to hope for a job that fits around my kids and school???

[susieb19]

I went back to work when my dds were 8 months and 2months old. I hated the conflict it created in me. Lllllllong story. I did it for two years and then my boss asked me one day had I found an after school club that I liked for when they started school. Something in me clicked and six months later I walked out of the office and never looked back. It took me years to be able to even look at photos of my girls during the time I was working. Anyway I didn't mean to turn this into a therapy session - just giving a bit of background. I walked away from a high paying, relatively mentally stimulating career. I appreciate that I am lucky to be in a position to have a choice about working.
I would like to contribute something and use my brain some more. But aibu to want something that fits around my children???? Outside of becoming a T.A what is there??? I know so many people like me with something to contribute but left not knowing where to turn. I am concluding starting my own business is the only way ahead??? Anyone else feel the same...

I'm lucky to have an incredibly flexible employer - I'm contracted to work 3 full days a week but they don't mind if I do this over 5 short days, or from home, or work 5 days one week and 1 the next - as long as the work gets done. There are certain days I have to be in early or stay late eg board meetings but otherwise I basically come and go as I please. My kids are preschool now but they've already agreed that I'll essentially move to term-time only working (with a few unavoidable exceptions - and not including the whole summer holiday)

It's a pita, isn't it? If I knew when I gave up my well-paid, exhausting 60+ hour a week when I had dd, I would've done things differently. I've slowly realised that my marketability doesn't extend beyond NMW work now, and even that's not always easy to come by.

I worked in a Saturday job for a few years, then in a shop for a bit, then I did some cleaning, some evening teaching, some driving, and finally some piano teaching. All very casual but guaranteed to fit around dcs.

I'm hoping to do some more piano teaching, but I'm yet to get a Diploma and it's cost a lot of money (although it's something I love).

Sadly, I think you're being unrealistic in your expectations but yanbu for having expectations! Hope you find something that suits.

School hour jobs are rare and usually go internally as employers will give them to known candidates who negotiate for them after a proven work record.

You say you both work crazy hours but you just quit. What if your DH wanted to reduce his hours to spend time with his children or does he not get a choice or say in it. Your OP comes across as very selfish and all about you.

SE usually still needs childcare at some point and with no recent work experience on your CV you won't be first pick for school hour jobs. It's likely to have to be 9-5, you both work part time and share the school runs or you work nights and weekend around your husbands hours which is what many do.

Train as a teacher and move your children to the same school. If this is a problem in your area due to places, get a job in a independent school. Then you'll have no problem getting (cheap!) places for your children too (unless you pick one that is full but plenty aren't nowadays).

I'm a single parent so staying at home was never an option for me. I've been teaching in a school which goes from 2 months to age 13 for years. It's been perfect. Younger 2 children were born while I was in this job and I was able to go back to work after just a couple of months each time and still see them every day. And then I have all of the holidays to spend with them and no childcare costs at all, term time or holiday time.

It's perfect.

That's harsh autumn, perhaps OP's DH did and does not wish to alter his work pattern/hours.

Some mums at my DC school do this digitalmums.com/. It's flexible and manageable around kids. Money not great but when they are older it can lead to bigger things.

What if your DH wanted to reduce his hours to spend time with his children or does he not get a choice or say in it. Your OP comes across as very selfish and all about you.

OP hasn't said her DH wants to reduce his hours and her post IS about her.

What a pointless post.

What if your DH wanted to reduce his hours to spend time with his children or does he not get a choice or say in it. Your OP comes across as very selfish and all about you.

OP doesn't say DH wants to reduce hours. It IS, therefore about her.

What a pointless post Autumn

Oops, twice for emphasis sorry

What's wrong with after school care? Mine loved it!

Mine would hate it as they are used to me picking them up and being able to do activities, just playing out etc.

I have a temp new job, it is 22.5 hours/week, so I can fit it in during school hours and will make it work in the holidays.

I worked part-time for many years, and always did school pick up (although DCs went to breakfast club). I've since gone FT as my job changed and there was no option for PT. My experience of looking for a replacement PT work is that it is all low paid administration work or low paid third sector roles. All decent paid PT work goes to existing employees' flexible working requests.

I work for a reasonably flexible employer, as does DH. He does BC drop off everyday, and I do ASC pick up. We also have at least one early finish which allows school pick up per week.

On occasions when I pick up DCs very early from ASC, they are invariably disappointed as they 'had plans' with their friends!!!

But to answer you AIBU, YANBU to hope, but I think you're pinning those hopes on jobs that are like hens teeth!

Yanbu to hope, but it's tough. If you'd be willing to use at least some childcare, not be there for every single drop off and pick up, you'd hugely increase your options. There's a lot of part time work out there that isn't. 9.30-3 term time only. There's a middle ground.

Also I'm not sure even a TA role would allow you to do pick up every day, even if you were at the same school as your DC. They usually have to stay another half hour after school closes. Most non teachers I know who work in schools are 8.30-4, aside from lunch staff (an option?) and cleaners.

It's so hard isn't it? I've been a SAHM for 4.5 years now, and although I accept going back to my old career would be pretty much impossible, I'd love to eventually find a job that fits around school hours. They're as rare as hen's teeth though.

I think it's sad that such a simple ambition is considered unrealistic, and you're getting snippy responses about your feelings of guilt.

I don't want my kids to go to after school clubs either. It's such a long day when they're so little. I know I really appreciated being able to go home to my mum as soon as school finished.

So I don't know what the solution is! Everything is towards mothers not leaving the workforce.

I very rarely see men compromising their long term earning power and financial security by going PT or SAH, or even "just" working FT and not loads of overtime!

Vagueidea, what's stopping you getting a job in a school as a lunchtime assistant, learning mentor, teaching assistant etc. I know loads of mums who have done this since their kids started school.
It does slightly irritate when people wail that there are no school hours jobs, yes there are, in schools! There are thousands of schools in the uk, yes teachers work a lot of extra hours, but lunchtime assistants and teaching assistants don't! start by volunteering in school and you will be well placed for any roles that come up. Friends of mine are business managers, school admin, school librarian, teaching assistants, dinner ladies, special needs helpers etc etc etc. It's really not that hard to get a foot in the door by being a dinner lady. Most people don't want the job because it's one to two hours per day only but it can lead to other roles in the school.

I work for myself and intend to do school hours when my ds goes to school. But I certainly can't abandon the business all summer so ds will be doing some kind of holiday childcare.

Vagueidea, what's stopping you getting a job in a school as a lunchtime assistant, learning mentor, teaching assistant etc

Well, neither of my children are of school age yet, for starters

And also, if I'm honest, I've never wanted to work with children. I have a (now fairly redundant!) Masters degree, I don't want to be a MDA!

I wish there were more opportunities for school-hours jobs outside of schools. I used to work in a university. One of my colleagues worked part time and got ALL school holidays off. How she wangled such brilliant hours I'll never know. It helped that she'd been working there forever. Don't think those sort of roles are advertised; they evolve.

I work hours that pretty much fit in with the school day, apart from one full day.

I did this by staying with the company I was with before I had DS , and eventually realising that trying to work my relatively senior position in p/t hours was too much, then dropping grade and being properly p/t.

It is hard in different ways. I have to swallow my pride as I watch those around me being promoted, but as DH is a contractor ( done to maximise our joint income) I do pretty much all childcare related things so can't travel at short notice and DS doesn't want to be in afterschool 5 days a week.

Upside is I keep earning and putting towards my pension ( we're also contributing to a pension outside of work so I don't lose out by dropping my earnings) and I have the opportunity to move back up the ladder when I want to.

At our office the big thing these days is encouraging job shares. Not sure if that's for me as then who gets the school holidays and how do they evaluate me, but it certainly seems to be a way to keep a career and a bit of a home life.

There are more options than there initially look, and whilst I do agree it would be amazing if more employers were family friendly, I also think that your flexibility as a worker is pretty key to getting a great deal here.

If you want 10-2 with a bit of travel to get to the office, plus all school holidays off, you will be waiting a very long time. Or you could work in a school as someone else has said- or in a few hours a day admin role where the actual hours themselves don't matter.

The problem is that the hours do matter for lots of jobs- if you take the 10-2 shift in a shop, someone else has to do 8-10 and 2-6 or whatever. Similarly a lot of service jobs or interacting with the public aren't realistically going to happen in some small part of the middle of the day!

Better paid are things like computer programmer/engineer or lawyer/solicitor if you can work from home, but these are jobs which are often extremely demanding, I know someone who does this, but they have to work long hours if there is a crisis, certainly couldn't clock off at 2pm if there's an issue to solve.

Setting up your own business, or doing consultancy (e.g. tutoring, or your own field) is again ideal, but in reality, everyone I know that does this hates the precariousness of their financial situation (unless they have a partner with a very steady job) and works quite long hours anyway.

If you want to be there at home time, what about evenings/Sat jobs (e.g. caring/elderly people overnights)- then the other parent gets some time with the children and you get to work.

My job is extremely family friendly, but extremely demanding, it's full time and I work most holidays, plus a bit on weekends. I don't mind, I think the trade-off with family friendliness is great, and the children seem fine with a mix of parental/childcare and are getting older anyway, so their first thought on getting in isn't to see you!

OP, attitudes like yours are the very reason some employers are put off hiring mums with young kids...

I used to work in retail and it was well-known amongst management that the mums would never be hired permanently because of their demands once they did. Harsh, but I am just being honest.

Good luck with your search though.

P, attitudes like yours are the very reason some employers are put off hiring mums with young kids...

I know full well that mothers with young children are an unattractive employment prospect for myriad reasons, but to say a desire to work around the needs of your kids is a bad attitude...

Do you have a skill you can market independently?

Both my sister and I are doing what we used to do but set up on our own (very different fields) or in my sisters case with a colleague of hers.

Clients like that our fees are lower as we have minimal overheads and they get a more personal, responsive service. They also get the senior person on call and dealing with their matter rather than being fobbed off to junior staff as you get in traditional companies. Money earned goes straight to us (subject to tax of course). And utter, utter flexibility. Not for everyone but when it works its great. I am there everyday after school as work school days and sometimes see clients in the evenings. My sister has a funky home office in her garden

No job is perfect and I think there's generally a need for some degree of flexibility and willingness to compromise, whether you have children or not. It might be the commute, the salary or the hours but something generally has to give.

Of course there is going to be a shortage of well paid and intellectually stimulating jobs where you only work between the hours of 9.30am and 2.30pm and have school holidays off because there aren't many businesses/sectors who can function effectively with their staff on those kinds of hours and they can't agree to this arrangement for some but not for others. I have a lot of friends who work in schools (admin, TA's, Learning Mentors etc) and they typically work 8.30-4pm/4.30pm. Even the school nurses around here aren't allowed to work term time only anymore, they spend holidays doing admin.

Most of the working parents I know consider their job 'family friendly' if it's not full time and means they can do school pick up/drop off 2-3 times a week so that they don't need to use childcare every day. I think most people accept that WOH means they will inevitably have less time with their children than if they were a SAHM. If your idea of a 'family friendly' job is a job that has no impact whatsoever on family life or childcare arrangements then, yes I think that's unrealistic I'm afraid.

The reality is that when you are in a job you can make a flexible working request e.g to go part time. It is much much easier to secure that than to find a part time job from scratch. Yet many women don't do that, they quit all together and wonder why they can't find a part time job. Never quit work all together without at least trying for a part time option with your current employer. If you have quit work and want a school hours job, don't think yourself above working as an assistant in a school just because you once had a more senior role.

Absolutely mouldycheese - there's no way I would find a job with anything like as good working hours as I have, had I quit rather than renegotiated at with my current employer. Yet I was so close to quitting that it scares me to think about it as I don't think being a SAHM would have suited me at all.

I'm not term time only, but although it's a huge hassle sorting out childcare I'm not sure I'd enjoy entertaining DS for the entire holidays. I have however taken unpaid parental leave for blocks of it.