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!

Quality time with kids? Errr, what's that?
My 2 would be permanently attached to x box, given half a chance, and only do a Kevin and Perry grunt, occasionally, as means of conversation with me!

With DD1 I did Role2, and even with a fair amount of working from home, I feel like those years were a 'survival blur' and I wish I hadn't. I gained in my career & that was invaluable but when I look back all I remember is 'stress'.

With DD2 am doing Role1 but long commute. It's not hugely fulfilling, but I enjoy it. But more than that I enjoy the balance it gives me, my children & my family. My DD2 still goes to nursery full time but I can tackle Home chores, cooking, paperwork, school events, hobbies, me-time, friendships on the 2 weekdays I am 'free' and our weekends are smooth & fun because of this. My husband travels even more than before and earns even more.

As the children grow up I find they need me even more than when they were toddlers, so there is no real 'end' to this 'needing' phase. I wouldn't ever consider not working, but I think PT has really worked wonderfully in all ways & I won't regret it.

To all the people who say they spent days making play-do or reading stories to their kids and they don't remember anything. First, lots of kids remember and cherish the time grown-ups devoted to them in their early childhood, I certainly do.
And I know lots of grown-ups who are more at ease with their former nannies than parents, which makes sense if nannies were their primary caregivers.
I myself when my grandma was alive had no problem hugging her or touching and being in close physical proximity with her as an adult, because when I wasn't boarding in various institutions, when I was home, she was the main person looking after me. And she wasn't a particularly warm personality, but I cherish childhood memories of waking up to her making pancakes or climbing into bed with crisp iron bedding which she washed, ironed and put on. She didn't have great (barely any, due to the second world war and her country was occupied by the enemy) education, but the idea that I would have been more proud of her if she did is ridiculous. As a child and later an adult I couldn't care less about her education or career achievement. She was a vital link helping me feel I had a family growing up, as was my grandfather, who made me feel very loved.

With my DM who was mostly absent in our childhood(and bitterly regrets it) I feel awkward even sharing a room(let alone a bed, it would terrify me), there's no ease or physical closeness, and it's not something which can artificially be created in later life however both parties wanted it, it is there as a result of hours and hours being actually in your children's proximity when they were growing up, giving them baths, reading them stories, brushing their hair, taking them places. Of course there should be other people in the kids' lives, not just parents, and it's next to impossible to be the only person whose presence your child constantly wants and needs in their life and not go crazy a little from that need, that is supposed to be shared, however it's only family who can give a child unconditional love and acceptance, and that's different from all the wonderful educators, teachers, future partners etc.

From my experience people who have this unconditional belief and acceptance of their parents are really wired differently, they are happier and more self assured by default than those who have a different relationship with their parents (more formal or feel that they only deserve love through certain achievements).

I don't think the parents though can get properly attached to their children and give them what they need if they don't spend hours and hours together (crafts and other shit doesn't really matter), we are animals after all and require animalistic closeness and comfort and protection growing up, not being institutionalised and being passed from pillar to post.
So to look back on your kids childhood and say they don't remember or don't care who changed their nappy is a very simplistic approach. A one day old baby can recognise its mother in a line up of others, why do you think a creature which just came into this world was given such an ability by nature?

And? My mother was SAHM and there is little closeness as you describe. And why should not closeness with fathers be valued as much (so much so that they should give up careers to provide it)?

People hear what they want to hear, the make the decision they truly want in their hearts and then they build the facts around it to support that decision and make them feel better. There's plenty of good arguments on both sides, plenty enough to support whatever suits you OP.

I think your closeness with your child has more to do with your personalities than how many hours you spent at home.

Laurie - I don’t have insecurities. I had the choice - I still do really. In my exp and in my sector (law) role 2s are much easier to get and find and role 1s - part time lawyer work that is truly part time - is very very rare and hard to get. I’ll always have the opportunity to work more hours if I needed/wanted to but can’t ever get the time back I would have missed otherwise with my kids.
This is my choices though - each to their own.
I do find it sad that people don’t have faith in the state education sector anymore - but that’s another thread!

I had such a driving force to stay at home with my kids.

It would have been impossible for both OH and I to both continue with our careers when having kids, and I was better suited to becoming the SAHP.

People hear what they want to hear, the make the decision they truly want in their hearts and then they build the facts around it to support that decision and make them feel better. There's plenty of good arguments on both sides, plenty enough to support whatever suits you OP.

I agree.

Stickler. P/T Role 1 doesn't necessarily mean that the Op won't be able to drive a decent reliable car. And being older she is likely to face the same issues with older parents becoming ill.

Speakout would p/t in your career have been an option for you ? Just being curious.

AvoidingDM- no part time was not an option.

Only you can decide OP but remember there is no right or wrong. FWIW I returned to work when my dc1 was 12 weeks old (which many people nowadays would be at but it was what maternity leave was back then.) I was home longer with dc2 and 3 ... in fact dc2 was the one who had the longest stretch of time when I was at home.

My 3 dc are all well into their 20s now, happy, secure and you wouldn’t know if you met them which had had the most number of hours with me as babies.

Make a decision on what works for you, your child and your child’s father, thinking in a balanced way about medium and long term as well as now. And then relax and enjoy it

@isay yet another person making sweeping generalisations and assumptions. All the things you describe as being vital for building attachment with your child - it is possible to do these and still work full time and have a career.
I do all of those things and so does my DH. We have zero attachment issues and are incredibly close as a family unit.

However, my DS also strong attachments to other people who provide care and those relationships have enriched his life.

Avoiding DM You really are putting words in my mouth. You told me that I'm apparently commitment free, I was merely pointing out to you that I'm not. Each of my comments are about my own experience of working FT in a demanding role. The OP said that Role 2 will give her an extra £15k p.a. over Role 1, which is a sizeable amount of cash and brings its own benefits. I have never implied that people working part-time are on the breadline. Many of them have far more expensive holidays than me. I have simply pointed out that I have complete financial independence, which I value.

Isay who do you think reads to our children, brushes their hair, feed them, eats with them, does the washing etc? We do, of course. Nurseries are open from 8am to 6pm where I live, so FT working parents do all the usual things which PT working parents do, just without the visits to Costa, trips to the gym and daytime toddler groups thrown in on top during school hours. You seem to be confusing people who have a normal working life with some kind of Victorian parents who only see their children when Nanny brings them into the drawing room in their Sunday best.

Apples I have complete faith in state education, as it is all DD has encountered. She has been to 3 great state schools, is predicted top grades in her GCSEs, is HG and has been given excellent extra-curricular opportunities. We have a very academic family - a professor, PhDs, professional qualifications - and we all had a state education. I may have missed where the discussion strayed into a lack of faith in state education.

Sticker - it was the pp who said they were doing the best for their kids by work full time so they could send their kids to private school
I’m the same - first class degree from Cambridge, obe, doctorate all in the family and all state school educated. Imo there’s no need for schooling to be the reason behind parents working long hours.

Oh this thread is providing equal amounts of outrage and amusement at my Sunday afternoon wine club... The thing that sticks out, particularly to older members who had hoped for a more equal society for their children, is the blatent misogyny and that so many people seem to be accepting of these attitudes

With all due respect, Apples, it’s absolutely not up to you to make that kind of judgement.

It depends entirely on the child, the area where you live and the quality of the state schools near you.

My mum does private tuition (after her teaching career went down the pan because she left it too late to get back in after staying at home with us) and she has a client who is a single mum who works all hours - and I mean all hours - to send her girls to private school. They live in a tiny rented house and her life is all about making sure that her girls have the best possible start in life. I think they both got music scholarships (which they wouldn’t have had if she hadn’t paid for them to have music lessons in the first place), so she hasn’t paid the full fees, but she is still working her arse off in an old people’s home to give her kids the best education.

Her elder daughter just got a place to read medicine at Cambridge.

Delighted we agree on something then. I lost the will to live when I discovered that having a FT job apparently eliminates having a normal, caring, fun relationship with your child. If I have read the thread correctly, it implies that anyone with FT working parents is consigned to a life of emotional difficulties. Presumably that also applies to the relationship they will have with their father if he works FT, regardless of whether the mother is SAHM, FT or PT.

I’m actually really glad Mumsnet wasn’t around when my 3 children were small, because parenting is a tough enough role without the crap that’s spouted online by some people.

Like I said upthread, my children are all well into adulthood now. I did a mix of part time, full time and being at home when they were small. They also did a mix of childminder and nursery, and they were at home full time with me for varying amounts of time- I was working part time from when dc1 was 12 weeks and then at home longer after the next two, stepping back up to full time work when youngest was 4, and working full time for over 20 years since then.

All 3 achieved well educationally, they have good careers and happy, healthy relationships with partners and friends, and with us as their parents. No doubt that would have been the case if I’d been at been at home too ...

Taking into account your personal situation, I would go for job 2. If you love it enough you will find a way to make it work, of you don't then you can quit.

Funny how the conversation has moved onto our own relationships with parents who worked/ didn't work. I'm much closer to my dad than my mum yet he was the workaholic and she was the sahm...

36 pages of women putting each other down for their parenting choices while men still go out and rule the world. Le sigh.

I shall duly note working / SAHP threads go the same way as the breast / formula and in future never open the thread.

OP I hope after all the projecting, mysoginy, mudslinging and downright nastiness on here that you still managed to find some great advice from some of the parents on here. You clearly care about your child or you wouldn’t be in a dilemma so trust in yourself that you will make the best decision for your family, after all you know your child better than anyone else

OP, I do really hope you took role 2 this time, it is much easier to go from a job 2 to a well paid job 1 than the other way around.

It is also easier to be happy when the job makes you happy. Your child will be ok either way.

I would pick option 2

36 pages of women putting each other down for their parenting choices while men still go out and rule the world. Le sigh.

I don't disagree, but I think it's fair to say that some posters were in some cases, fairly robustly pointing out that women's 'parenting choices' are socially and culturally mandated to be 'naturally' more limiting than men's, and that if the OP had been male and posting on a male-dominated forum, both the question and the terms of the debate would have been entirely different.

The phrase that comes up on here so much in these threads 'I made the best decision for my family' often covers up a decision that wasn't in the least free, because of sexist social, workplace and individual pressures.

In other words, one of the things this thread has, rather depressingly, demonstrated, is that many women have so thoroughly internalised the expectation that it is their career which is 'naturally' sidelined or falls entirely by the wayside after they have children that are angry and disbelieving when they encounter women who resist that.

There's nothing 'natural' about suddenly dropping your career after giving birth, otherwise we would not see working mothers being regarded as entirely the norm in countries with more enlightened/egalitarian parental leave/flexibility for working parents/high-quality affordable state childcare.

Anyone who entirely freely makes the economically and professionally risky decision to be a SAHM has my respect, obviously, but I think the decision in this country in 2018 is seldom made freely.