To wonder when do they see their children?

[user1495362060]

I am currently working in STEM subject in academia but have to decide about a future career path. One of the possibilities is to work in finance.

I recently got a proposal for a relatively high paying job there. The hours however are 9-19 every day. I gather it isn’t even considered that long for this industry!

For various reasons I am not going to take this offer, however this makes me wonder...how do parents work at this kind of jobs? If I were to take it I would not see my kids except maybe for a few minutes at breakfast and as they go to bed. surely it cannot be a normal situation? If you work at a job with a salary which allows you to live in London with the kids, what are your hours?

Many women on mn are more than happy for their dp to have pointless out the house 7+ hr jobs
These so called pointless jobs pay the mortgage,fill the fridge
And allow many to not work and engage in essential school gate milieu
So are you saying pay cut and the men work 6h day?
If the men work a shorter day, that means they’ll be home and their nonworking partners can work too. Win,win.

LipstickHandbagCoffee

I agree with most of your points, but not your last one! No one has a pointless job. It's either a job you love or a job that pays your bills or hopefully both. Neither being pointless.

I'm quite happy for my husband to be out of the house 07:30 - 17:00. We have breakfast and dinner as a family. It's great.

Sorry,I was only being facetious I don’t think any job is pointless

I was in investment banking at the beginning of my career, and you were lucky if you started as late as 9am and left as early as 7pm.

You certainly make a lot of sacrifices in that industry, and most people have nannies for their children, or a spouse who stays at home, or they choose not to have children (or don't have them until they're 40+ and have some flexibility). The upside is that you can earn a lot of money, and set yourself and your children up for a very good life.

There are some areas of finance where that's not the case. I had friends in equities research who worked much more consistent and "normal" hours (8-5, basically), but the trade off was the money.

I don't work in the industry any longer, as I think most people burn out after a decade in that kind of field, but I don't regret for a minute the hours I put in in those early years.

DH and I both did it for a very short while - when DH's job got relocated, I left my public sector finance job and went into a commercial bank. It was clear quite early on that something was going to have to give - when any of us got sick the wheels just fell off - but it was my boss's boss telling me a story about how her youngest kid was so confused about where he was being dropped off in the morning once that he got up in the middle of the night and put on his school uniform and went back to bed in it - and she was laughing as she told this story, she thought it was cute. I thought, poor little bugger. He was 5. That was what convinced me to leave.

My DH has one of those jobs, he sees the kids 10 mins a day if lucky and on the weekends. I work but not those hours.

Working 10 hours is the norm for many not especially well paid jobs such as nurses, teachers etc. The wages generally just about keep people afloat from month to month if that.

I also used to work (still do) in one of those type of jobs with those sort of hours, telling DCs that mummy won't be at their performances or to collect them after school, but will spend lots if time with them at the weekend (unless I got called away to work).

My thinking was that they will be ok and they will get used to it as they get older. Then one day, I realised how I had missed so many of their milestones and was just collecting information about them from a third party.

I now work part time, but I drop off my kids and pick them up from school 2 days a week. They get to eat a proper cooked meal and I get to hear about their day and their interest from them and not anyone else. The other 3 days, I get back by 5.30, so still get to spend the evening with them.

Finances are very tight but it is worth it. I don't regret going part time, I have just learned to budget very very carefully.

Depends. When you say every day, do you actually mean 7 days a week, or just 5 days a week. It does make a difference...

I dont get enmeshed in the school gate politics,dramas,cliques or PTA (hell no!)
Those who don’t work have had some tumultuous times and got over involved at school/nursery

no need to be bitchy
I more than agree than you can work a very efficient 10 hours day, depends what you do.

However, looking down at the PTA and SAH parents is unnecessary. our local PTAs and their volunteers raise 10s of thousands of pounds trying to fill the shortfall in school funding. They organise after-school clubs, events, outings, excursions which benefits the kids, and working parents. They volunteer to do free hours at school, helping kids to read etc..,

it's ridiculous to benefit from their hard work when it benefits your own children. And for the record, some of us manage to have a career and do a few hours of volunteering at school.

I work those hours as a teacher and not paid well at all. Most of the weekend too. The only benefit is the holidays (some of which I work also). As an NQT I only earn £22000/year. Don't even dare to work out my hourly rate at aboit 60 hours/week!

Good job I love it.

My children are older though as I am a late-comer to teaching.

I drop my DD off at the CM at 7.30 and pick her up at 6.30 3 days a week so I only really see her 4 days a week except at breakfast and bed time. It's hard especially when you've got to try to squeeze spellings, homework and everything else in that time. I also chair the PTA and am as active at the school as I can be within my work hours. I'm going to have to move to full time soon because we need the money which I'm dreading but sometimes needs must and we'll just have to make the most of the hours we do have together. It's not always as simple as being able to choose between work and family.

You would see them in the morning and at the weekend.

You would either have a partner working fewer hours, or staying at home, or have good childcare of some form.

This isn’t some unusual situation you know.

My thinking was that they will be ok and they will get used to it as they get older.

I used to think like this. It would be worth the sacrifice of a few years hard work and then as children get older they will become more independent and I would have more time..................
Teenagers bring a whole host of issues - things don't get easier, they need you in different ways and the worry brings a whole host of mental exhaustion. And work has nor got easier - the expectations of the workplace over the past 10 years has become much more demanding.

Easily doable if two parents share the load. I drop off the kids to school and go to work. My DH goes in earlier and is home earlier. That way both of us keep our careers moving and the kids have great relationships with us both.

I actually didn't work for a while and realised that the kids get home, have snacks and do homework. There is very little quality time till 6.30 anyhow with older kids. I don't feel I am missing out on much except in holiday time.

I work 9-6pm in a relatively well paid job in London and I get the children up, give them breakfast and take them to school, getting to work for 9am.

This works because I have sorted it that my job is near the DCs' schools, so I can do drop off on my way in.

I also cycle to work which makes my commute both ways very quick.

There are ways and means.

Dh and I both do those kind of hours at a minimum. He starts early and does pick up, I start late and often just pick up work in the evening to be home before 8. They are pretty normal for everyone we know really.

LipstickHandbagCoffee, I'm not "simply imposing (my) value judgement on working parents" because (a) I am a working parent and (b) as I said in a previous post, I think it is wrong that anyone whether they are a parent or not, feels forced to into preseentism. I also said that I admire people who get so much fulfillment from their job that they willingly put in extra hours. Also, I don't remember mentioning anything about school gates or PTAs

You barely see the children until they are older and around more in the evenings. You need to make the most of the weekends, which is easier if you are earning a lot of money and can afford to either have a SAHP or a nanny/housekeeper to do all the domestic stuff in the week. Also if you can afford to live reasonably close to work, though most finance people seem to aim for big house in the commuter belt instead.

Pretty normal hours for myself and DH. We take in turns dropping off and have an afterschool nanny. We both make sure we can leave earlier at least one day a week though (get home by 6). We both only have a 30 mins commute and can WFH on occasion if we need want to. It works for us and we see our DC plenty. I would say though if we had a longer commute or not the flexibility it would mean we wouldn’t see them apart from the weekend and that would suck.

But 10 hours every day is a literal waste of time.

Nonsense. One operating list is 5h (8am-1pm), a full day is 10h. Working 10h is not a waste of time for those people who are the last cases on each list. If I worked shorter hours then we would be doing two less joint replacements per day, or two less hernia repairs per day, or .... you get the idea. It’s only pointless when you assume everyone works at a desk with a drop in productivity over time.

I think a 35 hour week is pretty good. If an employer needs more work done than employees*35 hours per week then employ more people!

I really can't think of a solid reason not to employ more people on fewer hours over fewer people on more hours. The more hours each person works the less efficient they are and the less they like their work/life balance/job and hence the less productive they are.

My OH works 4 on 4 off shifts. He gets paid the same regardless how long he is in work. Most days are 12 hours, the shortest 10 but they can be a max of 15 hours. We need him to do overtime on at least one of his rest days. My work also has 12 hour days but usually I am forced to work longer,most days end up being a minimum of 13 hours the longest was 20 hours. It does not leave any family time on work days only enough time to eat, shower , sleep.

I don’t go to sports day, I’m not at school gate often.and it really doesn’t matter

It probably really does matter to your kids, actually. My mother thought like you. It didn’t go well and I’d much rather have missed out on ‘stuff’ and actually had a parent turn up to a school event occasionally. It’s fucking miserable feeling like your DPs career fulfilment or money is more important than you are. You’ll never know if they feel like that until it’s too late.

There’s also an in between ground, it doesn’t have to be never around or ‘PTA Mum with flour in your hair.’ You can work AND actually see your DC in daylight during the week.