Working mothers can't have it all?

[Unicornhat]

I've never been ruthlessly ambitious but have always worked hard and been in pretty senior roles since my mid 20s. I'm currently in a snr manager role in a large company and earn a really good salary with perks etc. I feel like I kind of fell into this role - I've never consciously decided this is where I've wanted my career to be, I was approached about the job and here we are.
I now have an almost 2 year old and I hope to have another.
I'm finding the balance really difficult. I have so much less interest in my job and I'm fed up of it taking up so much headspace outside of the office, and I'm fed up of being the manager. It's a role where you're creative and always coming up with more and more new ideas. The workload is intense I always feel I'm letting someone down.
Realistically, for me to get a part time job, or even one that gives you an opportunity for a proper lunch break and to leave on time, would mean a massive pay cut. Also, if I step back for a while I'm concerned I wouldn't get back into a senior role and salary for a v long time.
Am I just crap at managing things, or is it possible to hold down a good career and have young children? Has anyone given up a job like this and then regretted it? Have you struggled financially?
My sister and in laws keep telling me to get an easier job but it's not that simple!

You are the only one who seems to think you're so "ideal" and wonderful Topgub.

@Delatron

So because you wouldn't like ot that invalidates my experience?

Oh ok then.

🤣

@subtitle

Maybe you should work on your self confidence a bit?

@subtitle i am pretty happy in my set up too. And given "having it all" in this context means a progressing career and a home life I am satisfied suits us all, I feel I am pretty close. It doesn't mean it's all perfect and easy.

I worked in management, left baby at 6 months to go back to work. Wasn't worth the stress, late nights and long hours. I've took a step back and now work three days a week elsewhere. Do my job go home, best thing I've ever done. I'll go back to my career when they are in school. Time is precious and if you can financially manage for a few year I would do it x

You interpret any difference in opinion or lifestyle as a personal attack Topgub.

@subtitle

No I don't.

But if we've hit the critique my posting style instead of countering points stage of the thread maybe you should bow out.

How many name changes are you now?

I’m not sure I’ve understood your post correctly as it reads as though you think that working three long days is part time? 36 hours?

No it doesn’t. But we’re asking can ‘women have it all’. Just because one poster claims to have it all (but nobody else agrees). Doesn’t mean woman can have it all. Or that it’s easy. I do agree society makes it very hard for women. And outdated workplaces. And the lack of shared parental leave.

Now if a poster came along and said they have a very high powered job - they worked 3 days a week - but it wasn’t stressful. DH also worked 3 days a week (also high earning). They shared everything 50:50. They had lots of help with the childcare. Could afford a nanny who did the homework with the kids and cook dinner. Had a cleaner. And lots of other help. Then I would say that is probably having it all.

I'm not critiquing your "posting style." I just don't know why you would think everyone should be like you. That's it. Never met anyone who thinks the way you do,

@Delatron not just one poster. Quite a few posters.

@EmptyHouse0822

Yes.

Because it is.

Full time in my role is 37.5 hours. If you're doing 12.5 hour shifts you need a 4 day week.

I did drop to 36 hours after my first. So was part time for a few years

If you think you've got it all - then that's fantastic. But to other women, your life would be the opposite of having it all. Why would you expect anything else, Icanstillrecallourlastsummer?

@subtitle

I dont think everyone should be like me.

You just seem completely unable to cope with a confidence of opinion or to be able to distinguish between confidence in opinion /beliefs and saying everyone has to be the same.

You following me about threads to have a go is getting really boring

And this:

"Now if a poster came along and said they have a very high powered job - they worked 3 days a week - but it wasn’t stressful. DH also worked 3 days a week (also high earning). They shared everything 50:50. They had lots of help with the childcare. Could afford a nanny who did the homework with the kids and cook dinner. Had a cleaner. And lots of other help. Then I would say that is probably having it all."

Is a bit silly. We all knowing "having it all" in the OP's context is have a good work life balance with a developing career and adeqate time for family/ personal life. Oterhwise we can start making up all sort of obscure "having it all" definitions - I think having it all is living in a palace with a bulter, getting daily pedicures, having 4 kids an alpaca and a crocodile, and working half an hour a day!

We are talking about a relatively objective term here.

And why would my life by the opposite to having it all? I am curious to why it would be "having nothing" to you? Which surely is the opposite of having it all?

I am not following you on the thread. I disagree with you.

@Icanstillrecallourlastsummer

I think having it all is never working but having a 6 figure salary.

A nanny, chef, Gardner, driver, pa, pt

A dh who also earns 6 figures but who never works and also looks after children.

🙄

Your life wouldn't be "nothing" to me, Icanstillrecallourlastsummer. It would just not be what I would want.

@subtitle

Its hard to know about what but thats fine.

I disagree with you too

But we aren't talk about what you want. We are talking about the concept of "having it all" which refers to something very specific. You might not want to "have it all" in this context which is fine. But I still don't get why my life set up is the opposite to that (which, by the very definition of opposite is having nothing). So please, explain.

Of course you don't have "nothing." What do you even mean? It's just that other people would not be interested in what you have. But you have the life you have and it suits you, so it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks and you have nothing to prove to anyone.

I know I don't have anything to prove. You are the one telling me my life is the opposite to having it all. Now it transpires it's just not what you want. Glad we have that clarified.

It’s not about what’s “ideal” it’s about what’s possible.

No one is denying that it’s difficult for most women, there are usually trade-offs and a lot of juggling involved.

Let’s take a step back from this “I couldn’t live like you” rhetoric. Everyone has different needs and thresholds. Not everyone wants to or can work FT and that’s fine.

What I have a problem with isn’t so much what people choose to do it’s this blanket assertion that “having it all” is a lie perpetuated by the evil feminists/capitalist system/insert here to “force” women into the workplace.

The reality is much more mundane and much more optimistic: it’s that plenty of women in different ways do make working and having kids work for them.

We should celebrate and encourage this in whatever form it takes rather than taking this defeatist approach of saying “I can’t have it all!” The subtext being “I might as well go back to being at home because it will never work”.

For women to make it work we have to be prepared to compromise of course but we also have to believe it’s possible and stop whining about how it’s all so difficult. Yes it can be difficult, progress often is. But you have to keep on keeping on.

I guess all our definitions of ‘having it all’ are different then. Do men ‘have it all’?

I’m happy enough and don’t want to work full time but don’t claim to have it all.

I think my issue is if you claim it’s easy to have it all - to have the full time job that pays well, but also share 50:50 with DH but also have enough time with kids - then you make other women feel like a failure for finding it a real struggle or for throwing in the towel.
Working full time with young kids is not easy.