To consider giving up work

[Bippityboppitybo]

Mainly posting for traffic but I feel so conflicted that I need advice.

Started a new job after mat leave 2 months ago. Initially really struggled to settle and fit in as I was so worried about DD who was also settling into nursery. She's now thriving and loves it.
However, every single week she is sick with something! The nursery is a plague pit! Her attendance is probably near 50% and I'm being called at work to go get her. DH works very demanding job in the city with long hours so as I'm part time and closer to nursery, all of this falls on me which I'm fine with as his salary allows us to lead the life we live.

I'm also pregnant with DD2 and will be taking mat leave next year. I had to tell new job very early due to sickness which obviously wasn't ideal and I'm not entitled to any SMP or enhancements.

So my AIBU...I've really struggled to fit in with new team, I feel like it's difficult to prove myself when I'm having to leave half way through the day to pick up sick DD and/or take various days WFH or unpaid leave to care for her. I doubt I'm even going to pass my probation as I'm pregnant, I haven't been able to prove myself so I'm probably doing terrible at the role and I've had a lot of time off or not working very productively!

Given I'll only be in work for another 5 months before I'll be off for another round of mat leave I feel so tempted to just give in.

I do really enjoy working but at the moment it just doesn't seem feasible? I feel like I'm doing multiple roles half heartedly!

I'm also considering a complete career change which will involve going back to university when DD2 is around 1 anyway so I'm partly convincing myself that slogging on for the next 6 months won't help me anyway!

Please help wise mumsnetters. Do I just slog on?

“Most of my friends are doctors”

good effort to get that in there ✅

😂

I think if you want to work you’ll make it happen as a couple. And if you don’t, that’s absolutely fine but don’t use the excuse that work isn’t possible, just own it that you don’t want to.

The doctors I know with small children have either local grandparents, spouse with flexible job and/or a nanny.

If you weren't married, I'd definitely say stay in work.

But as you've made the commitment to each, you'd like to think that short term while you are pregnant / raising children, you can drop to one wage.

Make a plan to return (wherever) when mat leave finishes.

The only women I've ever known in that role have had nannies. There really is an expectation that you have bulletproof childcare.

And really, people are being very naive and unrealistic here. I understand the arguments about how nothing will change if men don't take responsibility for childcare etc, and I agree with them on principle. Hell, we actually walked the walk with this one because DH was part time for childcare reasons for years.

However.... the specifics of this situation mean that of course they're going to prioritise the DHs role. Not just because he gets paid much more, but because OP has been in hers two months, arrived when pregnant and has already had to have absences due to sickness. This is bound to have pissed some people at her new employer off, indeed there've already been posters in this thread saying it's not fair to them. She also thinks she's going to fail probation. And given that she wasn't with her employer before the pregnancy, she'd only be entitled to Maternity Allowance.

Meanwhile, there's a recession coming and inflation is running at 10%. It is cloud fucking cuckoo land to think they're going to do anything other than prioritise the better paid, more secure job where the person isn't going to be thought less of or risk failing probation because of their reproductive status.

Yes this. My DH works in The City and he wouldn't last long if he was taking regular leave. Imo you either need 2 large city salaries to afford outsourcing all the childcare and home stuff, or one parent doing all that stuff while the other works.

I would stick to it until your maternity leave starts and then at the end of it inform your workplace that you will not be coming back so you don't lose your maternity pay at least.

If you are struggling to cope physically and mentally your GP might be able to suggest you start your maternity leave earlier than planned.

It would be easier for you to find a job in the future where you can work remotely or become freelance so you can juggle your childcare needs and work better.

I'd stick it out. Nursery bugs die down after the first few months, there is benefit to your career working and your child likes nursery.

Employees drop the ball for all kinds of reasons- childcare, elderly parent, marital breakups. It's normal because we hire humans. Don't worry.

This is nothing to do with misogyny but as the previous poster said, a big salary = bullet proof childcare. If you are paying your employee £150k + substantial benefits would you really be happy with them leaving to collect children from nursery or would you expect that this is covered? Most likely the latter. The employer pays you big money to be there and at the service of the clients.

And a very sick child is very different from a bit of conjunctivitis or a cold.

After reading the responses I think I am more on the side of sticking it out at least until the start of mat leave. That's if by some miracle I pass probation. In hindsight it was probably better for me to have stayed in my previous job i had before mat leave one as we knew we wanted a small age gap but DD1 took a few months to conceive so I thought DD2 would too but happened first month!

On the childcare options, once we have DD2 in nursery too a nanny would actually be cheaper! We pay over 1k for one DD to go to nursery. We did consider a nanny for DD1 but I wasn't comfortable with the idea. No local family to help either.

Maybe that’s the solution then, a nanny?

@Bippityboppitybo sorry cross post!

I would stick it out. Your DD loves nursery, you’re bringing in some money and it’s likely that as she builds up immunity her sickness levels will reduce. If you don’t pass probation then the decision is made for you but does that matter if you’re thinking about quitting anyway? I’d just carry on with the job for the time being, it’s not for long anyway.

On the retraining thing.

I didn't return after my mat leave with number 2. We have a 2 year age gap.

Tbh until eldest was in school and youngest in preschool for 15 hours retraining wasn't a possibility. Nursery was super expensive and we couldn't afford for them both to be there. Youngest didn't go until after eldest got his free hours and moved to preschool.

Next year youngest starts school and I'm hoping to go back to uni to retrain then.

Great idea OP. A nanny definitely sounds like the way forward after your second mat leave.

I have a ‘big City job’ I work on a bank trading floor, selling interest rate derivatives. DH also has a City job - he was an FX trader for 20 yrs including when our DC were small and off ill a lot. Banks are far more accommodating of family life than they used to be, especially post Covid - during which traders were also WFH.

DH has no qualms taking a day off or picking up when DC are ill and there is no push back from his employers at all. We just work out between us who can reshuffle their diary the easiest. DH once had to take a last minute day off when the school closed due to snow and I was due to pitch a client for a huge piece of work for my bank. There was never any discussion that I HAD to get to work, and similarly if he knew he had a big trade that day, it would be me taking the day off.

Actually a lot of consultant Doctors in my specialty have schedules that give them up to 2 days working from home (SPA) on a full time salary. Several have very young children. People on MN love to assume all Drs are up to their eyeballs working 100 hours per week which is simply not true and actually you have more control of your hours in my specialty.

Women’s equality is never going to improve whilst half of women (according to this thread) still think that Men don’t need to take equal caring responsibility. My husband had ‘big job’ in city and his ex wife worked part time as a teaching assistant and provided all the child care. When DH split with his Ex, he knew he really had to step up to maintain his relationship with his children. It was frowned upon by his work as they just weren’t used to the ‘Big Man with City Job’ leaving early every Wednesday to take children to footfall training for example or covering childrens doctor/dentist appointment. But he persisted. Outcome is his Ex wife had the time, the opportunity and the reliability to retrain and went from teaching assistant to head teacher within 12 years. Only covering 50% of any childcare emergencies she became an equal employee with Men. DH’s employer eventually realised that they needed an equality policy update and ‘Big Man with City Job’ is actually a happier employee, they are more likely to retain him and is a more empathetic manager, if they are flexible with all employees, not just women. Obviously if he had ‘big important meeting’ ex wife would have to leave work. Equally if she had ‘big important meeting’ DH had too.

Rant over… but I am really passionate about this. I work in a large financial organisation which is also slowly starting to appreciate that Men need to cover caring responsibilities, to enable women to have equal chances with their careers.

Agree - leave. Don't burn any bridges though.

I did exactly that. It was tearing me apart and I regularly had to leave work, (and I was in a job where I saw clients so I had to cancel or beg colleagues to cover - it wasn't easy).

I stayed off for eighteen months picking up odd bits of freelance work from home. Then went back.

And I do get sick of the "Your DH should do it". My DH at the time was a contractor working abroad for months at a time. His income paid the bills.

This. I doubt nursery would be impressed if they called me at my workplace 5 minutes drive away to say my DS was throwing up and I told them "sorry, you'll have to call my DH, it'll take him about 2 hours to travel to you, but it's his turn!!"

DH earns over 3 x what I earn, if I lost my (socially useful but not well paid) job we would have to tighten our belts but if he lost his it would be disasterous for our family. It would be madness not to prioritise his career over mine as even if DH was a SAHD, I worked all the hours, applied for promotion and never had to worry about juggling work with childcare, I would not have anywhere near as much earning potential as him. That's because, as DH puts it "society values the wrong things", it's not right but it's how it is. Fortunately, I'm able to wfh on the odd day that the kids are poorly.

I feel for you, OP that first Autumn/Winter in nursery is brutal and we were there this time last year. There was a period of about two months where I felt like I was barely in work at all as we were lucky if we got a week between bugs. I worried about what colleagues would think, but in reality most people have been there and they understand. It does get better. I am lucky that my workplace are very supportive though, it must be a million times more stressful if that's not the case and I'm not sure I would have been quite so determined to stick it out.

It sounds to me as though the main issue is that your childcare model isn’t working for you. I think you need to look into a nanny - maybe not now but certainly after your next maternity leave.

I absolutely get that your DH can’t do an equal share of the child care. I know a number of people (male and female) who have jobs where being present is necessary and leaving other than in an ambulance just isn’t done. I also know someone (a man as it happens) who has a relatively low paid job for his qualifications because his wife can’t leave work when the kids are sick and one parent needs to be flexible.

If you do decide to give up work, you need to make sure your husband pays into a pension for you and you should also make sure you have money in an account in your name just in case. Sadly there are thousands of women in their late 40s, early 50s scrabbling to get back into work because their husbands have left them or stuck in bad marriages because they can’t afford to leave.

Of course, there are women it has worked out for but it is a massive gamble and modern divorce laws do not properly take into account compensation for (usually) women damaging their own careers to support their partner’s.

Also, if you weren’t married (I know you are so this doesn’t apply), I would be strongly advising you do nothing of the sort as you could end up on your own with nothing but child support.

Thank you for posting this, it’s really important.

Someone further up thread accused Mums of being naive for thinking their DH with a city job could leave work. More often than not women are being naive in believing that their DH ‘can’t’ leave work and so taking on the responsibility themselves.

We do the same. Decide who’s best placed to get away to pick a kid up on any particular day. Sometimes neither of us are in a good position and then we take turns.

Yes of course, the mummies on here could never understand the real man’s important world of work

OP I think you need to stick with it, what happens if you and DH separate, or he lost his job etc? If your DH is a high earner I’d consider a nanny instead.

I think I'm the only person who's used the word naive, and I was referring to people who think the OP's family are going to prioritise a lower paid job held by the partner who doesn't currently have full employment rights and thinks they're going to fail probation over one that can pay for everything the family needs, in the current economic climate.

It's encouraging to hear from those who've had City type roles who do feel it offers more scope for childcare, but other than that the fundamental point remains. The posters who talk about equality aren't wrong, but meanwhile the OPs job isn't at all secure and there are bills to be paid.

Oh no, apparently someone else said naive too!