To suggest that your career is dead after pushing a baby out your vagina?

[VirginMama]

I really want to get back on the ladder but feel like the perception is that I shouldn’t be considering management roles while my youngest child is still a toddler. How do you get an old fashioned boss with their own prejudice about working mums to ‘lean in’? How did you reignite your career after taking a career break or working part time? Can working mothers ever compete with younger colleagues who have no responsibilities outside of work and are prepared to work all the hours god gives?
Apologies for the choice of words in the subject, deliberately controversial for traffic.

So long as you have childcare it shouldn't be a problem. It isn't the ability to do the work that people see as a problem. The bigger issue is the inability to stay late, come in early and mothers tend to have more days off due to a child being ill. You cant really nip off home cause school called when you are in management. So if you have full time childcare, they would be able to deal with sickness, appointments, school runs etc..

Mine isn't dead. I've spent the last 6 yrs coasting with my career on pause after I pushed a baby out, but I'm back on it with no penalties. I didn't have to go back to the start or down the ladder, I'm exactly where I was before mat leave and have the same opportunities I would have done then.

I'm in a family friendly company, but it's better now than it was 10-15 years ago for a variety of reasons, including external recruitment bans, specialist area and difficult to recruit even if you're allowed to go external, and the 'old school' management team being replaced by younger, more modern thinking men and women. What has also helped is men wanting to work flexibly to look after children or elderly relatives, it's not just women that aren't working standard hours.

No, I went back to work after 5 yrs as a sahm and found it no bother getting back in!

OP I see why you didn't apply. But really if you want to climb the ladder it can sometimes involve taking a shitty job for the sake of getting the experience on to your CV. Likewise being underpaid. Worth it for the experience if it gets you where you want to go. Sounds like your current workplace is a bit shite though so can see why you want to get out of there.

I think it totally depends on your field and skill set, but my career has only grown in leaps and bounds since I had my dc.

I’m coming back from mat leave # 2 this month to a new job and a huge promotion. But I’m an academic in quite a specialist field. I also have a dh who has no trouble getting stuck in. Despite a running a very successful business and being a high earner, he’s doing the school run 3 days a week and will initially be home one day a week with our youngest while I get on with it. It helps he’s not a selfish dickhead.

I have worked hard and am on £17k more than I was pre ds, increase over 5.5 years

I’ve had supportive bosses and very unsupportive bosses. Bizarrely, the majority of men have been more understanding than than female bosses. Anyone else think this?

It completely depends on the culture & management - I have been massively promoted since having DC but only because I do purity the work in, evenings when DD is in bed & weekends, but this enables me more flexibility midweek.
It does depend on your priorities as well though, if you want a management position then there are sacrifices that you need to make.

I’ve been fine but then I didn’t ‘push my two out of my vagina’...

Does that count??

Bizarrely, the majority of men have been more understanding than than female bosses. Anyone else think this?

No, it's completely mixed. I've had very supportive female managers and male managers and known complete dickhead men and women who treat mothers at work like second class citizens. With men I think them having a wife in an equally challenging role to their own helps, they get what it's like. Childfree people vary, some treat you like some kind of superhero for being able to juggle, some don't want to know at all.

The mums I know with high flying careers have either:
Reliable help - family or paid help/au pairs
A partner who has a more flexible career - works later so can do school run for example
Older children so they’re teens who are more self-sufficient
A flexible job so they can wfh 1 or 2 days a week
When I returned to work 10 years ago after my youngest started school, my then manager (who had adult children) said I’d be good as I’d finished having my children. Those attitudes still remain. I could be more flexible then too due to more help available from family.

I think it very much depends on the culture and environment of your work place

And seeing as still women are not represented enough in senior management and boardrooms and still the highest wages are still paid to men

So far too many this is still the case

I must have got my promotion after dc1 was born due to him not coming out of my vagina then.

I think that a lot of it comes down to confidence. I returned to work when my DD was a few months old and I almost felt grateful to have the opportunity. In my next role, I didn't ask for the salary that I could have, because, again, I knew that I would be leaving on time everyday and wouldn't always be as visible as some of my colleagues. A few years down the line and I have finally asked for the salary I deserve for my existing role, same hours, same work, same job title. I've been given an enormous payriseand I'm kicking myself for not doing it years ago.

I think very, very few women have dc then experience the multiple promotions and pay rises whilst maintaining the flexibility to do drop offs/deal with sickness etc (at least without their partners picking up the slack or other help)described on here. I'm not doubting them by the way, just that it's in no way common or typical!

^^I agree with this

It's bloody hard, part timers ime are often given shit projects to work on that no one really cares about or wants. That then impacts on how impressive you can be at interview etc if you want promotion or to move. At least that's my experience, mine isn't dead but I wouldn't be in the job I am now if I hadn't had DC and I felt totally stuck in my previous job while I had preschoolers 'consolidating' rather than being involved in the areas that grew and made ££££££.

Retraining here...i will start from the so called 'bottom' but then climbing the corporate ladder is not for me. Far more important for mecto have a long term career with prospects.
I was teaching before having dd and my career did nosedive after 3 years out. Im glad it did tbh as teaching is awful.

It's never too late op.

When I returned after mat leave to my job I was told I couldn't have it back because they hired someone else and was placed in another department. I wish I had done something about it then but I didn't. Two years later I left for a promotion. Three years after that I had a huge promotion. So it is possible but it takes a lot of work. I'm realise I'm lucky. DP works opposite hours to me. He works early hours and finishes early afternoon. So I do the school run and he does pick up which means I can work late.

Your manager's comment was massively out of order, that's discrimination and illegal. Can you ask HR about it? If women don't challenge this bullshit, men will continue to get away with it.

^^This. Would they have said the same to a man with young children?

I became a single mum when DD was 2. She's now 9 and I'm far senior and earn nearly 3x what I did when DD was born. It hasn't been easy and not without its challenges, but definitely doable. Good luck OP!

CrimpBrunette

We're you already more than half way up the career ladder though? I can't imagine you were entry level

YABU

I was in a decent role, but very low down the line at the time

I suspect that the people responding on this thread are the ones who managed to make it work. Just as the holiday threads attract posters with huge budgets.

My most successful mum friend has had a meteoric rise simultaneously to having 3 DC. Needless to say, there's an exceptionally involved grandmother down the road and husband works from home on his business.

My case is more representative of my friends. I've had a couple of promotions since having DC but have worked part time and at times gone specifically for 'family friendly' roles.

Our DC are fortunately pretty robust but I find the who's-going-to-look-after-the-sick-child-tomorrow conversations with DH very stressful! (We pretty much go 50/50)

@VirginMama i also work in a school and absolutely get where youre coming from. I don't believe that it is as family friendly as it first appears.

I have been at my school for around 6 years and seen as capable but I can tell that I am no longer seen as a serious contender for further progression since I came back from mat leave and started working 8.5 hour days only. All the 'climbers' are easily there from 7.30 - 6.00 every day and stay for every late night event as well. I do not access my email outside work hours, other people are on it 7 days a week and well into the night.

It has been difficult to come to terms with, but for me personally, I don't want to give any more of myself to my job at the current time. I work hard but i'm not going above and beyond.

I would like a career change.