To put my career before my child

[Madisonthecat]

Before I get started I’ll start by saying I think I am but really need some advice from the wise women (and men) of Mumsnet.

Currently not working and have been offered two roles which is fantastic, know I’m really lucky.

Role 1 - three days a week, 9-5, public sector job. Pretty straightforward and could do it reasonably comfortably in the time allowed with little requirement for overtime I think.

Role 2 - amazing opportunity, great pay (£15,000 more than role 1) and amazing benefits. BUT.... it’s full time only, will probably require lots of overtime, travel and be pretty stressful day in day out. It’s a sector I love and would really enjoy getting back into.

What do I do? I would love to do role 2 and if I was childless would take it in a heartbeat. But I have a 3 year old and a partner who works long hours in a demanding role too and can’t help feeling that it’s really not in the best interests of my child to take it. My partner will do a few things around the house (cooking) but I definitely do the lions share of housework and 95% of childcare currently. My previous role after mat leave was 3 days a week and worked well for us as a family as I was happy to pick up the slack. We have no family support at all.

This time I guess I feel conflicted because it’s basically a dream job and I feel sad that as a Mum it feels seems you’re forced to choose between a varied, interesting and well rewarded career or putting your children first and taking something less challenging and with less pay but providing a much better work/life balance.

I will miss my child hugely if I take role 2 as it’s also a fairly long commute (1 hour each way) and would have to accept hardly seeing them on weeekdays. What would you do??

Btw I’ve put this in AIBU as I’m after quick responses. Need to confirm either way tomorrow. Help!

Dh and I were both in roles 2. I went back full time when DD was 4 months ( FT nursery). We had no family help. It nearly killed us. We had zero flexibility from our employers. I was told to not even ask for part time. Dh was asked "why does your wife work?" by his manager and told I didn't iron his shirts very well. That's in a major U.K. Plc by the way. So dh started to get emails at midnight telling him to come for early morning meetings at 7.00am (which never happened by the way) so that I had to do drop off and pick up.

All this to say that, knowing what backwards idiots employers can be, unless employer in role 2 is seriously enlightened, I'd probably go for role 1.

Having said that, we all made it. DD is a well balanced, lovely child. DH now works from home and I work for an employer that a recruitment agent had refused to send my CV to because I had to do school pick ups....I sent the CV myself and got the job.

Also just to say France has got four months or so mat leave full pay vs 6 weeks at 90 per cent for the uk. Good on those of us who can finance a whole year off. I couldn't and had to work until the very end of my pregnancy to be able to finance four months off. I now realise I was putting my health and that of my baby at risk. In France most women go off (on full pay) two months at least before the end of their pregnancy.

In addition, flexible working is a reality in France with a lot of parents working part-time. In the uk, most people in know have been refused part time requests.

And don't get me started on the high quality, well funded childcare provision France offers.

France might have a shorter maternity leave on paper but it fosters a working and social environment in which working families can make it work.

Good luck OP. I hope your experience is better than mine, I really do,

Incredible please stop. You are not doing anyone any favours least of all yourself.

I feel like we should start a crowd funder for the therapy that Incredible’s children will need in later life.

@incredible, aside from being incredibly vile, you haven't actually answered anyone's "what about the men" question apart from make excuses of "they earn more, so it's OK for them to work long hours".

Why not the same vitriol to OP's "workaholic" husband? You seem to be OK with this? Why are you not calling him up on absenteeism/abandoning his kids/whatever other bullshit?

Is it just because he earns more? Or in that case, what if OP earned a lot more?

Or....let's face it, you are just plain good old fashioned sexist. All that time you've taken out of work to be with your kids, and they will still grow up with your judgemental and quite frankly nasty views.

Why do these threads always attract people who are so convinced that their way is the only way?

My DCs’ friends have a mix of SAHMs, pt WOHMs and ft WOHMs (including some very career driven mums). You would not be able to tell which child had which family set up. For me, this tells you all you need to know. If a child is raised in a loving, caring family, it doesn’t actually matter where there is a SAHP there or whether both parents work ft or pt. Just do what suits you best.

If you want to work, then work.

If you prefer to be at home, then stay at home.

Just don’t try to justify your choices by criticising someone else’s choice.

My sympathy lies with those who don’t have a choice, i.e those who want to SAH but can’t afford to or those that want to work but can’t afford childcare.

@stretch yes 100%.
I also have sympathy for those women who would like to work or work in different roles but can't because their partners job is considered more important.

I wish it wasn’t always down to the woman to make these difficult choices. I doubt most men ever worry about the children or the family before making career choices. That is certainly the case in my own family.

There is no right and wrong here, people make their own decisions based on their own individual situations for their own reasons. As a pp quite rightly said, some people don’t actually have a choice. I honestly can’t believe the judgemental attitudes of some pp’s, it’s downright depressing that the kids are seen as still solely the women’s responsibility. No wonder the gender pay gap is still a thing! And I’m appalled by the suggestion that the dc’s of working mothers are somehow unwanted or neglected. Or an accident. Attitudes like that say much more about the poster than any working parent.

Op I’m sorry your thread was hijacked. I hope you make the best decision for you, whatever that may be.

Just don’t try to justify your choices by criticising someone else’s choice.

This with tinkly bells on.

I’m going to be honest and say my last child WAS an accident (not mistake, that’s not nice) I didn’t even discover the pregnancy until I was at the abortion limit so there was nothing to consider I had to go ahead regardless of how I felt.

I HAD to return to work to survive as one income simply wasn’t enough to provide the necessities for four children and no, this does NOT include designer hand bags. I do not love my little baby any less because she I was forced to continue my pregnancy. So calling a baby a ‘mistake’ might make you feel better about the value you place on your own child but you’re projecting. Once a child comes into existence you love them equally and make the best choice you possibly can for your family given the circumstances.

I came on mumsnet for support when I found out I was pregnant and I’m so glad I got support and didn’t stumble across this thread it would have finished me off.

My DH's boss told him to tell me to, "Pick up more of the slack." Dickhead.

My mum worked, had a career and we were looked after by a housekeeper, she worked long hours. I didn’t grow up feeling grateful that she worked or inspired to do the same. I grew up feeling like I never had quality time with my mother - she was always too busy working and when she wasn’t working she was busy cleaning an already spotless house. It was clear that everything was more important to her than spending time, caring for her kids. I grew up resenting her work but as I got older I realised that she was just one of those people who needed to get away from child rearing and work was her escape and despite being absolutely desperate for attention as a child, her work probably was a blessing as our housekeeper was a wonderful woman.

Incrediblelife

Did you name change? Or you’re a newbie. You don’t have any history.
I suspect you name changes because previous posts reveal you to be someone who revels in antagonising people OR you knew you’re past posts were such they could be used against you in this discussion.

your

@trying I think your experience is a pretty extreme one. Most full time working parents don't work ridiculously long hours or have children that are taken care of by a housekeeper.
Even though we both work full time we still spend a considerable time together as a family

Equally, there are SAHM parents whose children grow up to resent them. Being a SAHP doesn’t equate to being a good, involved or attentive parent.

@Incrediblelife for your information “hard of reading” was a play on the phrase “hard of hearing”. As I’m not talking to you, but writing, I thought (giving you unfounded merit here) that you would get that. Maybe I should have put it in quotes so you knew it wasn’t a thing.

Please don’t try and put me in the same hateful bracket as you. I have consistently said you do you (meaning everyone), and let me be me. However, to show you (this time meaning just you) how vindictive I could be about other people’s choices, that I wouldn’t pick I used an imaginative work colleague enticing a poor DH from a sahm. Just a story in retaliation to your many comments about what wohm’s choose to spend their money on. Until I realised you were trolling (took me a while), I then thought you needed an explanation. More fool me. But this time basing it on actual experience which I later believed I explained to another (more reasonable pp).

Now we can keep doing this all day everyday. Insulting each other and you mischaracterising what is said and taking it out of context to fit your narrative.

I’m not sure why neither of us are bored, well I am but am stubborn. For the record most sahm mums make the right decision for their families. I’m not sure you are one of them based on your behaviour here.

I agree that incredible has said some very inflammatory things and I really hate to say this but I do think she had a point in one of her posts about men taking equal share of childcare.

As much as this is totally wrong and needs to change, how many DH's in reality would be allowed to keep popping out of work to sort childcare and so be able to properly support their OH's. As much as we all like to think this should happen I think we know that in reality it just wouldn't. They would be pretty soon pulled up on it.

As wrong as it is I do think that was her one valid and sensible contribution amongst many other rude and unnecessary comments.

The problem is how do we change this because it needs to change.

Having said that and apologies if I offend but I do think if you have a choice over child or work then it should be child first. Not meaning to antagonise

Having said that and apologies if I offend but I do think if you have a choice over child or work then it should be child first. Not meaning to antagonise

Does that apply to both men and women or are only women expected to do this? Really this fully explains your earlier point about employer's attitudes to men and work. We need a paradigm shift and that starts with ourselves - stop letting men opt our of putting their children first.

Yeah, the only way things are going to change is if women start demanding this of their partners and men start demanding it of their employers.

Where would we be if the suffragettes had given up so easily?

As much as this is totally wrong and needs to change, how many DH's in reality would be allowed to keep popping out of work to sort childcare and so be able to properly support their OH's. As much as we all like to think this should happen I think we know that in reality it just wouldn't. They would be pretty soon pulled up on it.

They are not supporting their female partner/wife. They are being a parent just as their female partner/wife is by attending school plays / parents evenings / looking after sick children etc. Assuming that the woman must always drop things to pick up sick children simply perpetuates inequality and forces women and men into pigeonholes that many men don’t want to be pushed into either. If you want things to change you have to ask for change.

And in many cases. Employers will accommodate many things for valuable employees if they ask

Navigator

I said "I do think" that is my personal opinion. As far as I was aware I thought I was perfectly entitled to voice my own opinion. I didn't demand that you or anyone else agreed with me. This is the problem with mumsnet, there are people on here who just do not like anyone having a different opinion to them.

As I said and will say again it is only my opinion, you think differently and that is perfectly fine. Stop criticising everyone who dares to think differently from you. Get over it please. Not everyone is going to agree with you all of the time.

how many DH's in reality would be allowed to keep popping out of work to sort childcare and so be able to properly support their OH's. As much as we all like to think this should happen I think we know that in reality it just wouldn't. They would be pretty soon pulled up on it.

Well, we won't know until we/they try, will we? And I far too often see women on here saying that their DH would 'never be allowed' to request flexible hours, or compressed days, or to stand up in a board meeting and say he had to go and pick up a child who'd been taken from school. I always want to say 'How often has he done this? How do you know it 'isn't allowed'? Who told you this -- your DH?'

I say this as someone whose DH worked until recently in a demanding senior executive job in a male-dominated, long-hours industry (where the vast majority of senior staff had a SAHM wife and/or children in boarding school, and had minimal childcare issues/domestic responsibilities), and who did actually start, once I went back to work after we had our son, to do the above things. And, annoying though it is to admit, his actions in that industry probably advanced important feminist principles in the workplace more than mine have during an adult lifetime of mentoring younger women etc. simply because he is a man, and making it quietly plain that he was also a working parent.

More men need to do this.

Incrediblelife,she’s being provocative to elicit a response.simple as that
It’s pantomime villain antics,she’s behind you,boo hiss
And a ✅ tick list of hysterical things to say in a feet stamping look at me way
For that reason,I’m loving her posts. As I think she’s genuinely putting in effort to be so contrived and odious

I am of course the embodiment of everything she claims to rein against
Kids in nursery FT at 6mth ✅
Work FT ✅
School Holidays club for kids ✅
Found Mat leave stultifying ✅
Wont be on my deathbed wishing I’d stayed at home with kids ✅
Have Missed school events when clashed with work ✅