to think that I can work 60hr weeks and still hold the family together

[AngelicCurls]

Currently in senior management role which covers a number of sites. Number of sites I manage was increased last year, without consultation (although within the contract this possibility existed)

For you to decide. I've done it but I was happy to pay someone to collect the children from school and look after them at our house until 6. I don't think they remotely suffered for that and I didn't miss out. I suspect your problem is caused by the fact you want to be around the children more before 6pm than most working parents, male or female and feel torn. Perhaps if you just had a talk with yourself that our children won't mind if someone else has them until 6 every day that would solve the problem immediately!

supermum having am assistant would be wonderful, unfortunately I don’t have that luxury, I directly manage the teams at my sites. I don’t think an assistant would be a goer, but I do think dividing the role might work, am thinking about that with the guy who is new as to whether he could take some responsibility in time.

haribeau cheers for that. Yes I am grateful I have a job that comes with a wage and options, but that doesn’t make my dilemma any less valid.

I am a teacher and work long hours. However I get the school holidays so really it's like a 35 hour week just condensed over less of the year if you look at it like that. I think doing 60 hour weeks without that break would be very tough.

It all depends on what your husband is working. I think if you’re trying to do the majority of the child stuff and work long hours you’ll struggle, especially when the children get older and start wanting to do activities and need taking places after school and over the weekend.

You need to decide what you want. You could work the hours but it will impact on you and your family.

I have just made the decision to step down from a senior role. It had taken over my life, even when I wasn't in work. I could do the role brilliantly but it was at a high cost to me.

It wasn't an easy decision as I have worked bloody hard for 3 years juggling work, childcare and life. Working and career progression has always been "me". However, I was becoming burntout with the constant juggling. Something had to give, so I evaluated what was more important to me.

I feel resentment that I can't have it all but that's a fact I can't change. I had to make a choice about how I wanted to spend my time. You need to do this.

Either choice is fine but remember you do have a choice.

I think breaking up your day as you're doing now is a bad idea. You say that you stop work for a few hours i the afternoon to do child stuff, and then play catch-up until 11, and that's the bit I think has to go.

Presumably you're being well paid for what you're doing, so I think that a nanny for this part of the day would be a huge help. Don't put down what you're doing, keep the momentum going, and switch off your computer at 6pm. If you're working at 11pm you are not firing on all cylinders and your sleep is being impacted, because surely you're not turning off the computer and sleeping soundly 10 minutes later, right?

A nanny means that the children are home, relaxed and being cared for one-to-one and not staying late in after school care or nursery and you can at least come and give them a kiss when they get in.

Op anything above 35 hours is full time.

Personally I’d train this chap up and pay him to be at home but on call alternate days so you can be on alternate days call too.

It’s easy to think you’re the only person who can do the job but you’re not. Others can do it with training.

What happens at weekends?

My husband is completely absent through work Monday to Friday but the weekends are completely family time.

Personally I’d let everyone know that emails received between 5pm and 8pm won’t be responded to until after 8pm as you have other work and family commitments during those two hours.

People will start timing their emails better if they have any flexibility.

Also it’s one thing for management to say that emails need to be replied to immediately but they actually need to set something up to enable that to happen. They can’t dump that on one persons shoulders.

Op give the problem to your management and ask them to resolve it. You could list various workable solutions and let them decide.

We did this for many years but the other way round. My husband worked incredibly long hours - about 80 a week usually whilst the children were little. We had decided together my career would take the hit as we couldn’t afford to live on maternity pay. I don’t see how you can both work such long hours without something giving.

I became the child carer and managed the home. We travelled around the country when my husband was speaking at conferences so he’d see them over the weekend. We went and visited him at work sometimes. We moved around the country several times to allow his career to progress. I worked part-time and did some lecturing to maintain a career profile and current professional referees.Then when they went boarding, I returned to full time work and moved back onto the career ladder.

I did 60-70 hour weeks until DS1 was 4 and DS2 was 2. I burnt out.

Wasn't helped by having 2 awful sleepers so I was up multiple times a night with them.

I couldn't carry on and suddenly discovered that my ambition had gone. I side stepped into an easier job (different company). Same money but it will no longer increase like before.

My life has changed for the better in so many ways. I see more of my DC. I am less stressed. I am healthier. I have more head space for DH.

I have zero regrets.

I work at a senior level, managing a group of 16 sites. They are not open 24/7 which will make a difference, however after 8 years in the role I have found a bit of a balance, and I would say most weeks I probably work 40–45 hours max.
One of the things that has worked for me is making clear my expectations regarding emails from my team. I expect them to contact me by phone in the first instance, and if I need follow up info sent via email I will then ask them to do so at that point. I find that I can deal with most queries and issues much more quickly over the phone rather than having to sit down, read and digest their email, compose a reply, send it, and wait for someone to get back to me!
Also, if your team can’t get through the day without escalating so much stuff to you, are they really doing their job?
It’s hard to answer properly without knowing more about the industry and your role but would also agree that your time management consultant needs to jog on with regards to answering emails in the evenings! Don’t be a slave to your inbox.

I was middle management working about 55 hours a week and had the same attitude as you. I'd been there a long time and worked hard to progress and it had been my only focus for years.
Then I fell pregnant and massively reduced my international travel - and guess what? Everything kept going. I had a lot more knowledge than a lot of people but they figured it out without me.
I chose not to go back after maternity as I couldn't find a way to make the same job work with my family. And it's still going without me. They lost a lot of history and knowledge when I left but people learn.
Possibly a deciding factor in me not going back was the harsh realisation that I would continue to put in so much for them but they could get rid of me in a heartbeat when the next redundancies come up.

I'm not sure it will do your health any good in the long term. More stress, less sleep and when will you fit in exercise? You'll burn out.

If your working that much outsource everything, cleaner, gardener, great childcare/nanny/mothers help. Then maybe.

But i think you have to accept you can't have it all at 60 hours a week things maybe even important things are going to slip through the net.

Only if your partner is a SAHD or you have tonnes of family support.
My dh prob works similar hours but he runs his own business & I get home at 5 and work 4 days so usually when kids, who are teens, are around. In this situation one partner I think needs to shore up the home front. When they were younger dh did more regular hours and I stayed at home. We’ve never had family support so we’ve had to work it out between us, and it does work!

Do you want to?

I used to do 60+ hour weeks before ds.
I just can’t go that now - dh works long hours and we have no family support.

It’s true something has to give - that means either one or both of you cutting down, or more family support, or paid support, or loss of family time.

We could have continued working as we were but it would have meant hiring a nanny (3x the price of the uk here) and seeing ds only at weekends and first thing in the morning, and I didn’t want to do that.

Probably a different situation to you but work were pretty shitty to me during pregnancy and gave me a non equivalent role on my return to work. My motivation to bust a gut for them dropped somewhat after that.

I will say that 24 hr availability is very stressful.

I think you need to evaluate what can give, and what you want to keep doing. It may be possible to put some relatively minor changes in place that help a lot. Also work don’t know if it’s an issue unless you raise it - if the work is being done and you’re not complaining they aren’t getting visibility that something is wrong.

They may be shits like mine and refuse to adapt, but if your boss is decent they may not truly realise what’s going on and be eager to retain you

I think it is doable but will come at a cost. sounds like you want it all. are you actually happy with the current set up?

agree with PP, you really need to work out what you want from life and where your priorities lie - you cannot really be healthy, look after yourself, have plenty of quality time with the kids and work this crazy hours.

Supermum, how could you maintain health and sanity with a five hour window to sleep, during which you were either awake with a child or still working? How and why? And if you were literally working every single other hour then when would you have time for your family, yourself, exercise, haircuts, dr appointments, reading or anything at all? Surviving on a couple of hours sleep a night every night would make you unsafe to drive, unable to make good decisions, unable to think clearly - how could you be good at your job, present in any way at all for your children and at all healthy in mind or body?

OP, you need to look after yourself. I have seen several people burn out and all were much happier once they were out of stressful jobs and recovered in lower-hours, lower-stress, lower-paid jobs that didn't dominate their lives and destroy their health. No job is worth it.

It's possible, but not much fun. I work 60 - 70 hours a week (another teacher). Just gone back to work after being at home/studying. I was looking forward to seeing my kids over half-term but still worked about 40 hours. I'm only sticking with it as it's a temporary contract and I can see the end. There is no way I could keep up this level of work. While my career is important, it's not as important as spending time with my family.

As above, can you delegate? You do need to set some boundaries if you can.

Is it an expectation of your job role that you are available 24/7 or is this your choice to be available for your team? If you were run over by a bus tomorrow would the business fall apart? I suspect it would carry on as normal. I think it’s easy to get sucked into believing that everything relies on you being there when in reality they only rely on you because you make yourself available and take on too much. Ive done this and thankfully my boss realised it before I lost the plot - he calls it Little Red Hen syndrome ‘I’ll do it myself’

You need to speak to your employers about your role.
I’m pretty certain those higher up the chain aren’t spending their evenings and weekends on call.

For those working excessive hours, when do you live? When do you see your DH and DC’s. When do you see friends for a coffee, go to the cinema, book regular gym classes? You seem to be living to work rather than working to live.

The problem is not your work/family life balance, its that your DP is pissed off and unsupportive.
If his job was this demanding, you'd have to manage.