To be expected to work part time now that I am a mum

[Hollie93]

So, DH earns more money than me so we made a decision for me to drop my hours to facilitate child care. However, I am becoming resentful that he is able to do well in his career and mine hasn’t even started. I think what I need is other mums telling me they held off too , at least until youngest child started school? I’m early 30’s so not a spring chicken haha!..I now have a much clearer idea of what my chosen career is and will be able to achieve it working part time whilst kids are at school as I’ll need to retrain?

Op I’d change it up now if you feel resentful already
You have every right to work full time if you wish to

@Hollie93

I’ve already prioritised DH’s career as it was the only thing that made sense, but is it unreasonable to want to start mine now? I want to hear of people who have done rhis

It’s not unreasonable You need to sit down with your DH and look at the practicalities of drop offs, pick ups, finances etc and figure it out Plenty of families have two FT working parents

Do you resent your child or husband?

Make sure the family pot of money pays you a pension contribution to compensate you for the reduced pension you will accrue by working less hours than you did before children. This is important.

It really annoys me that there is the expectation that when DC are born, it is the women who drop their hours, and that a lot of the mental load falls on to them. I understand your situ: he earns more therefore it makes sense, but the expectation in general annoys me.

In your situ though, can you talk things through with your DH? Are there any courses/CPD that you can take in the meantime? Also, is your DH paying the difference towards the decrease in your pension contributions and NI? And why is it just your salary that is paying towards childcare, surely it's a joint thing?

I know a mixture of families where people either:
-worked around each other's shifts/hours to minimise cost of childcare.
-each condensed FT hours into 4 days a week, so each parent would have a day off in the week, so only paying for 3 days childcare.
-one parent went part time, or was a SAHP, whilst the other worked FT. They did that until kids started school.

I think though it is what is suitable for the individual family. Prior to my marriage ending, I was the breadwinner and working FT. I still work FT, however have negotiated FT hours into 4 days a week to fit with my youngest's childcare hours. If you're starting to feel resentful then you really need to say something and thrash out a plan. x

I have 2 children's 2 years apart. I went part time after my first until my youngest was 2. Went back full-time after this as was tired of being pushed aside and my career stagnating because I was part time.

OP I continued to work full time. I prioritised my career for me and my future.

I was bloody glad I had when my ex left suddenly as I was able to keep things going financially by myself.

SO many women prioritise the man's career and then when a split happens he has all his lovely earning power and the woman is shafted (and left with the kids making it even harder to work and earn well).

Ask yourself what your future self would want you to do and make yourself a gift of that.

Worked full time after maternity leave till kids were in school (used nursery). I’m the higher earner as it happens. Only dropped to a 4 day week then when I had reached where I wanted to be in my career so was happy to stay at that level. Childcare expenses shared equally from joint income. There are no rules but please keep an eye to your later life- those early years are exhausting but they pass quickly enough

What are you retraining in?

Because in all honestly, unless it’s something that brings you in line or ahead earning-wise with your DH, you are going to always be in this position.

See it all the time, women retraining as midwives or HCA and then still end up working part-time because childcare ends up more than full-time wages - rather than viewing it holistically.

want to hear of people who have done rhis

Done what?

If you actually tell us what you want to retrain in, you might get some useful replies!

My husband earns double what I do but we both work full time and our daughter is in nursery. It eats a lot of our wages but there was no way I could go part time and neither could my husband

I went part time for 10 years. I am correspondingly behind in my career as I was treading water when part time and ended up working for younger less experienced and less knowledgable people than me, which was frustrating at times. However, their role was only available full time and you can’t be in two places at once, so I treasure the fact that I was there for my children when they were small and feel confident that I will get to where I want to in my career eventually. Note though that we have never had separate finances. What is his is mine. We have a similar attitude towards money so have never had disagreements over what it gets spent on. The cost of childcare never came exclusively from my salary.

go full time. Why are you even asking?

will retrining work practically? as your husband would effectivly be supporting you doing all that for 2-3 years if you say about doing a degree in order to retrain.

(i mean financially and also he would probably have to do tons more of the childcare outside of work, to let you study, whist he also works full time)

Is there any option to go freelance/work contracts in your role?

Several of my friends have gone freelance, and it's quite the CV boost long term - three or four references for the price of one and far more flexibility.

To me, the freedom of freelancing (I'm planning to transition over in the next two years) is the reward for the career I built in my twenties. Not a promotion I have to dance for with an employer.

I would have felt resentful if I had to work full time when my children were younger.

There are plenty options out there, you just have to decide what is best for your family,

Childcare is a household expense, not your personal expense. The highest paying career is not automatically the most important. Up the childcare hours and get back to full time! Your DH can drop a day or two if he doesn't like it. Assuming the woman will go part time is only perpetuating the cycle in which women are held back at work, passed over for promotion etc.

If anything I have resented working FT whilst my children are still young. I earn a lot less than DH but work just as hard. But then everything else on top.

I've dropped to 0.8 hours recently so I can be a little bit more present for the kids, and because we can afford to take that hit to my salary but not his.

FT with 3 kids (2 with additional needs) was wearing me down. My career is not more important than my sanity. They are only small for so long and although I love my job, I work to earn, not to climb a ladder.

Why are you working part time when you don’t want to be? Plenty of women work full time and just use childcare. If you have a low household income you get help to facilitate that and if not then Dh needs to cover his share of the cost of childcare. Being able to work part time, like maternity leave is something that you are not at all obliged to do but is a privilege that many mothers didn’t have for years but if it’s not the option for you just don’t go for it

So you’re not asking if it’s unreasonable for you to go full time as that’s not what you want at the moment, you want to stay part time whilst you retrain in the unmentioned new job?

I guess the key questions are..

Is your DH supportive of this-emotionally and practically?
How long is the training? What is the job market like at the end of the training?
Can your household finances currently afford for you to retrain? Will it require full time childcare whilst you are working part time/retraining?

I am not really understanding either. It reads you don’t actually have a career, and aren’t about to start one, you want to take a few years to study instread?

I'm really puzzled by this post. So you've a child that's going to start school before too long, so in terms of childcare it will be any wraparound, and school holidays. Not 8-6 nursery five days a week. I know that's still not cheap but when split 50:50 across two working adults, not too bad?

You're doing an access course on top of working part time which to me equates to full time occupation of time? Or are you dropping the job to study?

Without knowing what you're retraining in it's hard to say if being part time will be a barrier to promotion but do you even NEED to be part time if kids are at school as surely the loss in salary by cutting hours is greater than the cost of the wraparound for working full time (if it isn't, is it really a career move or just a different job?). Unless you're going into something that's TTO?

For context I worked up my career before having kids, did PT then FT between open and two and am currently not working or planning to as DP got a promotion that earns what we both earned jointly previously so unless things get financially tight it's better for me to be at home for logistical reasons and the nursery bill on two kids would genuinely eat up a big portion of the household income even if we both worked FT. So I'm looking at it a bit differently to some, and I get that I'm lucky that I can choose to do this and hop back into my career later on at pretty much the same level, due to the nature of it.

DH earns a really good wage and we could afford for me not to work, but I want to, obviously in case we split up. We can afford for me to retrain whilst I am working part time, it is midwifery! I understand money won’t be great but it is where my heart is and I will kick myself if I don’t do it.

I love being at home with the kids but resentful that DH has progressed and I haven’t and want that independence. We could afford full time childcare if he paid for most of it? Should
I really expect him to do that for me?

I went back full time when DD was 9 months old, it was a struggle financially as nursery was £1000 a month, twice our mortgage cost and nearly the equivalent of DHs full time wage. We did it because both of us being back full time meant being able to improve our careers.

DD is 7yo, when I went back to work after maternity I was on £26k, since then I've been promoted 5 times and now on £80k.

When looking at the finances of childcare you need to look at the long term rather than the short term pain.

I work four days, and I have just got a promotion at work, so this isn’t necessarily true. Obviously it depends on the type of work and opportunities but just because you’re part time doesn’t always mean you can’t progress.