired and exhausted partner who hasn't had a bath all day and is covered in baby goop and just wants you to take the baby while he has a wee and then sit with the same baby on your knee while you get through a pile of paperwork for work tomorrow. You can choose to be the one who earns all the money and travels for work and misses bath time and who feels that you earnings are going on coffee mornings and yoga classes.
if that is what you want, choose it.

Choose not to be constrained by what society expects. Enjoy.

In some ways the availability of a year off for parental leave is detrimental to women's careers, though I think it is generally speaking A Good Thing.

I am going back to work when DS is 6 months (in aforementioned part-time, flexible role, 3 days a week) and have had SO many negative comments about "going back to work SO SOON", the "attachment issues" that will inevitably ensure, "won't you cry all the way to work for weeks? I did and I went back when my youngest was two." FFS

If I was in the US and was going back to work part time after 7 months off I'd probably be seen as really lucky to have had such a long break! (Not that I think the US is a template for working parenthood - AT ALL - I'm just noting how context dependent it all is.)

In that situation, why not share the role?

It's not always possible or desirable. As an example, a chief engineer at an F1 team will have a very clear idea of how the team will operate and the design direction. With design there is generally no right or wrong solution but is down to personal experience.

The team will also be clear on their direction and whilst two chiefs could agree on some things, won't on everything. In this case you'd need a director to mediate, which is undesirable.

I've been in a similar situation but with a job so big it needed 2 fill time chiefs. It just wasn't workable as your team get sick of being pushed in all directions.

Gennz, yes I agree - I have always said long maternity leaves are a "poisoned chalice" dangled in front of women as some benefit whereas they are hiding behind the shiny loveliness a damaging thing encouraging the start of sexism and unfairness in a marriage. Perhaps the greatest gift ever given me after the 5 children, was the fact when I had our 5 I basically had no maternity rights (self employed with the twins so taking calls the next day etc etc). So not surprisingly I ended up with a happy fair life and a lot of money. I was off for 2 weeks (rare to be so short in my day but fine for those of us who were not ill with pregnancy) - and in those days 3 months was fairly standard. A year off (fairly standard now) can in some careers become damaging. I don't even accept it's better for babies (I expressed milk at work) as they get used to mother at home for a year and then are rent asunder. If from week 2 they have mummy, daddy and nanny consistently (our nanny stayed 10 years) then there is no big change to the life of the child so even those arguing about psychology presumably accept going back fast as well as being good for parents' mental health and sanity can see it can be good for babies too.

I don't agree with " I've had to remind myself that we can't both be going full steam ahead while we have young kids". I have known lots of couples for 30 years who both work full time.

What might change now is transferrable leave is coming in. We know an in house lawyer couple where mother took the first 6 months and the father the second. Both are now working full time again. Wife earns more.

In our case we made sure that most nights one of us was home by 6 or 6.30 (when our daily nanny went home). Now that may well have damaged careers a bit but it was acceptable and if it led me to working for myself (i.e. keeping all the money and being in charge) then it was a lovely silver lining.

Presumably the male partners could also have gone part-time, which I'm guessing would also preclude them from management if that's not suitable for the company on anything less than full-time (no time now to RTFT though).

Pico2- so you believe you give better value to your employer by working 4 days than you did when you worked 5... That may be true for you but it doesn't hold true for all... Many full time workers give 100% commitment.

I think the big issue is that men who work long hours are patted on the back for being 'hard working', otoh women who do the same are accused of beibg selfish .

When I had dd1 everyone I talked to about going back to work automatically assumed I would go back part time. WHY?

I went back ft at the start and then dropped to 4 days. I was forced for a while to job share at 3 - the reaction 'well that's much better isn't it?'. My js partner left and I went back to 4 amongst choruses of ooh we don't want you getting stressed wtaf.... doing a ft job in 3 days a week is so relaxing (JS in my experience it depends on the job, we had 2 the first it worked and the second it didn't).

I think largely yanbu op. To be taken seriously you need to be very good at your job (but that is colleagues not management ime). I am so that's OK. I don't know about promotion, but my career maintenance is OK. They do get good value out of me though no doubt.

Once dd2 starts school I would think about FT but I want to work to live rather than the opposite.

Sharing mat leave might work if you were on similar salaries, but now DH earns twice what I do (even if I was FT), so it would be hard to justify that kind of pay cut even if just for 6 months. It's a good problem to have, sort of, but it does exacerbate the pattern of the woman's career falling behind.

Before DH got this job, & before I realised my old company were going to be totally inflexible, we were both going to do 4 day weeks.

I think there is a difference between working FT when you are self-employed, and thus have some autonomy over how your hours are structured, versus being FT at a company with a presenteeism culture. The former I could go for, but no way are both of us going to be full-time workers under the latter category when we have a six month old baby.

I still maintain that whatever improvements to the system could be made (and no system is perfect)'there has never been a better time in history to have children, from the perspective of equality/ balance for mums and dads.

I had my first almost 25 years ago, and I have managed to retain a good career, despite far less favourable conditions (short maternity leave, no financial help/ free hours childcare, no paternity leave...) True my pension isn't as good and my salary slightly behind DH, but that's because i chose to work 3 days a week for about 3 years.
If I were having a baby now in 2015, we would share parental leave and I think it would be easier from that point to maintain equality in our careers

Its a myth that the public sector is always family friendly/flexible etc. Its depends more on the profession and the individual manager.

Dp works in the private sector and benefits from home working, doesn't have to take annual leave for medical appts etc, no one bats an eyelid if he is in a little later/leave earlier etc.
Very different story in my public sector workplace (though its still vastly more flexible than the private sector equivalent).

If shared parental leave had been available when dd was born we absolutely would have taken it up.

"A chief engineer at a F1 team" is not, one suspects, the typical job held by the average parent, so I'm not sure how much I can take away from that example!

It is when I joined a French company that I realised how bad the UK is at managing this issue. Many senior managers in the French office are female with young children in real contrast to the UK. It works well in France for a variety of reasons including subsidised child care, support at senior level for part time work, investments in technology to allow employees work from home and discouraging a late working culture - e.g meetings during the working hours. You see female heads of departments with three or four children here, which is rare on this side of the pond. The beauty of it is that men also benefit from this culture.

I think this should actually be broached at college/Uni age. I'm massively a fan of retraining or having a back up trade you love throughout your 'main' career that you can then utilise when you need a more flexible option post baby. I think it's simply the case that if we choose to have babies then we are accepting the reality that this carries some massive logistical issues that may well affect our careers (whoever the main carer turns out to be - the male or the female). Since having my little one I retrained, am now self employed and also fell back on a trade that I adore and which I've held for 20 yrs. I'm adult happier now than I was in FT work in a more 'normal' workplace set up and have gained a more specialist profile than I did before as a result. I have great passion for what I do and the shake up of having a baby actually made that possible.

I think women and men should be told to strategies long term when embarking on their degrees to make sure they are looking at fulfilment and career success long term, including after starting a family and that takes time, thought, planning, training, flexibility and some creative thinking.

Bluesky - the best strategy seems to be to live somewhere near your mum, with affordable housing and where commutes are very short....

I've seen the biggest drop out rate for mothers in London. Housing within a reasonable commute and reasonable school catchments is prohibitively expensive. Moving further out involves longer commutes, even working full time its tricky to make nursery/school pick ups on time.

In contrast, friends and family who stayed in their home towns are working full time with 3 kids and seem very relaxed about it all...

So the lesson is: work in a field not tied to any particular region/city.

OP here. It's fascinating to read so many views. Out of interest, if you choose to go back ft and your DC is school age, how on earth do you manage? If I had gone back ft, both DH and I would have to leave for work at 7am. We would get back at around 7.30pm. Where would DS be before and after school? There's no way our salaries would cover a nanny, and it would be pushing it to even afford a cm for that length of time (especially in the holidays). Plus DH regularly gets stuffed by the trains and wanders in at 8.30. It's just not feasible. What if we were both stuck on the commute and DS was languishing somewhere past bedtime with a carer? Even if I had decided to go back to work ft, I can't see how it would have worked, so I DIDN'T have the luxury of choice.

And as for working from home, I work one day in the office (DH works at home that day so he can do the school run as there is no other childcare option) and at home for 2 days. As a result I have a much lower presence in the office, miss out on stuff, and don't have as much regard as my colleagues who are in 5 days a week. I find I have to work twice as hard on my days at home to maintain any semblance of respect. People assume (jokingly) that I'm hanging out the washing, popping a cake in the oven, chatting on the phone and I have to work very hard to dispel those myths. Again, it isn't feasible for me to be in the office 3 days a week so I DIDN'T make the choice to work from home... it was work from home or quit. These are the things that bug me... that young women will be unaware of the restrictions they will face when they reach the end of their maternity leave.

Millionprammiles there you go! You've pretty much addressed what I said in my post. Live near your family. Avoid long commutes. Otherwise you're absolutely stuffed. Sadly there are no jobs in my field close to home. It's London or bust. And I have no family nearby. I guess I should have thought about that when I was 18.

Yellow tulips

It costs less to employ 2 people in 25k than one on £50k

-less NI
-less pension

Also it's less of a problem when one is on annual leave/off sick.

Imo all roles should be assessed for their suitability for job share and should be advertised as available for job share if so.

When I left my job for maternity leave I worked full time, Mon-Fri, 9-5. Five months prior to returning to work I requested to reduce my hours to three days as I didn't want to be away from DS so much but I was told it wasn't possible. As a result I handed in my notice and got a new job where I could work 32.5 hours over 2.5 days.

When I started my new job a colleague asked me what hours I was doing and she looked gob-smacked when I told her. She said in a really patronising and sympathetic tone, "That's such a long time to be away from your baby."

I only worked 2.5 days!!

I doubt anyone would have batted an eyelid about DH working five days a week though.

I can't stand the hypocrisy.

Imo all roles should be assessed for their suitability for job share and should be advertised as available for job share if so

Totally agree with this.

Yes at times having a role covered by a job share will be difficult but a lot if the time there will be benefits to the company.

YANBU.

Sure, it's your "choice" insofar as you're choosing between having a family and having a career. This is not a choice that most men have to make.

Its probably been said but its not unfair to women versus men - they have the same choice (or probably less in reality ) - balancing work vs seeing children. Everyone makes sacrifice except its so socially acceptable that men don't see their children much (and I do wonder how much men mind as there surely would have been change in working hours if they did) that a man working long hours isn't seen as a sacrifice.

But it is a choice- OP you chose to be the pt/wfh parent rather than DP- why? You chose to live as a commuter rather than in London ? why?

also your decisions then facilitate your DPs working hours which then undermine the ability of people he works with to advance their careers without doing similar hours - its a vicious circle.