To ask how having children affected your career?

[Fluffysparks]

Just that really. Were you employed before having the DC, how much time did you take out and do you think it affected your career? I’ve just realised that it probably has with me, in more ways than one, and I’ve been quite lucky as well...

I'm stuffed. Have 2 small DC. Back at work part time but not allowed to apply for a promotion

Not at all. I went back 90% after 4 months with no.1 and 100% after 8 months off with no.2.

I have been lucky enough to have healthy children, and a well paid professional role which allows me to be home based and flexible. Which has meant I don't even have to take time off for their sickness.

Neither of our careers took a back seat. I was the higher earner when we met. He has changed career and is now the higher earner. But, we are both high earners from a tax perspective and with 5 years between children, we never had two in full time nursery. Which made it more affordable.

On paper, having DC has basically fucked my career but I'm much happier now I'm no longer run ragged trying to have it all.

Before having DC I worked for the NHS at Band 7. After having DD I thought I was lucky to be allowed to return to the same role part time but quickly realised this just meant I was expected to squeeze my FT role into less hours .
As the cuts started to bite we lost staff and I ended up working so much unpaid overtime and doing so much admin at home that I was working more hours than when I was FT. It simply wasn't sustainable once I had DC and my mental health began to suffer as a result of constantly spinning plates. It doesn't help that DH works in a highly competitive, very male dominated industry where there is zero flexibility and even asking for flexibility is enough to stop you being taken seriously.
I reluctantly dropped down to a Band 5 role thinking the drop in salary would be worth more time with DC, a shorter commute and less stress. Unfortunately, the service was privatised and we were told we would now be "agile working" across the county (goodbye short commute) and moving from office hours to covering evenings and weekends (goodbye family friendly hours) which again was not sustainable in terms of childcare.
I ended up leaving the NHS and my profession altogether. I now have a job that doesn't pay very well and has no opportunity for progression but I love the work and it is low stress, term time only (absolute godsend!) and allows me a good work/life balance. So in that respect I am lucky.

Fuck me, this is a depressing thread though

Lethaldrizzle I'd actually agree with that. I've also only worked in consumer-facing private sector companies, where there does seem to be a trend towards flexible working, agile working, etc - this has made things manageable.

Trying to make the thread slightly more positive - I can immediately think of over ten senior women in my current business, who have children and all of whom do variations on flexible working. Shared parental leave has also been picked up by some of the men in the business and initial reports seem to suggest this will be a positive change.

We timed them well so that we were both in good stable jobs when they came along. I went back after maternity but changed jobs about six months later as I found a better role through the volunteering I did on maternity.

I'd have been disappointed if my DH had expected me to shoulder it all alone but we both wanted to keep our jobs so made it work. I'd have never agreed to stop working, it's too hard to get back into and leaves a person very vulnerable.

It's changed completely as I did not want to go back to an office job with a long commute and small children. I have started my own business which is both scary and exciting.

Same as @Ktown, no impact, in fact I was promoted to senior management only 2 months after my second round of mat leave. Two under 4 in Nursery is expensive and we pay a premium for high quality childcare, with support from grandparents. Drop off/pick up and illnesses covered 50:50 by DH and I. Online food shop, cleaner and very organised morning routine coupled with flexible working requests, means we can both work full time. I make sure we do loads of family based activities on a weekend. We all eat breakfast together every day before work/Nursery, albeit early at 6:00 and we all do bath and bed time together too. It can work!

I would say it's impacted both our careers equally ( both had about 18 months out and pt for 4-5 years afterwards) I am now 41 with ds (13) and add (11) and would say it is pretty much back on track. Like others I continued to pay in to pension throughout so the pastime years have cost me £5-10,000 in pension . I am very much a minority within our peer group. It goes without saying dh does his share, we also have a cleaner (no childcare these days)

I'm doing exactly the same job as I was prior to having DD1, slightly reduced hours but kept my final salary pension, have tonnes of flexibility and earn a decent sum of money.

However I have chosen not to try climbing the career ladder until the children are much older.

Once you step onto the next rung in our organisation your contract becomes annualised and travel becomes at least a weekly event rather than the odd every other month.

Whilst it's not outside my grasp to achieve these things and I've been encouraged to apply for promotion I don't want to step up until I'm ready to make that commitment.

I'm still the principal breadwinner in the family and have a decent reputation in my field. Pausing in place for a while isn't going to hurt because my experiences will be just as valid in 6 or 7 years when I start applying for new jobs as it is now.

I have a male colleague who is in exactly the same boat as me, he's not shifting positions until his children are slightly older because he wants to enjoy their childhood whilst earning rather than constantly video calling them from random hotel rooms to say goodnight.

Wow.

Never quite got the "career" going before having children.
Did Uni then a professional qualification, had first child before completing it. Carried on studying but worked part time so had to take a massive drop in income and that also stalled progression. Passed exams, but working part time meant no progression.

Decided on pursuit of second "career" alongside professional qualification... one that is much more family friendly. So I studied for that at evening classes, got new part time role alongside other part time role... had another baby.

Juggled 2 jobs for a few years. Then got made redundant from original role. Timing was great - landed lots of work in new role. Worked on various temporary contracts until I finally got a proper position a couple of years ago.

New "career" has been great and I love it, but it's not comparable to the potential career I could have had without children... weird to think I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for them! I've done a mix of part time, part time in 2 jobs = full time, full time... working full time now and thinking about my pension. However, this was my choice - I could have worked full time int he original career but I wanted to have some time with my babies!

And meanwhile DH has bumbled along doing his job for the last god knows how long. Not interested in progression.

Well, I think I chose to let children effect my career as I found being around them more rewarding than being in the office. Nothing, initially anyway, stopped me from returning back to the exact job I had full time and getting on with it (certainly for my first child that's true) it paid more than childcare, childcare was available for the time needed. I know lots of women would have really struggled to return to their old jobs because of a lack of childcare at the times and prices needed but for me it was a choice.

Once I decided to go part time everything stalled. I've enjoyed the time I had as a result, but if I can't afford heating in my old age I might think I made a really silly decision.

I had DS in my final year of uni as a single parent, and he is severely disabled so I never really started a career after he was born. Childcare wasn't an option due to his high level of need, including challenging behaviour which meant that even specialist nannies turned him away, and he would often need urgent attention which would mean leaving to collect him suddenly. Financially we get extra benefits due to his needs, plus secure housing, which meant that there was no real financial advantage to working, unless I was on a very high salary (£60k+). Sometimes I feel sad at not having had a career, but watching my peers struggle with balancing family and work life, in some ways I feel glad that I've had the option to just focus on me and my family's needs.

I think I have done ok.
After DC I moved sector to more child friendly hours job.
I'm part time yet paid similar to what I was getting full time which I'm happy with and have no wish to move up any further. Concentrating on early retirement so glad the pension plan which I started early 30's is panning out.

*What a horrible read.

All these educated successful women basically giving up their career, financial stability, pension etc to have children and let their husband/partner continue as if he never had children.*

Yup. And we are very much equal parents, split the daycare drop offs and pickups equally, dh is doing parents night tonight. Do 50:50 Sickness cover etc.

It’s not how I wanted it. The reality where I live is that you can’t put them in daycare under one, and there is an autumn and a spring intake and that’s it. My pension is still being contributed to, but I’m keenly aware it’s knocked me back in career terms.

Even if we’d split the parental leave 50:50 my work would still have demoted me. As soon as I told them I was pregnant they were gunning for me. Dh on the other hand received congratulations and a promotion.

Even if you try to be as equal as you can, the system is stacked against you. Hoping to read some more positive stories on here. For me, of course having ds has been wonderful. At the same time, career wise, it’s been at best disruptive.

Further down the line I suspect dh will be offered a move abroad to the USA or somewhere I can’t work. That will be the time for serious discussions, I’m not sure I could give up security to be a training spouse....

I'm always surprised at the amount some people need to travel for work- it seems so old fashioned and sweat shoppy to expect your staff to spend their own time in airports and hotels.

My DB has to travel a lot and is very well paid but I just think it's a shit job. It has to be well paid because people don't want to do it. Its blood money.

Then they say my SIL has to stay at home and she can't work whilst he travels so much but it's a self fulfilling prophecy is'nt it? Neither DH or I could take a job with lots of travel as I am not willing to do more than 50% childcare and wouldn't expect him to either.

That said, thinking about it I've been family proofing my career since my late 20s and you can bet your life my DH hasn't!

Fucked it and now I'm a single parent which has screwed things even more having no flexibility. There's days I could cry thinking of the wasted opportunities.

I'm always surprised at the amount some people need to travel for work- it seems so old fashioned and sweat shoppy to expect your staff to spend their own time in airports and hotels.

It sucks massively, especially when it’s a weekend. There’s just no substitute for actually being there sometimes though.

It is shit and I hate it.

I completely gave up a stellar career and didn't work for 25 years.
We were pretty skint for much of it and lived on the basis of need not want.
We wanted to spend as much time as possible on our children and to me that was putting them first. I couldn't have entertained working unless of course we needed the money.
Holidays and other luxuries would have been nice, but they weren't important or necessary to us.

I don't expect anyone else to share our views it's down to what you and your partner want to do. It worked for us and was what we wanted.

Fucked it totally here too. 7 years ago had a good job was the main earner, had my daughter and couldn't back to my job as the hours were too long and a big commute. Basically had low level admin jobs ever since to fit around childcare. My husband in the last 7 years has been promoted twice and head hunted. Everyday my shitty boring job with low pay gets me down, I feel invisible

Went back to work 2 months after DD was born. DH was finishing his PHD/starting post doc so was SAHD. Managed to salvage it but it's been a mad, exhausting, long road of being ruthless and ambitious.

My career will never really recover, but having children made me realise, at least in part, how hollow career success of the sort I always imagined having would have been iyswim.

Having a baby shattered my mental health for a good 4/5 years and I will never be quite the same. It was through that method that my career was impacted - time off work, phased returns, spending a lot of time staring at the wall wondering who the hell I was....

Now I have my mental health (mostly) back together I realise I've probably just jumped the queue for my mid life crisis...and get on with being content with doing alright at my job instead of being some trail blazing superstar.

My story is similar to Tequila’s - had DCs when young (late teens/early 20s) and did the career bit afterwards.

It means that professionally, I’m ten years behind colleagues my age, but they’re now trying to work out how they will be able to have children now and I’ve accidentally already done that bit. So it’s swings and roundabouts really - I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer.

My DC are still at home with me, and having kids means I rely quite a bit on the goodwill of my boss and colleagues, so it limits my options in respect of finding a similar job elsewhere as it’s too risky to go somewhere that might be incompatible with having kids.

On the flip side, though, I’m only in the career I’m in (city law) because I have kids - I love my job, but there’s no way this would have been my career choice if I didn’t have kids to support. I would’ve worked in the arts instead.

I think the notion that people who aren’t doing a FT job in some company are wasted intellectually is probably a bit of an overreaction - I’m sure many do plenty to contribute to society in other ways (I know I did as a SAHM) and whilst it’s great to have female role models, it’s no good if it’s to the detriment of their families and what they want to do.

Working isn’t everything - if I won the lottery I could quite easily give up my job and find a million intellectually-stimulating things I’d rather be doing.

Pre DC I worked in the city - full time, long hours, stressful, very well paid.

I was a SAHM (plus a little freelancing / voluntary work) while my DC were little. That was my choice - I could have gone back full time or part time.

When my youngest started school I got a different job in the public sector. I work part time (0.5 FTE) and earn less than half of my previous salary (pro rata, so less than a quarter allowing for the fact I am part time).

But I love my job, I have a great work/life balance, see lots of my DC and I wouldn't change a thing. My career has suffered only in terms of money, not in terms of how interesting and fulfilling it is.

Before having a family I earned more than my dh now my career prospects are dead in the water because I can't provide the last minute flexibility required to get promoted. I love being a mum but I can't have everything and it makes me very sad.

What aren't any of your partners providing the "last minute flexibility"???