AIBU to want a highflying career as well as being a Mum?

[ManhattanMama]

I've only been back at work for 2 weeks and am already having conflicts between work and homelife which I'm struggling to resolve. I work in investment banking, and before having DS (nearly 7 mths old), I used to work 8am - 6.30pm at a minimum, usually longer. Obviously I've already cut back on my hours, and am generally doing 8.30 to 5.30 which just about leaves me enough to time to dash to daycare to pick DS up before 6.30 (I have to take 2 trains to get there).

The problem I've got is that my job just isn't a predictable 9-5 kind of role - things happen which mean that I may have to start early or work late. I've been asked to take part in a Women in Banking mentoring program which means I'm committed to being at work late every Thursday for the next 6 weeks - I asked DH before agreeing whether he was happy for me to do it and he said yes but (surprise, surprise) - the first time I'm home late and he's in a real strop with me because he had to get all of DS's stuff ready for daycare and do the late night feed by himself. He was literally ignoring me this morning as he was so annoyed, so I had it out with him and he said "Now you're a mum you should be happy to just turn up and do the 9-5 then get home to be with our son, not spending time networking and trying to be the career woman".

AIBU or is this completely out of order? Why can I not have a career AND be a good mum? I've worked my rear end off to get to the position I have at the moment and I don't want to do a half-arsed job now just because I have a baby. Things aren't being helped by the fact that everytime I talk to my Mum she says "DS must be finding it so hard only seeing you for an hour a day" - she gave up work to have kids and thinks I should do the same.

What do you think? AIB selfish to want to keep working even though we can afford for me to stop? Career aside, I don't think I could cope with being home with DS all day - it's much harder than working!

Sorry it's so long...

LOL Issy - me too!

My sincere apologies. I was getting my threads mixed up. I was refering to Floatys thread, where her husband worked alot.
floaty
Sorry everyone. I am being very emotional at the moment. And can't seem to cope with anyone being in bad sitations/being badly treated.
Best I don't read anymore threads, else I will be crying over everyones rants. I am only 9 weeks, you know. Best you all come over to me house for a cuddle and some macaroni cheese, that I made.

Right, I am back with it now. Manhattan in NY, wasn't keen on the nanny idea. Right, I am back with it now.

i can understand why those of you on big banking/law salaries believe it is worthwhile, esp with the advantages that brings.

but what about those of us who ft would be earning more like £70k... that's when it becomes more difficult. Once the nanny is paid then there doesn't really leave much else when you factor in cleaner, gardener and all those things you need to pay someone else to do to free up your spare time to be quality time with the dcs.

i gave up my job as i was doing a half-arsed job of both work, mum, wife. dh travels a lot, i just couldn't do it. i have my own business, earning barely nothing but a) keeps me sane and b) future potential maybe/hopefully (feeling pessimistic today!)

reading this thread makes me wonder if i did the right thing leaving work, whether i should have bitten the bullet, gone back ft and got a nanny (rather than nursery). Nanny for my benefit btw rather than dcs, i have been happy with the nursery.

My question i guess is, when is it "not worth it"? i didn't really love my job but now i find i'm missing it...

I worries me when I hear people talking about "having it all" surely no one can ever have it ALL the most important thing is to get what you want out of life for both yourself and your family and the mix will be different for everyone and different at different stages of life.

For what its worth though I don't believe that the ealy feminists fought for me to have to work they fought for me to have the choice and to have society's acceptance of that choice.

Incidentally what was making me miserable on the other thread is not the working hours of my dh per se but the effect they are having on our family life and more importantly on his health.....but please don't cry for me oblamov!

Having been working full time for a while I am now cutting my hours again and taking a slight demotion at work because I have realised that there are things I want to achieve in life which are external to work and it is now or never,I certainly don't think those ambitions are any less valuable just because they are not part of the conventional paid employment model.Also I find that as teenagers and tweenagers my children suddenly seem to need my physical prescence more again.I am wondering if this is a boy thing as friends with girls don't seem to be experiencing this phenomenon as much (another thread maybe).ds1 at 14.5 is more needy now than at any time in his life I think.

All of which brings me round to the fact that everyones life is different and you can't have it all but with good planning you can have the mix that you want.

By the way manhattan mama conflicts between work and home are the defination of parenthood I a sorry to say that managing these conflicts is as integral to being parent as changing a nappy !

well said floaty. The issue is that we all need to balance work and home - and the solution may well be different for us all depending on our individual circumstances and personalities too.

My DDs are a bit older - 12 and 10, and I am finding it really useful to be at home more - I can work from home 2-3 days a week, and have one day "off" with DS who is 19months, and it's not so much the engaging directly with DDs - more the being around more I think.

I think we still have a way to go in improving work/life balance - but it's an issue for men as well as women, as women will struggle to be equal at work until men step up a bit more on the home front.

Well some people see life as something which makes them entitled to having certain things rather than a matter of what good you can do for the people you work for and your family. In a sense perhaps the real question is how much can you give, not take or have? If you turn it round like that you might find the good you do in your work, as a tax payer and as a parent is pretty good and you are able to give as much as you can. The phrase having it all implies we have children for our pleasure as a fashion accessory and the same with our work and from our spouse.

What is nice about this thread is there are a lot of two couple full time workers mothers posting where it has worked. I think women need to see more articles in the press about couples who both work and they are happy with their choices rather than every article about women and work subtext saying - you can't do it and if you do you fail your husband and children and all women want short part time hours which is not true.

Perhaps the having it all thing is just a symptom of a consumerist society. Giving your all to your work and your family and friends and life in general might be a better principle to live by. Life for women here in the UK, abroad and in the past has always involved children and work except for the very rich. My grandmother worked. My great grandmother worked. I have worked full time for 23 years whilst having 5 children. This is what life is for a lot of women and always has been and work can be good for us and the example we set our children by working hard is a good one as well (unless you're a lotus eater type of person). One other question if someone is fed up should perhaps be so does that matter? Are we here to indulge ourselves anyway? Does it matter if you don't like your work or ironing your husband's shirts or changing yet another nappy. Perhaps it's good or you to put up with things you don't like.

To the OP: God it's hard working FT with a baby in daycare, you have my sympathy! I found also that DH and I had sniping conversations because we were both at full stretch all the time and not having enough time together where we weren't giving each other jobs to do. For us the two FT workers thing didn't work out, and I gave up my job to work from home PT, but there were a few circumstances (DS developed asthma, so the calls from nursery to come & get him became too frequent & too urgent and then I was ill and just couldn't keep up the pace anymore, and then the place I was working became a less pleasant environment. Plus I wasn't earning enough to get a nanny.) I can't give you that much advice but if you could learn from my cautionary tale could I suggest the following:

• make sure you book a babysitter to go out & chat to DH one night a month. Otherwise we found we only saw each other when we were knackered and both feeling unsupported and only talked in terms of 'I need to go to X meeting, can you do A B and C tomorrow'. A date made all the difference. I found that it was important to make time for my marriage as well as making time for my DS.
• take care of your health. Being a FT working mum requires that you are as tough as old boots. I'm not, and my illness made me reassess everything. Not saying that would happen to you, just saying that you must take good care of yourself if you're expecting a lot of yourself. I didn't, which was silly of me.
• every now and then let your DH stuff up. ie. let him put the wrong stuff in the the daycare bag and let him have a rant about it.
• every now and then let yourself stuff up. It's too hard to do it all perfectly.

Best of British to you.

Of course you can. Look at Nicola Horlick and there are loads of others. However you need:

A great cleaner
An au pair as well as day care
No hobbies

if you keep dumping DH with the kid he will get fed up with it. Also probably get a bit jealous if you have a better job.

Tough. If men get fed up with being dumped with their children so do women. Why become a father if you don't expect to do any childcare. You marry a wife not a domestic servant. Plenty of women have better jobs than their husbands.

If it all gets too tough then the man can go part time and do child care. No reason women should shoot their careers to pieces surely?

I thought this thread had died but it seems to be back!

A lot of conflicting views being posted - I've always said I have utmost respect for SAHM's so it's a shame that some people in that position feel the need to tell me I'm neglecting my child by not spending every hour of the day with him! One poster's main problem seemed to be the fact that I'm working when I can afford not to?Well, I may not need to work for financial purposes, but I definitely need to work to retain my sanity and self-respect!

Firstly - my job is not one where I could choose to work less hours during the day - the hours I do currently is the very minimum I can get away with (I already do less hours than all of my colleagues). The only way I could get home for 4 would be to change roles which in the current financial market isn't a great option. I've never said I feel the need to do everything perfectly (I certainly don't achieve this either at work or home!), but I do feel the need to do as good a job as I am capable of doing.

Secondly - I don't WANT to stay at home with DS all day - I obviously don't have the baby entertainment gene that SAHM's do, as after a few cycles of feeding/changing/napping/playing we both get bored. He gets more stimulation at nursery than I could ever give him at home. Also, we have no family nearby which means I don't have luxury of dropping him off with a grandparent if I want some "me time" as I'm sure most parents would do.

Thirdly - my Mum gave up work to look after me and my siblings and never stopped telling us "How much she gave up" to do so. She still thinks that I should do the same, but I don't want to be like her in 5 years time - making DS feel like he ruined my life.

To those who said how sad it would be to be missing DS's milestones - how do your DH's feel about missing out on your DCs first steps or first words? Or do your DCs save those moments for when Daddy gets home from work? I bet they are just proud and excited to find out that your children are doing new things, and that's how I would feel if I went to pick DS up from nursery to be told he'd crawled or walked.

DH and I are going to be making a concerted effort to have some "us" time regularly once DS is tucked up in bed - it's my birthday this weekend and we've booked into one of New York's best restaurants (OK so I had to make the reservation myself but I'm sure DH will manage to be romantic for a few hours once we're there).

Thanks to everyone who has given constructive advice as to how to reach the right work/life balance. As I said before, it's good to know that others have gone before me and made it work! I'd love to meet some successful working mothers in real life - sadly they're in short supply round here.

Oh yes, I'm due over in NY on business at some point soon too, haven't had a cocktail in NY for soooo long.....

Damn it, my next US trip is in Raleigh. But i could always stop over in NY!

Bugger. I'm just back from the states. (But wasn't anywhere near NY)

Issy, you should come to a London meet-up. Would love to meet you in person.

that's not so bad, Issy, on another thread I've just talked about buttoning down the hatches against the financial crisis

I am reading this thread with great interest, as I had a big old investment banking job when I had my first child and know very well about the juggling and trying not to look like you're rushing out the door at 530 (I can also remember reading my DD a bedtime story while simultaneously on a conference call, with judicious use of the mute button!). But I was lucky because my dear mum agreed to be the nanny during that time, so I knew my DD was beautifully looked after, and my mum earned a decent salary which helped her and my retired Dad too. With my second child, she said she wouldn't be able to cope with 2, so I gave up work. At first it was very odd, and I find lots of the cliqueiness and chicken nuggets chatter of mums a bit odd and dull, but I have got used to it and found some good friends, and ironically, thank god I did give up work as it turns out my son is autistic and so EVERY SINGLE skill I learnt in investment banking is coming in handy to fight for him. I don't think I had quite realised how much IB teaches you - eg politicking, manipulation, getting your own way, knowing how to manage people, knowing how to find your way round big, inefficient organisations (they're all the same, be it council education dept. or M&A division), articulacy, written skills, persuasiveness, managing difficult people etc etc. Using all this, my DS is now getting a half way decent education. Anyway, none of this is very relevant, but I think if my DH had said to me what the OP's DH said, there would be very little left of him. It's also interesting that now, when he gets home and says what a tough day he's had (he's also in banking) I know FOR ABSOLUTE SURE because I've done both that full time mothering two kids under 8 (one with special needs) is way harder, more annoying, more mundane, more labour intensive and less free than working in the bank was. And yes, it can be very boring too, but it was the right choice for me in the end. I do miss my job most on that one day in Jan when the bonuses used to be paid into my account though! I think there's no morally superior choice - stay at home, or go to work, it's everyone's free choice and no single choice is right for everyone. I get annoyed when SAHM and WOHMs get at each other on this site about their different choices - each to his or her own.

Sorry , one more thought and then I'll stop ranting. I had my kids late, and so I feel like I've done my career and haven't missed out. I identify with Manhattanmama as I too had a mum who gave up her career for kids and has inflicted on us kids a wistful sort of malaise of what might have been had we not come along - no good for kids that, so I think having children later is not a bad compromise, although there are risks of course.

ManhattanMama, i don't think the posters who were disagreeing with you think you should give up work and stay at home with your ds all day. I think what they were trying to say and what i was trying to say was you need to find more of an even balance because as it stands at the moment it's all work for you both and very little home time/ds time.

I think either you or your dh need to cut back on work and spend more time with your ds, especially as he is only 7mths old.

I think when you said "One poster's main problem seemed to be the fact that I'm working when I can afford not to?" i may be wrong but i think you may have been talking about me there? If you were talking about me then i must say i don't have a problem with you working when you can afford not to. What i was saying was you have the rare luxuary of being able to work for your own pleasure rather than having to work to make ends meet. So because of this i figured it would be a nice thing to spend more time with your ds and by that i don't mean give up work altogether.

I don't see this as a stay at home mum/working mum debate because no one has actually told the op she should not be working and should be at home all day with her ds. There just needs be a balance and the case of the op there clearly isn't one.

manhattanMamma dont be disheartened - inevitably any mere mention of working mum & work life balance and some will chip in with precious moments soliloquies.this is not necessarily representative of mn.

good luck whatever you decide to do

I have a two and a half year old, I work full time, and I am also studying. Its blimming hard work.

Its about balance.

I work 8 til 4, so I'm up with DD at 6, we have an hour and a half before I drop her at the CM. I work in the city centre on a good bus route so I'm at work for eight, and back picking DD up at four thirty. We're home for five, we have dinner, she's in bed by eight. so I feel that I do have a fair bit of time with DD on a daily basis. It helps that work is very supportive, and so fine if she is sick etc.

I study when she is asleep.

I get tired though