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!

‘Stop whining about how it’s all so difficult’.

But if it’s is difficult for many (who don’t have the childcare or the help or non flexible hours) why shouldn’t they speak out? Otherwise nothing will change.

@Delatron

But its ok for you to say that other people's lives are awful and that they are lying when they say they have it all?

Pot kettle much?

That’s fine and it is undeniably difficult. But it’s one thing to say “God it’s hard juggling all this”. It’s quite another to say: “It’s impossible to both work and have happy and fulfilled children”.

And that’s what this “you can’t have it all” narrative is basically about.

It’s a subtler way of telling women they have bitten off more than they can chew and they should stop trying.

And yes I am perfectly happy for women to acknowledge that it’s difficult but not to be told that it’s impossible.

I said for me working nights would be awful and not having it all. I’m not saying you’re lying you clearly believe you have it all.

I’ve yet to see any scenario on here though that is ‘having it all’ so I agree with the original post that it’s tricky for working women to have it all.

@Delatron I have repeatedly said it is NOT easy.

Again it comes down to definition

’God it’s hard juggling all this’. For one person is just about doable and worth it for another their situation is different and it isn’t worth it. Neither is having it all!

Juggling kids/job/home /family is of course doable and not impossible - it boils down whether it’s worth it for the stress and lack of balance. For some people. That doesn’t mean sitting at home doing nothing. It may mean changing careers.

But not many are ‘having it all’

@Delatron

Don't back track now.

You said I didn't have it all and working nights with young children was awful.

I dont think any scenario would meet your definition because your definition (like a few others) is actually impossible.

Possibly because it's too difficult to admit otherwise

@Icanstillrecallourlastsummer I see you WFH - so no commute, you can finish work and be immediately present for children. Sounds like you have a good deal of flexibility. That isn’t an option for many people.

I don’t understand why posters are taking their unique jobs and childcare set ups and then wondering why not everyone can work this way. It’s very short sighted and insular.

Many jobs can not be done every day from home.

@Topgub I don’t want to go round in circles- I’m happy you think you have it all. Your work set up is not what I believe to be having it all.

I don’t understand why posters are taking their unique jobs and childcare set ups and then wondering why not everyone can work this way. It’s very short sighted and insular.

Has anyone said, "Goodness, I don't know why everyone doesn't do things the same way as I do!" There's a lot of expression of "This is how I do it." and "This is what is possible." but I don't see any wide-eyed bewilderment that nurses, etc. can't just WFH.

@Delatron

And I dont understand why people are taking their unique situation and declaring that because they dont have it all no one can

Or because they wouldn't like another situation no one can

No one can have it all. No one.

Eh I do.

No you don't! I dont like it!

🙄

Of course, @Delatron and of course everyone's perspective and everyone's threshold is different. No one is going to say all women should work 60 hour weeks or all women should stay at home. This isn't about individual situations its about rhetoric.

Language and the way you frame situations is really important.

If you tell a young girl: "You can't have it all," you're sending a really powerful message that she basically shouldn't try to have any of it. She should make her mind up really young to be happy with a binary choice that she either have kids or work. She can't really expect to do both.

If on the other hand, you say: "It's harder for us than it is for boys. But we've made massive steps forward in recent decades and you should never feel that things are automatically closed to you", you're sending the opposite message: that she should try and that armed with good fortune and smart planning she can hope to achieve much more.

@Delatron

Doesn't mean you're right

🤷‍♀️

@Delatron What is it? That "having it all" is some crazy everchanging definition? Or are we back to it "being impossible"? The latter we've discussed. I have acknowledged it's not possible for all jobs, or avialable by all employers. But it ought to be, and there are things we can do to change the goals posts on there.

I am lucky, yes. But also I have not landed here by some kind of fluke. And what I can do is possible for LOADS of people. Regardless of what their employers say. I was also told we didn't "do" part time working because it didn't work. Yet I got it agreed in the end and made sure it worked.

Thing is, "having it all" is relative, it's personal, it means different things to different women.

There is no threshold of where it begins and ends, it's not measured in hours worked, money brought in, time with the kids.

Every working mother has a different job, living arrangements, support network, distance/location of work, flexibility. Our kids are different! So if to me my arrangement means I have it all (and I pretty much believe that tbh) then that's cool. If my mate Kathy needs to cut her hours to 3 days because to her having it all means working less and she has the ability to do that then that's cool too in my book.

The issue is, mothers in senior roles often can't just cut their hours or work less and if they quit they don't come back to roles they worked for all their lives. This is often the nature of the job. It's not always the presenteeism, crap bosses, fear of judgement and what not, but this happens a lot too.

I think if we focus on this group since this is how OP started, for those with inflexible/very demanding jobs and/or inflexible/difficult employers, there are two key elements, one is support from partner, friends and family, for example when babies are ill and two is having enough money to hire support at home, cleaners, dog walkers, baby sitters etc. If you have the above, you can pull this off - and perhaps this is your personal holy grail, your "having it all".

Or if your job is in fact more flexible, if your employer is more laid back, you are very established etc., you might not need a massive amount of support or paid help because it becomes easier to juggle. It's potentially cheaper if you juggle things on your own which saves money during the expensive early years but of course it's also really tiring.

I am positive there are many mothers in senior positions who fall into these two groups or somewhere in between. And as long as things are ticking along for them, that's cool. It really isn't some kind of a detached from reality discussion, I know many senior professional mothers who make it work. We should cheer on each other not try to tear each other apart or endlessly moan about how bad everything is. It's hard, but it's doable if you want to make it work the way it works best for you.

Just out of genuine curiosity, and not being goady, what is your “all”?

What is your current home/work/children/social set-up like that makes you be able to confidently say that you “have it all”.

We appear to have moved on from the accepted definition of ‘having it all’

To ‘ I’m happy with my lot and it works for me without too much compromise’.

Which is fine but not what the original discussion was about. Or what many believe this utopia ‘having it all’

If the handful of posters on here who say they ‘have it all’ really do then maybe my set up isn’t so bad - I work for myself, a high hourly rate. I decide my own hours. I get to exercise when I want. I get to take a day off when I want and I answer to nobody. Thank guys! I feel better already. It’s such a broad definition after all!

@EmptyHouse0822 We don’t actually know much about @Topgub set up for some reason she won’t tell us. We found out very late in the thread that her children are older. So pre-teen.

You @Delatron are the one who changed the definition to something utopian. OP summarised it as "hold down a good career and have young children"

I’ve worked and raised 2 kids. It’s so-able. Was work easier when I had no kids, god yes.
Do I wish I’d focussed on my career more, nope! Not had kids? Nope!
I work to live not the other way round.
oh, and as they get older they get easier to manage as does the work/ life balance

@Icanstillrecallourlastsummer

so ‘hold down a good career and have young children’ is having it all?

Yet @Topgub has pre teens? So not relevant that she believes to have it all then? As she doesn’t have the specific definition of ‘young children’. It transpired (quite far in to the thread).

Why are you so focused on one poster? Why is proving that @Topgub doesn't have it all somehow winning the argument and proving that women can't have it all, so back in their box they get?

Several posters have echoed how they make it work. My kids at 5 and 8 so not young young, but I would say still young. I also did similar when they were younger. In fact it was easier to juggle with childcare and earlier bedtimes than it was when they started school and lots of activities.

I don’t want women to get back in their box. I want women to be able to make the choices that suit them without being judged for it. Be it work full time, part time or SAH. There isn’t one ideal for everyone. I’ve done them all so no judgement from me.

I hate the phrase ‘have it all’ what does it even mean? That’s what I have issue with. And then the judgement from some posters if women don’t want to juggle and do want to actually see their kids a bit when they’re young. I missed a big part of my children’s childhood around the baby- toddler years purely because I was sold in to this idea of ‘having it all’. It really is individual but doesn’t necessarily mean working full time..

@Delatron so why is the judgement coming from the SAHMs who are saying it's cruel to be away from your children? With phrases like "do want to actually see their kids a bit when they’re young" - as though women who work with small children don't actually see their kids? It's the constant insutation that women who choose to spend even just some time away from their kids that is the "judgement" on this thread, not the other way around.

I am not saying people HAVE TO juggle. I have said it's not easy. In fact it's sometimes really hard. It requires compromise. But it's not impossible and you don't have to choose between one or the other if you want both.

To summarise - holding down a full time job with young children is more difficult for most women than men for a variety of reasons. Do men find it difficult to ‘juggle’?

I was asked at a job interview- how many children I had, how old they were, how would I cope, what were my childcare arrangements’ I mean wtf? Would they ask a man this?

It is hard. And it’s harder for some women than others due to so many differing factors - do they have grandparents close by, does the DH work from home or flexible hours, is the job working from home and flexible and so and so on. But it is nearly impossible for some women and the balance does tip to it not being worth it . And we shouldn’t say it’s not hard and ‘stop whining’ we should be questioning why it can be so difficult for some. What needs to change at government level and in the workplace.

For example, my childcare costs were £2,100 per month when mine were little. Does that happen in other countries? Why can’t we have more shared parental leave? Do something about childcare costs.

I don’t think the ‘it’s easy to work full time with young kids and you’re just not trying hard enough’ narrative does anyone any favours here.