Have you and your partner/spouse both managed to have successful careers whilst raising children, or has one career suffered?

[Dr1ppin]

I keep reading that you ‘can’t have it all’ and something has to give. My husband is currently the breadwinner and works long hours but I want to start focusing on my career now (he has never stopped me and has only ever encouraged me). I just wondered how realistic it is of me to expect to be able to focus on my career whilst raising children especially if my husband works long hours? Our children are 18 months and newborn. Is it going to be one or the other for me?

We’ve managed it (I think !). Careers and happy family life. We made changes to our careers to make the best fit for our family. DH moved from hospital doctor to being a GP and I stepped off the partner track in the corporate consulting firm I work for.

We have DT’s and no family living in the UK. Home life is totally shared. You can’t do it without a DH who doesn’t just help out but takes his share of time off work when DC’s are ill, does the school run, takes them to dental appointments, buys school shoes etc. We outsource where possible to our amazing cleaner, gardener, online shopping, ironing services.

I regularly travel but we keep an online joint diary to track what is happening and when. I went back to work full time when DT’s were six months (normal maternity leave then). They are now 21 - happy young adults so it seems to have all worked out

I can’t speak for my own situation as I’m a lone parent so very different than two parents.

But my own parents both worked full time. My mum was the bread winner and dad a tradesman. Mum was ambitious and hard working and worked her way up while we were young. Without dads absolute support and him taking on the bulk of the out of hours childcare she wouldn’t have been able to do it. He wouldn’t have been able to take on more work than his usual 8-6 for example. (But he didn’t want to- his work was hard physical work) she studied and took a promotion when we were in primary school which in theory gave her more family friendly hours but she was a complete workaholic so in reality we didn’t see much more of her and what we saw was a stressed out mum trying keep all her plates spinning. She was very hard on herself. Sometimes I wished she would relax more with us and switch her brain off from work to be in the moment with us but it just wasn’t her way and I’m glad she had her career as it was what she loved and without it she wouldn’t have been a happy mum. Like I say, dad didn’t want to work more than he did and he was happy to put in a day’s work and then come home and switch off. He was self employed so he could arrange to be there for us if we needed it and we also had childminders when primary school age. I suppose it might have been possible for him to take on more work and pay for More childcare but I’m glad he didn’t. It was nice to have a parent there in the evenings. I wouldn’t want to have been in constant childcare.

I think you can both push ahead in your careers and raise children. DH and I have DS1 and DS5 plus both working our way up the ladder. It helps...

..to be highly confident in your contribution to the workplace so you dont feel ruffled when you need to switch to parent mode (planned or unplanned)
..To expect your employer to treat you like the motivated human being ie trust you to do the work but also acknowledge you have a life outside of work
..To ensure equal partnership eg if working hours are adjusted both work 4 days or 9 in 10
..To plan for the workload - get a cleaner, minimise commutes

Depends on the careers surely?

Yep 2 teachers vs 2 partners at law firms? very different.

Number of dc make a difference too & maybe age gaps between subsequent ones. I could have easily worked more hours with DC1, they were a very easy baby & now an easy child. Good sleeper, toilet trained naturally, sensible, learnt to read with little help. DC2 not so much!

We've both had to be available when needed to do sick days / dr appts etc. So you really need to have a partner who respects that your career is equally valid. And pulls their weight with the housework.

I'm not convinced that this is just about your spouse thinking your career is equally valid and haring duties. Many jobs simply don't have the kind of flexibility to allow a person to leave when a child needs picking up or is sick.

My husband's job used to have him working away from home for long stretches. It wouldn't matter how much he respected my career he could not have helped with kids or housework when he was away. He often couldn't say for sure when he'd be home as it was weather dependent.

The options were I could pick up the slack, we could try and get family to do it, or pay someone to.

It's still difficult for women to get in the same high paying positions as men

Only about 60k women earn 150k vs 295k men.

@Bluntness100

Yes, we also paid for all our child care and had no family support either.

As said, dual career is now the norm. Rather than the exception. Stay at home parents are a small minority that is declining. Dual career is by far the more common dynamic,

The OP asked though whether it could be done without sacrifices to either career.

Most families with two careers have at least one that allows more flexibility, or they make choices so they both cover those kinds of needs, or they make enough money to pay for help. Some have family care.

There is a reason that when you crunch the numbers, women who have children begin earning less compared to women without children or men. It's because they are making choice to sacrifice their career.

Which IMO is fine, but it's misleading to tell people that they can magically avoid it. Someone has to take care of the kids and they can't be doing something else at the same time.

I started before another woman full time in the exact same job. I am now part time on the same level I started. She is head of department. I think we probably both think we have it all! It's just about what you want and what suits you and your drive to succeed at whatever that is.

• we both had two children during our time with the company.

I'm not convinced that this is just about your spouse thinking your career is equally valid and haring duties. Many jobs simply don't have the kind of flexibility to allow a person to leave when a child needs picking up or is sick

I agree @goosefoot

In the case of sick days, what is far more useful than a partner who is willing and able to swing time off work is a willing, local grandparent.

Is your H willing to curtail his working hours and (if relevant) travel to do his share of parenting and domestic work?

That will be a key factor affecting your work IMO.

@Dr1ppin you say twice in your post that your husband “works long hours”. The honest truth is that for you to progress in your career and as parents together raise your children he will have to compromise as well as you.
In a two career family both careers need to cope with some of the drop offs / pick ups / sick days. If it all falls to you you will struggle.

'Having it all' is a bit of a myth but you absolutely can both have a fulfilling career if that's what you want,and you are prepared to work together towards that
We have done it ,and I am so glad

I was a single parent, worked full time, one DC, no family support, had to pay for child care as this was before the free nursery hours came into being.
It was hard but you can do it, helps if you have an understanding boss, you can make up for the time spent away from your DC at the weekends

Depends on definition of successful but if you both want to earn 50k pls then you generally need

only 1 long commute
money to outsource
flexi/remote working options
family to help

Covid has resulted in more women giving up their jobs/reducing their hours because they had to carry the burden of home educating

We did OK.
Dh was self employed when the kids were little so he never missed a school play, parents evening, nativity.
I work for the local authority and had great managers when the kids were small.
My childminder was my sister in law who lived in the next street and she was awesome. Even now they are adults they are really close to her.
The key thing was that me and Dh were supportive of each other. Dh more than pulled his weight and didn't need to be asked to do sanything , meals were ready when I was at work for when I got in and vice versa. He would iron uniforms and have them ready etc.
Team work is the key.

Neither of our careers has suffered but there are a number of things that have contributed a lot to that:

• we have both had periods of working PT (at least 4 days a week) and our employers at the time were open-minded enough to see that we still contributed fully;

• I am a lawyer so have to be reactive to client needs, attend lots of meetings etc but DH's job is much more predictable, so I've always been able to juggle my working time around so as to meet my work requirements because he doesn't have the same sorts of demands;

• for the critical patch when I went back after having second DC and we had two fairly young (from 4 and 1 to when they were 9 and 6) DH worked 15 minutes from home which massively eased the pressure for things like going to assemblies, picking up if feeling poorly at school/childminder;

• fab PILs who have covered some emergency childcare;

• we share caring for our DC and home equally;

• we value each others' careers and how important they are to us. I have always earned at least twice as much as DH but I am really careful to do my share of everything- when he used to do the emergency stuff because he worked so nearby I would always cover the issues you could plan for (eg. childminder holiday, inset days etc).

The only way 2 people can both have dedicated, full time/long hours careers is to outsource a lot of the time with children, unless one/both of your works shifts that mean you can be working when children are sleeping.

DH has a successful career and is out of the house 12 hours a day.

My job is/was not dissimilar - leaving at 7.30am, getting home at 6.30pm. So in order to actually have one of us have time the children, I've sacrificed the speed of career progression by choosing to work part time. I do 4 days a week (hoping to drop to 3 now I have a second child) going in early and leaving early, one of my days wfh, and I never stay late at work. Ever. I will log in after children are asleep occasionally.

However I do think this is as close to having it all as possible in that I still earn enough for it to be really worth it, and am in a good position to step it back up when the kids are older.

I think it's important to remember a typical working life is at least 45 years long (age 22 - 67). The period when you have really young children might be 5 or 6 years, its temporary, and you cant give up the rest of your career completely for it.

We have both managed to grow in our careers and have children

It helps that my work are very child focused though - if not I could see how mine might have stagnated after having kids

It's all about finding the right workplace. Not many out there it seems but they do exist.

@Bluntness100

Yes, we also paid for all our child care and had no family support either.

As said, dual career is now the norm. Rather than the exception. Stay at home parents are a small minority that is declining. Dual career is by far the more common dynamic,

It probably isn't. Large numbers of the population have jobs rather than careers. Dual career is much more common than it used to be but there's a big gap between that and the norm.

It is bloody hard. I am a partner in a professional services firm in the city, my husband is a doctor. I have been the breadwinner for 20 years.

I took 6 months off with each of my DC and relied on nursery and then a nanny. DH works less than full time "for child care reasons" but actually the majority of child related matters still fall on me. Lockdown has been a nightmare and I am on the verge of losing it trying to WFH full time, parent/entertain/home school 2 children and keep the household running.

We got back from holiday on Saturday and are now quarantining. I am back WFH and DH has taken additional leave/swapped shifts etc. So you would hope that he would get up and help with the DC to give me some respite from the slog I have endured since March, right?

Nope, he doesn't get up until lunchtime and then has been spending most of the day in his mancave on the laptop "doing stuff". Meanwhile I am tearing out my hair and bellowing at my DC who are fighting and won't STFU whilst I am on work calls.

We had a big falling out last night as I am sick of having to do pretty much everything - I don't get to lounge around doing what I want. He told me I don't do as much as I think I do and whatever I do do I don't do properly.

I didn't even bother arguing with him as I was so upset. I just went to bed whilst he skulked downstairs. I couldn't sleep most of the night and veered between thoughts of jumping in the car and driving off to a hotel/telling him I want a divorce and then at least I will get some of a rest with 50:50 custody/driving my car off of cliff and leaving them all to it. I feel so unsupported and unappreciated.

Even in non-COVID times I do the bulk of dealing with the DC and school/club stuff, dealing with our nanny, shopping, cooking, remortgaging, the laundry, house and car insurance, boiler service, sorting out the garden, Christmas and birthdays, etc etc. And I am not being a martyr - a lot of these things just won't get done.

He's "put the DC to bed" now and gone to bed himself. I am still working. Except I'm not because - apart from mumsnetting - the DC are up and down the stairs like yo-yos and he is leaving me to deal with them.

I have had enough.

My pay has increased by about 30% since I had dc1 13 years ago. DP's has increased much more. We were on the same salary when I went on maternity leave.
I had 2 maternity leaves, 3 job changes and have worked from full time down to 22 hours and back up to nearly full time.
DP has stayed at the same company throughout but not changed as they have flexitime and the option to buy additional leave which he has made good use of.
No family help other than a few days a year of grandparents visiting and looking after kids in school holidays.
My jobs have got increasingly closer to home so the school run is easier to manage.
Objectively I have a good job but could earn more if I was prepared to travel more.

My parents managed it, my mum had her own business which she built from scratch and had 14 employees when she retired and my dad was partner in a big law firm. Having said that, like others we had a nanny, gardener and cleaner and my mum only took 4 weeks mat leave (she had 3 DC in 4 years). We also boarded at school when we were older, my parents worked hard during the week but the weekend was always family time. I’m proud of my mum it was very unusual in the 80s having a mum that ran a business.

My career suffered. I'm currently trying to revive it now the kids are old enough not to need someone around all the time (and then CV hit!) and while my DH says all the right things about supporting me and being feminist etc. he doesn't actually step up. If I put as much into my career as he does our children would be neglected, probably not in a social-services-should-get-involved way, but certainly in terms of us not being on the ball for responding to school requests, getting them kitted out, planning for their birthdays or Christmas or vacations. Their lives would be a lot less fun even though we'd have a lot more money.

I have one friend I have met since university who is a real high flyer whose husband is the one who left his job and looks after their kid. He and I bond over talks about how hard it is to get back into a career when you have to work around a successful spouse. He's the only man I've met who's been prepared to do this and actually stepped up to take on the role the way millions of women do.

Of my university friends - all my female friends with children have suffered in their careers compared to my male friends with children. All the women have taken part time work or less demanding jobs or jobs that require less commuting/travel/weekend working/etc. They are all first point of contact for kid issues. Most of them say they are happy with this but then so would I if asked in front of a group of friends. I'm not, though. Not a single male friend with children has taken a similar career hit for their children. They may have turned down the odd job abroad (some haven't) but none of them have gone part-time, none has taken a lesser paying job closer to home, etc. Most of them jump from job to job every few years pursuing better positions and their wives then ask their own bosses for accommodation to deal with whatever difference needs absorbing. The mothers are much more wary of changing jobs because they don't want to lose the concessions they've built up over the years that make their lives work around childcare.

My male and female friends without kids have pretty much the same career success as male friends with kids. It's only the women with children who have taken a career hit.

I'm depressed about it. I didn't want kids when I was younger because I feared this and I really thought it had changed (and I really thought my own husband would definitely step up), but it hasn't really, at least not for my generation as far as I can tell.

Piata, ok dual jobs then 🤷‍♀️ The point remains in the vast majority of households both parents work and the same for single parents, they also work,

Working and having children is not something unusual or impossible.

Jobs or careers millions of parents manage it.