The problem with these threads is that it becomes a pointless slanging match with people citing extreme examples - eg: ‘I went back to work doing 60 hour weeks after a 5 minute maternity leave’ or ‘I didn’t realise my previously lovely husband would turn out to be an arsewipe who won’t do anything with his kids the moment I gave birth to triplets’
This is a distraction from the actual facts: yes, we exist in a society where structural inequalities still exist, yes none of us are making decisions in a vacuum but - and this is really important - we do still have more agency over our lives than many people care to admit.
The fact is, you can take two people from the same background, with the same life opportunities, and they won’t make the same choices. Fact. I’m sure we can all cite examples from our own friends and families where some people make well considered decisions and others make poor ones.
In my own life, I returned to work after dd when she was 12 weeks old. (Standard maternity leave back then.) some of my friends having babies back then also returned to work; some didn’t. Fine. Their choices. It really wasn’t easy, working with a baby who was ebf, and having to drop her at a childminder at stupid o’clock before doing a days teaching. It would have been easier to give up work, but I knew that my career would suffer if I did. And yes, to some extent I faced ‘society’s judgement’ ... raised eyebrows here and there from people (no, actually women) who couldn’t get their heads round the fact I was leaving a 12 week old baby to go to work. Oh and my mother made a couple of comments along the lines of ‘well, i suppose if you feel it’s the right thing...’ Thanks mum, so much for the sisterhood ...
Anyway roll on a bit and ds came along. By now ML legislation has moved on and I had a whole 6 months off. With childcare doubling, at this point the costs were the same as my take home pay. There was absolutely zero financial gain to me working so once again, the short term decision to stop working would have been easiest. I chose to keep working mainly for the pension and keeping my foot on the ladder. Once again, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ here- they are both valid decisions, but it’s naive to think that there aren’t consequences to any decision we make. And naturally, any decision we make is likely to impact on our future choices too... the fact Id returned to work after ML first time meant I had a job to return to after ds. I also had the self belief that although managing a toddler, a baby and a teaching load would be tough, I’d already coped with a 12 week old and working first time.
Roll forward again 25 years. I’m middle management, head of Dept in a large secondary school. In my school- and this is fairly typical, not only in my school- a huge number of women in my age group - 50 plus, choose to work part time. 3 days a week seems to be the preferred option. This is nothing to do with caring responsibilities - it’s a choice which they freely admit is because it gives them the life style they want, time to go for mid week lunches, yoga etc. Once again, nothing wrong with this, but accept the consequences. Own the decision. Don’t complain when you realise your part time wages mean part time pension and that you might not have the old age you’d envisaged.
This is a lengthy post, and I’m certainly not dictating to anyone how they live their lives, but the two things I’m absolutely damn sure of is a) maternity and paternity rights, flexible working rights and financial support for childcare (Tax credits, free hours at age 3) are better now than at any point in history. (I realise of course the childcare situation is affected right now by COVID 19 but I’m talking about normal circumstances.) it’s thoroughly depressing to me, as a woman in my 50s to see such a pathetic uptake of shared parental leave. It’s what I and many of my fellow mums back in the day would have given our right arms for. There may still be some way to go, but for heavens sake, use the right to share parental leave if you want things to be on a more equal footing. Even if there’s a bit of a short term financial hit by sharing it, look at the long term benefits. Better for both parents to have 1:1 time doing the actual daily looking after. Better in terms of how each parent views their career. Better - I would argue- for the child as well. It’s likely that a dad who has sole care for a few months during the first year of life is going to have a better understanding and will continue to be hands on. The other thing b) is that while choices aren’t made in a vacuum, it’s undeniable that you can take two people in the same situation and faced with different options they won’t all choose the same one. So there is choice, within the parameters which exist for us all. And often it’s not about one choice being ‘better’... they may simply be different. The thing is, own your decisions. Don’t complain that your career is screwed or your pension is non existent if your choices are part of what’s lead to that situation.