To think having kids really do change your career

[Everythingnotsaved]

To start- my kids are the light and joy in my life and I love them more than anything and wouldn’t be without them for a second. I love being a mum.

But I have spent the last 12 years with them being my sole focus and it is really apparent in my friend group now that those with kids have very different lives in comparison to those who don’t- I don’t think I ever really thought about it that much before.

I have a good career in that I am well paid and it is satisfying in some senses but I have stayed in it for the security it brings my family.

I think what I am trying to say is that the people I know without kids have an energy that I don’t have anymore to create their own businesses and give themselves to that & to their success.

As I said, I really wouldn’t change anything at all but it’s only now occurring to me how for me the last decade has been about raising my family & how you don’t really realise how much it takes out of you.

Aibu?

You've always got a bigger priority when you have kids. So career takes a back seat.
Only true for women though?

Two posters have now talked about a kind of mythical brilliant career women think they would have had without dc - ceo etc. That's an exaggeration and has the effect of making their genuine grievance seem silly. It's not that we would be in glittering careers without dc. We would often be a few steps up from where we are though - I would be a deputy head, not a part time teacher, for example, as that was the track I was on before dc1 hit me like a juggernaut. I would have worked full time, had a full time pension, and moved to a better school without worrying that the commute was longer and I couldn't make the 6pm pick up from childcare. I'd have attended every meeting and never been the one to leave before it ended. I'd never take days off for sick dc, or years off for ML.
Of course it had an impact.

@HelloMissus can you share a bit more about what you and your DH changed to make your career step-up work? How old were your kids when you did it, and did it have any impact on your DH’s progression?

I ask because my DS (only child) will go to school next year and I am trying to decide if I should put my foot back on the gas and return to full time work at that point.

@Goingdownto That's perfectly plausible, but actually you still don't know. You might have burned out and left teaching if you had continued to work full-time (lots do). You might have moved to a new school that you absolutely hated and couldn't progress in because of clashes with senior management. You might have applied for deputy head and not got it; after all, not all teachers without children become deputy heads, even the ones who look very promising early in their careers. One of the mistakes that people who have children in their late 20s/early 30s often make is to assume that if they hadn't had children they'd have kept the focus and energy of their pre-child selves forever but I don't think that's true for most people - a lot of people stagnate, lose interest or lose conviction in their career not because they've had children but because it's just not the priority at 45 in the way it was at 25.

cheetas we overhauled everything really.
We sat down and discussed what I was literally doing each day for the kids and house, and I think DH hadn’t considered a lot of it .
But also there were many things he was like - what the fuck are you doing that for?

So we sacked off the stuff that we decided didn’t need doing at all.
We outsourced stuff we needed doing but we didn’t care who did it.
Then we divided up the rest.

We also looked at our careers and took a deep dive into what mattered and what didn’t. So DH knew it made no real difference if he did no work socialising (team not clients which definitely does matter) and he was glad to get out of it.
I knew that my industry doesn’t even wake up before 10 am so I could do the school run.

I was tough in the early stages and we had to keep reassessing. Also

Thanks @HelloMissus. Were the kids both at school?

Yeah. Kids in primary school.

Of course no one knows hardbackwriter I could've been hit by a bus. But I was on a certain trajectory (and already promoted etc) so there is a strong chance I would have. Actually being part time is the death knell I think, add personal circumstances re lack of family support etc and it's a big weight to carry while working full time - wouldn't change the dc but definitely mommy-tracked.

It has definitely changed my career but it's a choice I have made. I could have stayed full time and gone for promotions etc but my current job at my current grade is massively flexible meaning I can do school drop offs and pick ups most days and arrange my diary around plays, meetings etc. My husband has an element of flexibility when he is not working away.

I chose to go part time (could have stayed full time using wrap around care). My husband didn't want to go part time and his work travel earns him a lot of flexi time so he covers most of the school holiday childcare (it did ore- Covid at least!)

I am still able to access training etc and am starting my masters next year and when my children are older I may choose to climb the ladder again but I am happy as it is right now.

I actually think there are career advantages to having your kids young, though not many of us are in a position to do that for various reasons. I had a friend who had hers at 18 and 20, worked her way up through jobs that didn't need a lot of out of hours working etc. so by her late 30s was in a position to take on big roles whilst the rest of us were managing primary age kids.