To ask if my situation was unusual?

[TestMatch]

I was born in 1972 (probably with Gilbert O’ Sullivan gently playing in the background)

My mum went back to work full time less than a month after I was born. She was a determined career woman and pushed hard for promotion etc.

When I told my colleague this, she said how unusual this was. She was born in 1980 and said that my situation was so unusual in that her own mother and mothers of the 1980 born kids she was in school with either didn’t work at all or only went back to work - full time at least - when their kids were around 12 - secondary school age.

From my memories, it was less usual to have a career oriented mother at that time. Most people had a mother around after school each day.

My mum was USUALLY back by the time I came back from school but not every day of the week

I was born in 1966. My mum gave up work to care for me and my sister when we were babies.

I can't remember when she went back to work but it would have been when we were at primary school. She wasn't a career woman but neither her or my dad were in high paid jobs and they needed for both of them to work as soon as we were able to walk to and from school on our own.

I was born early 80s, my mum didn't return to work until my younger sibling started secondary school. Most of my friends had their mum at home full time. The few mums who did work had "little" part time jobs in the supermarket etc. I can only recall 2 mums having office or career type jobs.

DH was born mid-70s and his mum went back to work quite soon as a teacher.

But I guess our circle was more working class and his was more middle so that's probably the difference.

More often than not, Mum stayed at home in the 70's and 80's to look after the children and the home.

Mine didn't and she also returned pretty soon after I was born in 1977. Mainly because she was the higher earner although Dad was reasonably well paid too.

I recall spending the after school hours with neighbours / friends or my grandparents. It was normal for me but most of my friends had Mum at home all the time.

It wasn't usual for women to have careers once they had children, only doctors and higher professionals. ML was non existent, it was six weeks, but if you were a cleaner etc, you'd often be sacked during pregnancy. It's women breaking social norms that helped things progress to what we have today.

Me and sis born mid 70s. No mat pay then so mum gave up her office admin job when my sis was born. Was at home with us til I started school then got a job at the school. Not a career woman but worked in office admin all her life - went full time when I went to secondary so fairly typical as your friend described I think. Dad was also office based. Worked hard but nothing special or especially well paid.

Ah thats interesting - I went to neighbours houses too

I was born in 1969 and my mum gave up work to look after me. She didn't go back to work until 1986! Dad was the sole breadwinner, when they split up in 1978, mum went onto benefits, as the place we moved to for 6 years had no job opportunities at all. If we hadn't moved back to our birth city, I'd have struggled to get work leaving school.

I was born in1970. Mum worked as a cleaner when I was a toddler, working school hours until I was 7. After that I walked to school and back as she was out from 8-6 working daily. Not high earning but had to work. We got called latch key kids 😂

I was born in 1984 and my mum went back to work after 8 weeks, full time. She was a teacher.
I had a childminder, then a nursery when I was 2 (Montessori). Once I was at school my mum tried having me with a childminder but I don't think it worked well so by year 1 I was at her school so I'd just go to her class every day after school. I didn't have any siblings. She worked FT my whole life and worked her way up to headteacher. I honestly have no idea what the norm was. I don't remember what other kids did. It probably seemed unimportant to me as I was happy with my lot.

My mum worked. I remember being at neighbours' alot after school. Some were hideous. One witch made us drink warm blackcurrant squash. No words.

Anyway, you aren't alone.

I had my first two children in the 1980s (and the second two in the 1990s).

I went back to work within six months of having all of them. That wasn't unusual at all. I think most women did go back to work. There were not many SAHMs by the 1980s.

My mother worked and went back to work 4 weeks after having me as maternity leave was so bad here then. We would have needed her wages.

Unusual.
Women in my world (70’s poor, U.K.) aimed to marry someone who had work, they stayed home and had kids. Hoped that their husband didn’t beat them too much and didn’t spend the wages at the pub on pay day.

The same was presumed for me and my sisters.
I never knew or met any working women, knew no female who could drive even.
Dark dark days indeed.

It does seem unusual for the early seventies. My mum went back to work when I was three months old and I went to a childminder but that was in 1988.

My mum worked from me being 5, so when I went to school. She took me to school and picked me up. It was financial necessity though.

By the time I was 11 I went to school on the bus and came home and was alone until she got back at about 6.30. I was on my own every school holiday too. This was late 70's.

I had a mixture of working class and middle class friends whose parents were well educated.

one thing I’ve concluded is that it seemed to be common for working class women born 40s and early 50s not to drive, but practically ALL the MC mums did

there were exceptions of course

That is fairly unusual, yes. When I was at work and got married in the early 1980's my employer actually had to get me to sign a form stating that I wasn't leaving on my marriage to become a housewife! The assumption was that any woman who got married automatically 'resigned' on the date of the wedding, and I had to confirm that I was staying. I worked for a large, well-known high street bank.

I was born in the early 60s. My
mum worked for o e brief period when I was about 9 and my brother 7, to help out a friend. We let ourselves in after school and our big sister was home half an hour later - she was a teenager

she didn’t work again until I was about 16, when she went back to doing nights (nurse)

in primary school, the only working mums I can remember amongst my friends were all teachers who drifted back to the classroom as their children grew. On two occasions, believe it or not, I can remember very youngkids tagging along with their mumsto the classroom, and sitting good as gold at the back of the class

Maybe not after just a month (guess your mum didn't breastfeed as not sure if pumping was a thing back then) but my mother had a career and went back to it after she had kids. I remember we had an au pair. This was the 1960s.
All her sisters worked: a doctor, a lawyer, dentist, and my mother a medical social worker so maybe not common but certainly not rare for women to be working after having kids. They returned to work when their children were young. When we emigrated to the US my mother did stop working for a while and it did seem fewer mums worked where we lived.
Mind you most (though not all) of my friends gave up work for a few years and some permanently after having kids.

Born early 70s - my mother went back to work when I was just over a year old, nursing and night shifts. Then she went to an adult education college to do A levels and I went to the creche there, then she went to university and childcare was a mix of a childminder or sitting in the Junior Common Room with a packet of crisps and a book - and a few memorable summers of being looked after in the student union by some students who clearly should not have been near children as they were happy driving us around campus in the SU minibus seeing who could hang on the longest on the open back door handles going over the bumps.

It's always varied a lot based on class, culture, rural/urban, education level and just individual choice I think. I was born mid 80s. Some of my friends had SAHMs but my mum was in a social circle of university educated, ambitious women who all went back to work (often on fewer hours) and lots of her friends thought she was insane for having a baby in her late 20s when she could have been progressing in her career.

Born in '81. My mum, and the mother of most of my friends, did give up work when they had babies. However, within a few years, they were back working part time and by they time all their children were in school, generally were working multiple jobs around childcare. E.g. a few shifts in a shop, a few cleaning shifts, a weekend shift in a nursing home, etc. Generally more than full time in total. I lived in an area of high male unemployment, in an ex-mining community.

I had a one friend who had what was considered a very middle class upbringing (I.e. didn't live in a council house), and her mum had a "career" where she worked Monday to Friday, 9-5 and had all weekend off. That was unusual.

I was born in the early 80's and my Mum was considered unusual for keeping her career and going back to work after I was born. All my other friends had Mums who stayed at home and I resented that she could never go on school trips - however, as a Mum now I think she made totally the right choice and I can't think of anything worse than looking after 10's of other people's kids on a school trip.

Interestingly, my child is at a SEN school, and very few of the Mums have full time jobs - which seems to be very common for kids with SEN, likely because of all the admin and extra care they need.