To think going back to work after a break will be fine

[babylark]

I'm at the end of my maternity leave. I took the whole year off. And I would really really really like to take another year off. We are thankfully in a position where I could do it in the money sense.

However, I am getting lots of advice from women with and without children saying to go back to work now for my own sake ie. It will impact my career negatively if I take another year off, I'll become more undesirable to an employer, I'll find it harder to go back etc

AIBU to think it won't be all doom and gloom?
I think who better to look after my baby than me!
I especially made the decision after I realised if I go back part time initially, my take home will be roughly what we pay a nanny.

My sector isn't that competitive, and I'm also fairly junior because I recently switched careers just before having a baby. I'm also considering switching sector yet again because I'd like to find something which gives me the flexibility to work from home and remotely. My current job is a bit like a relationship manager and so I spend a lot of time on the road, outside of the office and travelling around the country. It feels very working-parent unfriendly!

You sound like you have your head screwed on and it's lovely that you want to spend time with your little one. I can only tell you this, I recently lost my twin sons at 29 weeks after an emergency birth and I remember all through the pregnancy worrying about taking the year off and how it would be perceived. Well all I want now is to be at home with my boys and if I'm lucky enough to get pregnant soon again, I'm taking that year.

I'm only telling you this because everyone will have an opinion on it including myself, but you are their mother, and a career woman. Do what you want to do. No regrets. Whether it's to stay or go back. I just wish I hadn't worried so much.

Depends on the job really, but it sounds like you have considered all the things I would suggest considering and you are in a good place to do what you're hoping to.

Maybe in that extra year off you could consider, if it might be relevant to the sector you might be switching to, doing some sort of online qualification that could make you stand out a bit? There are quite a lot of things now you can study flexibly over a length of time that suits you.

Good luck!

As long as your DH/DP is paying a nice sum into a pension for you while you are off, I'd say crack on! This should be at least equivalent to what both you and your employer were contributing when your were working FT.
Getting back into the workforce is relatively easy. Making up lost pension is not.

I'm absolutely truly sorry for your devastating loss.

I had a loss at lesser than you, at 21 weeks, and it still hurts to this day (3 years on).

I just wanted to wish you peace, healing and happiness in due time with rainbow 🌈

Best wishes

Hi op

Do it if that's what your heart is inclined towards but like pp said, make sure you are thinking about your next steps.

Best wishes

I would say if you can, do it.

Just have a really clear agreement with your DH about how your finances will work in terms of you getting to spend money, and also how your pension will be impacted.

It’s all very well other people saying put work first but i got after getting made redundant after 10 years at a company, and then nearly getting made redundant again 2 years later, it put things to perspective for me. You are dispensible at any time.

@Ella31 I am so sorry for your loss 💐💐 sending you healing wishes and love.
Thank you for your kind reply, it's true, I am guilty of being anxious and trying to plan for every eventually. Thank you for the reminder to enjoy it 💗💗

Thank you! Yes I am indeed considering exactly something like that.

I need to do some research on exactly what but I am hoping to find something in the AI/machine learning field

Thank you for this advice. Just wanted to clarify, would DH be paying into the pension my work had been paying into? Or would I set up another one?

And a quick question: the only pension I have is the one my work pays into. Do people usually have another on top of that?

At the moment DH's salary goes into our joint account and all bills come out of that and I spend from there. My credit card bills come out of there too. This is how we are intending to keep it for the upcoming year. It was something that was set up during my maternity leave as my workplace didn't have any package and only SMP.

I hadn't thought about my pension being impacted and another user also mentioned it so I'll look into it.

Edit addressing your final point about being dispersible. That's how I feel too. I also think it's two years out of my entire career, but two incredibly special years of my baby's life that I feel privileged to be able to see.

We are mentioning the pension issue just as a general issue in terms of you not putting anything into it the longer you stay off. It will mean you are at a disadvantage later on if you and DH were to split for example. So make a plan with DH as to how you want to mitigate this.

I had an 8yr gap (baby bereavement and recession). I fucked myself over really. No pension, no savings. Managed to get another job through an ex colleague with a great hourly rate, but still. A year gap will probably be ok.

In the sense of your working life, a year is nothing.
I say go for it, nothing is more important than being a parent and if you want to spend more time with your little one nothing should stop you.

It partly depends on how career focussed you are. I knew I couldn't proceed in my previous career as, IMO, it was incompatible with being a parent so therefore stepping off the original career track was inevitable.
Are you hoping to have a second? If so, what would your preferred age gap be? I know life rarely works out like that but do bear in mind that many companies have a qualifying period before you can get enhanced maternity leave. If you were looking to have a 2.5 - 3yr age gap, would taking two years off and then going back to work affect how much time you could have off with DC2?

and I'm also fairly junior because I recently switched careers just before having a baby. I'm also considering switching sector yet again because I'd like to find something which gives me the flexibility to work from home and remotely

Well, it sounds like you’re not particularly career driven anyway if you’re happy to chop and change, so it probably matters a lot less how much time you have off than it would for someone who really wanted to progress. If you’re happy, take another year.

I wouldn’t. It’s easier to transition back into a role you know, in a company who will make some adjustments for a mat leave returner than to start afresh. Everyone wants more time off after maternity leave but you do adjust quickly.
Once you’re out of the workplace and unemployed it’s hard to get back into it - and particularly into professional jobs with good pensions. It’s important to think about the longer term.

Managing on your husbands salary isn’t the only consideration. I always wanted to have the potential to be self sufficient if I had to go it alone.

One pension that you could take out yourself would be NEST. It's a government pension scheme. Your DH could put £ into it for you and then you'd get tax relief on it, which means the government would top it up by 20%, as your DH will have paid tax on the contribution. There are restrictions to how much you can put in though, depending on your prior income - I think it's based on previous 3 years. However, depending on how much pension you're losing, for just one year off work, it may be worth putting money aside for alternatives - such as costs for retraining as if that will enable you to get a higher salary quicker, that will have a more beneficial long-term impact on pension, than putting £100 a month into a private scheme, for example.

If you are going for it, do it with your eyes wide open.

If you are planning to switch up careers then doing a course or freelance/volunteer something while you are off would be good.

I really wish it wasn't this way but any time off is off putting to a future employer. We shouldn't be penalised for daring to have children but we absolutely are. I imagine a future (rubbish but common) employer may look at your time off and be concerned if you was to have another child you'd be off again after maternity or quit. It just absolutely stacks against us in interviews.

I decided to run my own business (great for flexibility around childcare)for 9 years being self employed so on paper I haven't had a big gap but I am seen exactly the same as having a large gap because I haven't worked for a company/got those references/experiences. I'd struggle to get a minimum wage job now.

If I was to start at the bottom now, I'd have to prove myself put in all the hours. With 3 children and me being the default parent I just can't. When you are already in an established job they are far more likely to give you flexibility consider working from home etc.

Is you partner willing to step up and be the flexible one while you get started in a new job/career?

Any childcare should be seen as a shared expense, not set against your take home salary alone. You both need childcare in order to work, it's not soley your responsibility!

I had 8 years off and walked straight back into my career. It depends what your career is though, I'm a teacher so I was never going to struggle to get back in.
OK, my uni friend is now a deputy head and I'm still in the classroom but I didn't want to be management anyway and I am at the top of the upper pay scale so my position/salary is exactly they same as it would have been.

Are you planning any more children? An extra year could
easily turn into 3 or 5 if so.

It varies massively by what you do whether it's easy to go back. A teacher or doctor will walk straight back in because those fields have desperate shortages. Many others will find it very, very difficult, because they're competing against people who are currently employed. Depending on the field, you might struggle to get any job at all at the level you're at now and have to go back to entry level, and at entry level you'll be competing against fresh unencumbered youngsters.

Since you only want an "extra" year, the safest way to do it would be to ask for a year unpaid leave from your current employer, which they may grant. Then you'd have a guaranteed job at the same level to go back to and they might even continue to make pension contributions. You can also make your own from household funds.

It's your call ultimately; just be aware of the pitfalls. Time out often has a serious long-term effect on women's earning potential and pension. That doesn't make it the wrong thing to do. All of us make our own decisions based on our own priorities.

And of course it has been, we’ve worked out our calculations based on our joint income and outgoings, however we’ve calculated it with one salary or two. I don’t get why people think I’m assuming childcare is solely my job to pay for.