To think it’s uncommon to both work full time with small kids?

[workingFTM]

I’m on maternity leave and thinking about my options for how many hours I’ll do when I return. Among those I know pretty much everyone is back part time after having a baby. Would you say it’s the same among those you know? In all families with young kids that I know, at least one parent has some kind of flexible working arrangement and if they don’t then family usually do all or some of the childcare. It’s a balance as I want max time off with my baby first and foremost but equally want to make sure I keep my foot in the door career wise for all sorts of reasons.

Everyone I know is full time. Mortgages require it, FT childcare is cheaper than doing a 5 day job and being paid for 4.

Most of the people I know, both parents work full time. I know a couple who do PT or compressed hours but definitely not the majority.

Of my mum friends and school mums I know most are part time, just a couple are full time, I’m part time too (70%).
Our kids are in primary school and I think the benefit it that most of us then don’t have to have the kids in wraparound care every day.
I don’t know any SAHMs though now kids are at school, everyone works at least some of the time.

I went back to working 8-6, 5 days a week after I had my 1st baby but after having my 2nd I will be re-thinking when my maternity leave it up

Totally agree with this - DH and I are both full time but it's public sector, so 37.5h a week, some wfh each, flexi start/finish times and no overtime (paid or unpaid). That and short commutes makes it pretty manageable, though obviously lower salary than a MN 'big job'.

I have 2 children (2&4). Both myself and my husband are full time. Although I am a shift worker so generally work 3-4 long days per week which definitely helps.

I’m in the south east and I don’t know any family with both parents working full time. Quite a few have both parents on part time! There’s a lot of grandparent help on both sides in those cases, though.

I think it is a bit. Most of the women I know with younger children and a higher earning “career” did 4 days a week or 9 days a fortnight.

I worked f/t with my first DC, 4 days with my 2nd until they went to school.

Interestingly, now I have one in secondary and one in junior school I’m dropping back to 4 days. Early secondary school and the teen years are proving harder to manage than I ever expected. Having said that, I’m also fortunate enough to be settled in my role and earning enough that dropping one day doesn’t feel like a huge deal.

Both my DH and I have always worked FT and I went back to work FT after both my kids turned 9 months, although I only know 4 other mums in my circle of friends who work FT. The rest of them work PT. I had hoped to move to compressed hours (10 days into 9) but unfortunately employers are clamping down on the option. It would be hard to do my role PT and could see myself working on my NWDs so might as well continue working FT and getting paid for it.

I was planning to go back part time but had to go full time due to the mortgage rate increases which I really struggled with. Most of the other mums I know are part time and a couple are SAHM. Compressed hours on both sides have helped us with childcare.

I wonder if it depends on job types. We're both FT and so are almost all of our friends. I'm in publishing, DH in academia, and we WFH. Most of our friendship circle are academics, teach higher education, or in some sort of creative industry. There's a mixture of both flexibility and wanting to advance in terms of careers with a lot of them, plus quite high job satisfaction (at least in our group of friends).

a lot of people I know went back p/t until the dc started school.

I went down to 3 days which worked out the best financially. F/t didn’t cover the nursery bill but couldn't afford to stop work either (nor did I want to).

struggled by and build up some debt during the nursery years, then went f/t again once both dc were in school.

I don’t know a family where both parents are not working 30 hours a week minimum. Many where both work full time.
People may see me doing the school run and think I work part time but I work full time and only use wrap around care for the 2 days I’m in the office. Work is flexible around drop offs, pick ups, etc on days when we’re working from home and also one of us can always have time off for assembly, sports day, etc so we’re always around for these.

Everyone I know works full time, children in nurseries full time

In my friendship group all of the women are part time (usually 4 days). In my teaching friendship group, including me, most of the women are full time and many of the husbands are self employed/part time so have the flexibility.

I went back fulltime after all three of my babies, when they were 1. No family help. They went to either childminders fulltime or nursery with my last baby(it suited him better). I just accepted that my wages would be utterly shit for that period.

Don’t know any parents who both worked full time, but we’re in the north and live rurally (ish). I’m sure if we were closer to a city it would be more common - more public transport and childcare options.

Where I am there’s very little public transport, so two full time parents would mean two cars. There’s no wrap around childcare either.

It's not rude at all don't worry :)

And we're a very low income salary family, for now, it's a struggle but we manage!

I think most of the mums I know work part time (dads are usually full time). There are also couples where both work full time. But I don’t think I know any SAHPs actually.

Out of the people I know with babies/toddlers only 2 went back full time, the rest have gone back 3/4 days.

Ha, yes. I work in Comms. Did 4 days a week in my old job... With a little (my oldest) but found I was just doing full-time work for part-time pay. So stayed full-time with my youngest (toddler).

I miss a day off to spend with my kids/ catch up on non-work stuff. But the drop in pay, with expectations I do exactly the same amount of work was just not great.

I think it can be either very high earners or very low earners in this position, I live in a fairly deprived area and it's very common for one parent to be at home, one working a low paid job and their income is topped up by UC

I don't know anyone who doesn't work full time. I'm a lone parent, worked full time since DS was at primary.

Everyone i knew did 3 or 4 days, until kids were quite a bit older.

It also depends on the type of work. In my area, it's very difficult to be part-time, although it varies according to the area of law. A criminal barrister, for example, can't do a 4 week Crown Court trial Mondays to Wednesdays either, although she can take on fewer cases, or cases which aren't too massively far away from home, etc. Even if you are in an area of law where you can work 3 days a week sometimes, it's very difficult to do that for definite every week without really holding your career back. If you are, for example, a teacher, nurse or GP, it's far easier to work a set number of days a week, and know it's very unlikely that you will suddenly have to work on a Thursday if you normally work Mondays to Fridays.