Advice about Family vs Career

[aln24]

I'm not sure if this is really an AIBU but I feel it's appropriate!

I am 24 yrs old and in my final year of university. I have a part-time job in tesco. I have been working there for almost 4 years and I love my job.

I am due to graduate next year and the obvious next step would be to get a graduate job in my field. I study business so a lot of the opportunities available to me include a "graduate programme" which usually last for 2 years, and is a training contract with the company with the hope of getting employed on a permanent basis at the end of the programme.

I always thought that this is something that I wanted to do to get me into a good company and then have a good career with them.
However, my partner and I have recently been talking about starting a family. He is 27 next month and has said that he would like to have a child before he is older than 30, which I completely understand. We have been together for 4 years and have been living together for over 2 years.

If he wants a baby before he is 30 that only leaves us with 3 years from now. And if we wait until I'm graduated then we only really have just over 2 years. But if I am going to complete a graduate programme, I will not want to get pregnant while I'm doing that. I have always said that I want to be in a stable job and know that I'm secure before having a baby.

With us discussing it a lot recently, I have decided I would honestly be happy to have a child sooner than I originally thought, as long as we're okay financially.

But this has left me confused about what I want for my future, career wise.

Coming back to my job in tesco, yes, it is a part-time job to get me through uni and pay the bills, however, Tesco actually have lots of internal opportunities to progress up to management. I have always been aware of and interested in these opportunities. It is definitely somewhere that if you work hard you could do okay. The only thing putting me off this is that I will have worked for a degree, and I feel like I don't want that to have been for nothing if I could have progressed through Tesco with or without the degree.

So where my thoughts are now is that I would actually really like to get pregnant in a years time (I would be 25 by then). But, if I take on a 2 year grad programme, this will clash.

I wanted some advice about whether I should have a mindset of "career" and work hard to get a place on a grad programme, or should I be happy with the job that I currently have, know how to do and am pretty good at, and continue to work hard there and progress up that ladder and have a career there, and then get pregnant in a years time, as I can take maternity leave at tesco, and then come back from maternity and continue to work hard and progress up the career ladder, but it takes the pressure of time off me, as I won't be stuck in a 2 year grad contract or anything like that? Or is this "wasting" my degree?
Plus the maternity leave at tesco is REALLY good.

You mentioned your life plans in your op. Think carefully about them. What do you want in an ideal world?
You are ambitious, will you feel trapped if you remain in your current role with the opportunities it gives for progression? How will you feel when you see your peers from uni, and younger graduates, maybe with less relevant degrees, progress higher and become your manager?

Will you and your partner always see your career as the lesser because you take a job below your ability and qualification level?
It is hard, but not impossible to complete a grad. program with a child. Men do it all the time- it does mean that their partners have to take at least a half share of all of the childcare AND housework. That partner usually has to do more than half to ensure the partner can do well in their training. The partner in training is often the lower earner during this time. Will your partner feel that, as he is the breadwinner, he “deserves” to do less, not more at home. (Even if he says nothing the resentment will show) Will you?
The job market is shakey at the moment. Flexibility is a key quality for getting and keeping a job. Especially in the early years of that job. Especially if the employer has not spent much on your training.
Babies are a full time job on their own. What other support will you both have? How much have you saved towards the costs. Childcare whilst you are both working can be close to what one person earns after tax and deductions. Especially when that salary is at training wage level with your student loan payment taken off.
Waiting a couple of years until all training is over and you are established will deal with most of these things.
You should both weigh up the pros and cons, make a list if it helps. Treat this decision at least as thoroughly as you did when you chose your university and your courses. Having a baby is far more important and, unlike your uni decisions, can’t be altered if you get it wrong.

Go for the graduate scheme route and adjust as/if needed.

Any big company with a graduate scheme will have the processes in place to manage maternity leave.

You might be trying for ages for a baby or might find it doesn’t happen or your plans change.

If you join a grad scheme and have a baby and it doesn’t work out you can still go back to your current line of work.

So pick the option that offers you the most options and financial security/possibilities

Do you own your home? If not, don't make choice and then become another person bitter that you can it afford to rent and despise subsiding your landlords mortgage.

If you have a child now, you will find that going back to work before they are at school is not worth it financially as you'll pay almost as much in childcare than what you earn us repay your loan.

Then you'll want a second child that is not to far apart from the first so you add more years. Before you know it you'll be mid 30s. Starting your career will be much harder, co.pwtition from the youngest with no need for flexible arrangements, confidence not as high.

Of course it's not impossible and many young mums manage to get in the ladder after having a child, but it will be much harder.

You are better off getting on a graduate management scheme, save for a deposit, progress to the next stage and have a child then.

Your oh will only be in his 30s which is an average age for a first child.

If you already own your home it might not be as much an issue.

I would only pick Tesco if it is really what you want to do. Also, you might find the hours could be unsociable (if you are in store management, I know someone who works in this and finds their hours are a pain), or have a lot of travelling (if you an area manager, HQ etc). These could be tricky with small kids and childcare. Would your OH pick up his share?

You could still finish your degree, find a graduate scheme you are really interested in and then have a baby young. If you wanted more than one child, your OH would be over 30 then so it wouldn't matter if you waited until he was 30 for the first baby? Sometimes trying takes longer than you expect too, are you happy to stay at Tesco if it takes 4 or 5 years?

What would you really like to do? What type of company would you like to work for? What are your interests? Also, where do you see yourself working if you have children? It's a long time until retirement so pick something you like.

Hi OP I’m 25 and pregnant. Here are the things we got sorted before TTC. Obviously lots of people have DCs without doing this but I thought it would be helpful to share-

-Undergrad and Post Grad degree, I’ll also hopefully be chartered in my profession before the end of this year. I’ve completed all of the steps and just have one more exam to sit in December.

-Own a home

-Married to DH

-Been within my employer for 18 months, will be over 2 years by the time I take maternity leave.

-Have worked my way up into a leadership role at work and have clearly shown ambition and an appetite to progress.

We knew we wanted 1 or 2 DCs before being 30 so I’ve worked my arse off to be in a position where TTC was sensible. My career isn’t as developed as it could be but my employer knows how hard I’m willing to work.

What’s is difficult is that I’m now contemplating a very short mat leave 3/4 months to be able to continue to push my career. I’m very aware that extra effort in the next 2/3 years will make a very big difference to my career long term and therefore the flexibility I will have when DC is older. Very much short term pain long term gain.

Everyone needs to calm down, we ARE talking about it and making a plan, that's exactly why I'm on here asking the questions I asked, as part of my plan. Everyone here seems to think we don't communicate. We discuss everything, a lot. We're not stupid. We know it costs money.
Thank you for all your input, but everyone really needs to stop jumping to conclusions that I'm some stupid young girl ready to throw her life away on some silly boy. Have a bit of faith people, please🙄

@bettybyebye I am listening perfectly well to each and every comment, I don't need to respond to every single one.
I fully understand and on some parts agree with what everyone is saying, and I thank you all for your comments.
Just because I don't reply doesn't mean I'm not listening. I'm processing.

I think you would be absolutely foolish to have a baby right now when you are firstly so young, and you have plans to study and further your career. Why is his magic number 30?
You have the time now to set yourself up in so many ways. There is no rush for you to have a baby so soon and so young.b

@Riv thank you for your positive and thoughtful comment❤️

Stick with your plan. Graduate and get into a training scheme. Having a baby at 31 wont kill him.

He could end up walking away and leave you holding the baby. Get your qualifications and career sorted first

Also I am not planning to have a baby right now. Of course I am going to finish my degree, to think otherwise is insane.
I am just trying to make plans for the future.

But it's not just finishing your degree, it's getting established in a career.

Graduate programmes can be hard. Employers often expect you to spend time at all their different sites, go on training courses, do extra reading and research out of normal hours, that sort of thing.

So requires commitment and would be hard to keep up with and do well at and combine with young DC unless you have a very supportive partner who is willing and able to be the main parent without needing to be spoon-fed through every little step.

Usually, graduate positions are permanent, so you'll be entitled to all benefits as per every other employee. You can stop to have a baby in the 2 year graduate course, and still come back to a job in your chosen career.
Is the earning potential at tesco better than your earning potential in your graduate career? Iirc, graduate jobs are around £20-£25k starting? How long would it take you to reach that?
Maternity policies may or may not be as generous, but in the unlikely event that it's statutory, then perhaps the higher earnings for the ret of your career may offset it?

I don't think yuu need to choose between career and baby.
You need to choose between a career in your chosen field and tesco.

As an FYI, I believe the culture at tesco in management is pretty toxic. 'pound of flesh' is the phrase I've heard. But the benefits are good 😁

This is a very personal decision to make but if it helps, you don't have to be fresh out of uni to do a graduate scheme. I went back to full time admin work after uni as I'd not managed to get a grad job but then got one the year after (I was 26 when I started the job as went to uni late)
Now we are TTC so I did do things in the usual order (uni, married, grad job, bought house, TTC) but doing things in a different order doesn't mean you'll never climb the career ladder

1. Career
2. Marriage
3. Kids

This gives you options if you ever need a Plan B.

It depends on so many things. I’m making the assumption that in practical terms your ‘ready’ in terms of finance, housing stability, health, social support network here. You sound ambitious for your career so one the one had that points clearly to the grad scheme. However, having seen woman climb the ladder and have kids in their early thirties, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they continue to be the most ambitious following kids. I had my kids relatively young pre grad scheme and kept my foot in, in a no grad role during the early years. I enjoyed the basically responsibility free nature of my job to balance out the pressure of having young kids at home. The negatives is that I didn’t and don’t earn as much as could otherwise have had -yet- but I do still feel very ambitious and I’m starting the next big step up next year (I’m 34) at a time when female friends are having their babies. It’s also more of a risk - a risk that you may never ‘catch up’ which given the current economic circumstances is a big consideration. The thing that swung it for me was that I did not want the responsibility of a ‘career’ and babies at the same time. This goes against the grain though.

@corythatwas

As far as children, it's always a trade off for women IMO. You can wait and have them later, and interrupt a career. Or, you can have them sooner, and you will be in a position to start a career when they are in school - it's one of the advantages of having children a little younger that doing it that way becomes an option.*

@Goosefoot, this child is going to have two parents. Maybe part of the discussion should be what the dp intends to do to fit his career round being a father?

The father's plan should be part of the equation, yes. But the situation is always different for the mother. She is the one who will be pregnant, which often involved physical demands and sometimes significant, job impacting ones. She is the one who will deal with the physical after-effects of pregnancy, which, again, can be significant.

She is the one who will almost always be the primary caregiver in the early days - there is a reason that period is called the fourth trimester. If she wants to breastfeed she is the one who will be putting in the effort to learn to do it - which can be a significant investment of time and effort - and who will have to take the additional time to pump if she goes back to work before weaning. And she is also the one who is likely to be most affected by hormones that lead her to reevaluate her priorities.

I don't think it does women any favours to be reticent about these realities. Some of them are unescapable, and many women are surprised by some or all of them, when they has assumed it would be something easy to plan and which would have a similar impact on the mother and father, as if reproduction wasn't intimately involved with our bodies.

I didn't take my own advice but would definately get married first. I think in terms of timing, having a year out of a graduate scheme is not impossible and there is something romantic about being young and poor with kids. For one thing you have plenty of energy and have younger grandparents. On the other hand there are advantages to waiting. FWIW I had my first (unplanned) at 28 and although I might have waited in an ideal world we are coming out the other side now and I wouldn't change a thing.

You need to finish your degree, get some work under your belt and preferably get married first.

Does he want any old baby by 30 or does he want your baby with you? Cos if its the second he needs to wait until you are ready. Do the grad scheme.

I think it benefits your baby to have two equal and involved parents. The easiest way to do that is to ensure you both have decent careers before becoming parents.

It means it makes more sense to do some shared parental leave, in a way it doesn't if one of you is earning three times the other. Its easier to share the burden of pick offs and drop offs. You approach it differently. And if there's a risk of redundancy, a death or a break up, it is a survivable catastrophe.

It seems like a choice: kids then career, or career then kids. In reality though, everyone I know who took a break to do kids first still hasn't got on track more than a decade later: they had 3 kids (6 years), decided to wait till the youngest was in school, decided to retrain but can't afford to do that and childcare.... it is just easier to get a few more rungs up the ladder first, then you can balance progression with children and childcare. Entry-level career work with children when you're up against people with no kids is much much harder.

Do the graduate programme, get married, start to have a family. You'll still be under thirty. I waited till I was at a management level and I am so, so glad I did: the level of flexibility it has given me is huge.

You’d be insane to give up the only years you get to yourself to enjoy - live, travel, work, buy what you like, party, socialise, lay in until 10am, nights out, cinema, late brunches, girls nights, long wkends and city breaks - you can’t do any of this stuff with kids on board.

Ok you can but it all comes with conditions, it all comes with having to find childcare, feeing guilty, being exhausted....

Children are really really hard work and they take everything from you. They stretch your capacity to cope wafer thin and they suck the life out of your body, mind and relationship!

Yes it’s also lush being a parent sometimes but Jesus don’t give up the only time in your life you can be selfish before you’ve even experienced it.

I could cry at the thought of becoming a mum straight out of uni.

It’s really up to you. I had a goal of all my childbearing done by age 30 myself and I did in fact have my 4th and last DC at age 30. I had my first aged 24. I had finished university and was entry level in my career when I started having children. I took only 12weeks maternity for each child. This is because long maternity leaves is what sets women’s careers back, it’s not the having of children it’s the not working for a year or more. So “good maternity benefits” are a double edged sword. Yes it is tempting to be paid to be home with a baby/toddler but there is a long term price to your career and lifetime earning potential if you take that route. I don’t like this or agree with it, but it’s the harsh reality we live in. For me, having children early in my career was also better than interrupting a career later because it’s easier to be off as a member of a scientific team than if you are the lead or principal scientist heading a project. That’s a function of my career field, though so it differs by profession too which is better. It also meant my children were older and more independent when I reached more demanding senior levels.

In your case, I think the only advice I would give is don’t just stay at Tesco and work your way up. That’s a bad plan baby or no baby. The other advice given- take graduate scheme, wait a bit or wait a lot is much better advice. Just keep in mind that other options exist. You could get pregnant now and instead of graduate scheme do a post graduate degree online while home with a newborn (my best friend did her masters and doctorate this way with her two). Also keep in mind that whenever you have a baby, you can make it work wether you do it sooner or later. The important thing is to decide if you want a baby, how many babies you want and then when you want them. There is no one right way or order that ensures family plus career success.

I do agree too, that before you get pregnant, get married for the legal protections.

It seems like a choice: kids then career, or career then kids. In reality though, everyone I know who took a break to do kids first still hasn't got on track more than a decade later

Well I had 4 years of treading water then got back into training I would say I ended up where I would have been maybe 5 years later, but older, wiser and more focused.