To think women can't have it all?

[0Cripes]

I'm pregnant with DC3 and due soon. My boss recently announced he was leaving at the end of this month on a 9 month secondment. His role is a natural progression for me and he has been teeing me up for it for 7 years. However, someone will backfill his role and gain experience for 9 months that I won't have a chance to get, therefore when the permanent position comes up (my boss has no intention to return) I'll be at a disadvantage.
If I wasn't going on mat leave I would stand a very good chance getting this role. I am annoyed as I feel I'm now at a disadvantage and my career is suffering because I've chosen to have a child. I appreciate that I still have the opportunity to apply but I'm pretty sure I won't get it knowing I'll be absent for 6 months of it!
I know the timings are nobodies fault but AIBU to be annoyed at this and think it's so hard for women to have kids and a successful career?

If you choose to work part time and children over work (not saying anything wrong, a perfectly valid and sensible choice) you need to cede some expectations at work, especially in the corporate world, and thus "having it all"

I've seen women back at work a month after birth. Not many choose to do so (again nothing wrong in that). It doesn't automatically guarantee they will make great strides in career but statistically if more women do so more will rise to senior leadership. It takes full time, multi decade effort to get to most senior positions.

Timing might be off but you can still choose to go for it.

I'm not UK born and find it is a cultural thing as there is this 'attachment' parenting concept that prizes and correlates happy children/families to the quantity of time hovering over them.

Fgs it didn’t take long for the ‘what about the poor menz’ gang to get hold of this thread did it? Was it started from that direction?? I’m very suspicious of these kinds of threads on this website now, in this time when women’s rights are going backwards.

No, women can’t “have it all” as op puts it in a system which is designed to have some groups slaving our guts out 24/7 for specified higher status groups. Yes women - and men for that matter - can combine having children and working, as they have done since evolution began, in systems that allow for that to happen. It’s relatively easier in flatter societies where work pays for the cost of living for everyone anyway.

Some things to think about - when did we start having a conflict between economic work for survival and raising children for survival? Why is it assumed that the same specialised economic ideas relevant to other survival tasks - growing food, building work, manufacturing - cannot and should not be applied to the survival work of having children? It has worked for thousands of years. Most of all, why have women in the past fought for the right to join men in working out of the home - for money, for independence, for status, for the right to join in public societal decisions that set our economic choices? In Britain these things are closely linked to going out to work, which is a strange equation. There is no way women should be en masse giving up all that!

There is interesting news about China wanting to raise the birth rate, but facing resistance from women who see that men just want them to become low status dependents to do that, and thankfully, have the sense to resist. theconversation.com/chinas-three-child-policy-is-unlikely-to-be-welcomed-by-working-women-162047
Different societies face exactly the same questions, over time and space, and make different choices. We all know about Afghanistan, the Taliban, and Islam’s solution of enslaving women to bear children. A better way for women is seen in Scandinavia. Currently Finland allows either parents to take unpaid leave from work until the child is 3, and it is not common in Scandinavian cultures for the burden of child raising to fall so heavily on the mother alone. Britain is, despite some of the anecdotes from a website centred on the well-off London crowd, very misogynistic on the whole. We have to be very aware and careful now about the assumptions we are making and what rights we are casually giving up for our daughters and granddaughters yet unborn.

I was back at work after a few weeks with each of mine. Had no choice. Its crap, but doable

@NuffSaidSam

'Although just to add. Two babies and neither would accept a bottle, so it's not always as easy as just let dad do it.'

All babies will take a bottle if they have to. If the mum died/couldn't breastfeed the baby wouldn't starve to death and we don't have wet nurses anymore....they take a bottle. It's their instinct to survive!

I cannot think of anything more unappealing than feeling I had to leave a distressed baby just to have a fair crack in the work place. I'm sure they would have figured it out before they starved, but they didn't want it and they didn't get it. Regardless of how many times we tried in different circumstances. Even if they do accept a bottle, exclusively expressing can effect milk supply and can be time consuming/difficult to do in the work environment. It's one of the ways a woman is disadvantaged in the workplace as it falls to women

Unless you were forced to have a child (a 3rd one) and are being forced to take full mat leave you are talking bollocks OP. There are other barriers for women but this is one of your making.

This exact thing happened to me. It is very disheartening. Especially as in the end my boss chose not to return and the full time role went to the man that backfilled the role.

My interview feedback was that he had more experience doing that specific role. Very disheartening.

Yabu it’s biology and a choice to have a third child

YABU. Women can certainly combine motherhood and a successful career. It's all about the choices that you make.

I have a fantastic relationship with my dd and a great career. It has been hard at times and I have had to work hard to ensure that I have been able to spend time with her as well as work hard, but I know plenty of women who have managed to get this balance right. And as someone who had a desperately unhappy SAHM, it was always extremely important to me to be able to model a different way for my daughter so that she knows that it's perfectly possible to have both.

Fathers don’t face these penalties. V v few take long paternity and/or work part time.

The more DC, the harder it is. OP, in your shoes I’d apply for the temporary promotion and shorten your mat leave.

I don’t know ANY mums who are happy about career and pay progression after becoming a mum.

The more competitive “the workplace” is allowed to become and the more separated it is from other survival needs and work, the more men will push women aside and demand we become their slaves

The only women I know with successful careers and kids have had nannies from 3 months. Plus partners who earn ££££ too.

'I cannot think of anything more unappealing than feeling I had to leave a distressed baby just to have a fair crack in the work place.
I'm sure they would have figured it out before they starved, but they didn't want it and they didn't get it. Regardless of how many times we tried in different circumstances.
Even if they do accept a bottle, exclusively expressing can effect milk supply and can be time consuming/difficult to do in the work environment. It's one of the ways a woman is disadvantaged in the workplace as it falls to women'

Sure, all true.

My point was simply that all babies (apart from babies who need to be fed medically) can and will bottle feed.

There are a thousand choices around baby feeding, often very emotional ones and everyone must do what is right for them and their babies. But it helps, when making decisions, to be accurate about the options and babies can and will bottle feed.

YANBU

I don’t know ANY mums who are happy about career and pay progression after becoming a mum

I’m one and know plenty others. It probably depends on sector but I know the fact that I have DC makes no difference to my salary and progression.

Honestly finding these comments suggesting you return after a matter of weeks completely bizarre. Are they being facetious? Have any of these posters had children??

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I've had 3 dc. At a time when UK maternity leave was 3 months, so that is what I took, and then I went back to work. As did the overwhelming majority of my peers. We all have fully grown children who are healthy, well adjusted, competent, loving adults.
When they woke at night, dh and I took turns to deal with it whilst the other one slept.

The OP has made lots of choices, all of which might have been the right choices for her. I'm not criticising anyone taking a longer maternity leave. I'm glad there is now more choice. However, that is what it is, a choice.
Of course you can't expect an employer to give you a job that you aren't going to be there to do. It is quite bizarre to think that anyone would. It would be completely unfair on those folk that chose not to have dc (let alone 3)..... who chose not to take 9 months or a year out each time they did so.....who not only have a lot more recent experience, but will actually be there to do the job.

As if any man has to choose between his 3rd child or his career?!

@DrBlackbird My dh has done on several occasions as have so many others that I know well

I would definitely apply for it
They then have the decision to make as to whether to offer it to you
A lot of employers would not want to be seen to be discriminatory
Don't make it easy for them

OP hasn't returned so we don't know her views on many of the pints raised.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned - she says that her boss has been 'teeing her up' for this role for years. This suggests the boss (and by extension the company) has been supporting her career aims. They may also feel some frustration at the timing ...

*points

I don't think I have it 'all' but I'm very satisfied with what I have. We have a nice house in a really excellent area. We have one DC and both have good professional jobs and are comfortably off. I think for me, having it all would be maybe having three kids and a dream job in the arts or journalism which I don't have. So I don't have it all but what I have is very good.

As I said, I think she should make it abundantly clear that she wants the position regardless of her maternity leave. They can fill it temporarily just as they would have had to if she'd gotten pregnant six months after taking up the position.

You are missing a huge point in op post.

That she wont be there for the temporary cover and so, the person who will do the temporary cover will have an advantage when it comes to filling it permanently.

This is not about applying for the permanent job, it's about the op missing an opportunity to do the hob and go into the interview with a slight advantage. Instead someone else will had the advantage.

And she won't be there during the period that job will be temporarily filled.

If a job needs filling for 9 months, they can't fill it with someone who won't be in work, for the majority or all of those 9 months.

So back to my point. If op wants this opportunity and to do the temporary cover of this role in preparation for permanently filling it, the only alternative is a short a Mat leave.

Op, physically can not take her planned 9-12 month Mat leave and cover the job which (initially) is a 9 month secondment, during the same period.

So it's take the Mat leave or don't take the Mat leave for this opportunity. She can certainly still apply for the permenr role.

But she can't do it all in this case.

Nobody can have it all, but 3 children and a 9 month mat leave are choices that you have made and not events that are out of your control

@Kite22 I was specifically referring to posters suggesting she take "a few weeks" of maternity leave before returning to work - by "a few" I would assume 3 or 4 weeks. I'm sorry for my incredulity, but I don't believe any mother would gladly and willingly leave her newborn baby to return to work within that time frame. Obviously, many women are forced to by circumstance but I don't think many (any?) would choose to do so.

There's so much lowest common denominator BS in this thread, it's depressing. Yes, the UK has comparatively good maternity leave provision but it still falls woefully short of what studies show would be beneficial for children, families and wider society. We could do much better, and many other countries do. Where is the use-it-or-lose-it paternity leave? Where is the universal early years provision? Other countries manage it, why not this one? And why are so many posters - presumably, many of them women - in this thread being so snidey?

I know what you mean, and you’re kind of right, but I also agree with pps that it depends what you consider to be “it all”.

Nobody can have everything, it’s true, but women’s situation is different to men’s because we physically bear the children.

I agree OP.

I think it’s very difficult to work FT, let alone progress your career, unless your partner is the lower earner/SAHP and can do the school/nursery runs and holidays, pick kids up when they’re ill etc.

I tried to ‘have it all’ but felt my DC were suffering being put into wraparound childcare. The house was always a mess, and every half term or holiday caused conflict over who would take annual leave, should we use holiday club (which DC started to fight against). As the main earner my DH’s job is vital to our financial security. Mine contributed to the family income and childcare but wasn’t vital.

So I gave up my FT job and found a similar one with greatly reduced hours that allows me to drop off and pick up at the usual times, is flexible with wfh options so holiday childcare is nolonger needed. I have enough time to cook, clean and listen to DC read during the week instead of getting home exhausted at 7pm. DC love it. DH loves it and has since been promoted twice as he’s spinning less plates.

Be careful not to prioritise work over family. Back when DC were younger I thought the only way to keep my foot ‘in the door’ of my profession by was by working FT. But the stress of doing that plus all the arranging childcare, home life, DC who missed me nearly led to burnout. I still have my foot in the door but won’t go FT until they’re much older.

Is your DH’s job the one that earns more/has the capacity to earn more? Or yours? Because I think one of you will have to sacrifice their career to some extent.