Full time job with young kids

[Calica1]

Current situation is I have a 13 month old little boy who I get to spend a lot of time with as I'm lucky to only have to work 2 nights a week in a supermarket for us to get by.

My partner is really keen for me to go back to full time work in order for us to have more money and improve our lives (bigger house and nice holidays)

Our son is going to nursery 2 part days a week just to get some socialisation but honestly I think he hates it and I'm keen to pull him out which is the opposite of what getting a full time job would entail as he would have to go in full time.

In order to go back to work I'd have to retrain for something else as I can't go back to retail management as the hours don't work with 2 parents in retail management and personally I just think my little boy is just too little to be made to go be with strangers all day and barely see his parents.

I appreciate the fact my partner wants to improve our lives and also that he doesn't like our current arrangement of never seeing each other as I work the 2 nights he doesn't but I feel like our son is the priority. I'll also add I'm keen to have a second baby soon which then means putting 2 young kids in nursery just to earn more money.

So am I being unreasonable to say I just want to focus on my kids until they are a lot older and it's okay if we are getting by on my part time wage?

Haha. I merrily leave my front door. I just don’t expect someone else to support me to do so

This thread is crackers.

You were doing an interview with your baby and animals on the call?

You won’t sell the house you own with your ex because of animals, risking your son having separated parents as a result? Whether your ex wants to sell it or not is irrelevant.

How many animals are there? Around a young baby in this house with no ceilings and a non-functional kitchen?

Why gave you not thought through the financial implications before having a child with a man you’d only known a year? It’s no good just shrugging now and saying “I can’t change it”. You need to acknowledge the irresponsibility so you don’t make further irresponsible choices, more of which you’ve still been proposing on this thread! And now you want to drop a bombshell on him that you want two more kids in this situation and have no intention of contributing more than a trivial amount of work and finances for ten years, and you think he’ll stick around?!

You’ve run up debt payments of £1000 per month? How much do you owe if at that level it will still take 4 years to pay off? What was this spent on?

This is totally insane OP, all of it. You really don’t sound mature or responsible enough to be a parent. It makes NO sense, and so many posters have told you this yet every suggestion they make you shoot down with excuses.

Either find a childminder or nanny who will do longer hours than nursery (or to supplement nursery so they pick up and do a couple of hours more care) and go back to your previous job, or you and your partner both find daytime jobs (I presume he’d be willing to make the change to daytime given you said he hates night anyway and this won’t harm his career, if it was part of a plan that involved you both working full time and building a decent life for your child together in a house with ceilings, where your ex doesn’t also live with a ton of random animals).

Many shops do not open until 11pm. You could look at retail management in one with shorter hours.

You can start a different career in another area of management.

You could easily have been doing study/ retraining part time already for something else while working two nights per week.

You could both work days.

You can find more flexible childcare with a nanny or childminder with longer hours if your hours overlap.

There are many, many options and burying your head in the sand and pretending the current situation is sustainable when it clearly isn’t and will destroy your relationship isn’t one of them.

Parenting isn’t easy and is a juggling act and childcare is expensive and necessary. None of this should be a shock. This is the EASY part in terms of childcare: it’s much harder with school holidays than with nurseries open 50 weeks per year.

I am a lone parent to two children with disabilities whom I have raised alone since they were under 2 and I’ve always managed to work full time to provide for them. There are two of you to juggle it. What you’re pretending is impossible really is not. It’s time to woman up and face reality and do what is best for your son (including not having any more children until you have a stable home and finances and a financial plan for how to pay childcare for two and manage working hours around childcare including, later, for school holidays).

This is massively short-termist thinking that you’ve repeated over and over again in the thread, and the kind of short-termist thinking that got you into this mess in the first place.

“Your job” isn’t to try to convince him that he should just put up with this intolerable situation. In the long term he won’t. Nobody would. You admitted you’re surprised he has so far.

What you need to do is change it. There are many options but even if in the short term it means taking a lower paid job and not earning much more than the extra childcare cost then you need to do that and work your socks off to get promoted and earn more. Then, before long, you will be earning significantly more than the costs.

If you do nothing and shrug and say there’s no point then nothing will change, will it? Until your partner decides he’s had enough and leaves.

You have no idea what the house might be worth in 4 years time or what mortgage rates will be, so you might not be able to do that.

You need to do something about this now.

But op is working , it doesn't matter if it's full or part time. That's still a contribution!!! You obviously don't have young kids, your viewpoint is simply black or white. There are many sahps who don't work at all, and that's their choice. It's a sacrifice they make and agree to for their family.

Of course my son and animals could be heard. We don't have a separate 'office' so my son and dogs could be heard on the call and the cats come and go as they please.

As for the rest of your long reply. Thank you for your input. Lots to discuss with DP about what might work for us from people's suggestions.

I've got an insane amount of replies on here so I'm going to stop responding now as I feel like majority of comments are the same and it's going a bit around in circles.

Thank you very much for everyone's responses which have been very helpful in having a discussion with my partner whilst we work out what's best for us.

I both work part time and have children in nursery @nottheplanWe agreed between us that was the best plan, because that’s what you have to do in a partnership, make joint decisions, not make unilateral decisions. Being a good parent is more than being around for the child, it’s providing a stable environment, a stable family environment (whatever that looks like) and having enough money to live comfortably. This will mean different things to different people, but having someone else pay the mortgage and no ceilings, and servicing a grands worth of debt every single month, is not most people’s idea of comfortable. It would only take her or her partner to get sick again and that whole house of cards will fall down. There’s one thing ending up in a situation like this through unforseen circumstances, it’s another to deliberately bring a child into it, and irresponsible to plan more. She could put a plan in place to get them all onto a better path but she’s choosing to stick her head in the sand and expect her partner to cover for her.

I think your situation is spectacularly vulnerable.

You rushed to have a baby and you now no longer see each other.

You now want a second baby?
What's your plan if this relationship falls apart?

You don't sound the least bit connected to your partner but focused on being a mother and he was willing.

This is one of those situations where his head could easily be turned because you and he were not together long and you wanted children.

What has your fathers opinion got to do with anything?
What age are you?
18?

Is your father going to financially support and house you when things go tits up and you have to move out of your partners house?

You need to give your head a huge wobble.
YOU cannot afford one child not to mind two.
You are not married and living with your boyfriend who went along with you wanting a child.

This really isn't about what you want.
This is about providing for your child.
You don't have the luxury of choosing not to work full-time when you don't have a bob to your name.

You are so vulnerable if this doesn't work out.

As for your father?
He sounds unbelievably dim.
Listen to your mother and start focusing on getting a job that can contribute to your childs needs, not the bare minimum.

The likelihood of your relationship surviving never seeing each other are actually quite poor.

Your post is all about what you want, and in no way reflects the reality of your situation.

Apologies if that is harsh but you sound like you are in cookoo land.

Housing, food, clothes, schooling, activities all cost money.

You need to be seriously thinking how you will up your contribution towards this child, not having a second.

Anyway, good luck.

Thank you for your response.

We will have a look at things and see if there are ways of increasing my income without it being swallowed up in childcare costs.

Unfortunately no matter how any of this plays out me and my partner will never have a day off together apart from annual leave until DS is at school and then we would have to use our annual leave separately if I was working full time so we wouldn't see each other at all from that point at least until we'll I guess the kids are grown up.

For some reason my phone missed a load of the posts from OP re living with her ex too.
How absolutely bizarre this all is.

You need to protect yourself by earning money.
A job not another child needs to be your priority.

Get ahead of this and forget your fathers outdated unrealistic views.

Financially providing for a child you chose to have should be your priority.

You are rusking everything by presuming your partner will want to remain in this situation.

You wanted this child, he went along with it.
That alone makes this whole situation very unstable.

Wishing you luck.

If it helps, Calica, a WFH job would (usually) expect you to have your own office space, away from your child and animals. Ours is in our bedroom, far from perfect but we can fit a desk, chair, a couple of monitors. More importantly we can shut the door on the rest of the house. It would be worth setting up similar if you have another interview, you need to be able to show that you can work like you could in an office. Your cats and baby cannot be in your interview!

The comments are the same because you're obviously not listening. No matter how much you say 'I'll talk to my partner'. You're delusional, and I feel sorry for you (but mainly for your child) for when this shit show comes crashing down around you.

Why will you never have a day off together till your child is at school? Don't you know any other adults? (Apart from the ex/zookeeper/housemate) I don't know any married/cohabiting couple with nursery age kids who don't have days off together - and pretty almost all of my couple friends are both working full time in professional jobs. What planet are you on?

I can't really do more than talk to my partner about all the things mentioned on here as it's something we have to work out together to see what is going to work for us. And as we have 5 months before I could go full time it gives us time to make a plan. We can't just magically go oh yes we have found the perfect childcare that covers all the hours we need it to at the exact same time as I've found a job with good pay and hours to match this childcare. These things are going to need discussions and take time.

Unfortunately with my partner working nights this isn't an option as he is asleep during the day. My only option is the kitchen is open plan with the living room.

So likely WFH wouldn't be an option if I don't have a separate work space so thank you for that information!

My partner works all weekend and 3 weekdays. Therefore if I went for a office job to work best around his hours I would be Monday-friday so we wouldn't have any days off together. Same as currently i work the 2 nights he doesn't work so we don't see each other (bar and hour or so whilst he's getting ready for work) but no days off together.

Do either of you have parents or other supportive people in your lives? It just sounds like every decision you've made is slightly bizarre and it's put you in a place where absolutely everything about your life needs to be looked at. Just wondering if you have any sort of mentor or older person in your life to talk to or get support from as your life is chaotic now without any actual plan about how to make it less chaotic (if this thread is indeed a real one)

Your husband has a sleep disorder but works nights. You want him to pay into a house he doesn't own. Your ex and a host of random animals lives there and wanders in an out of job interviews at will. You have no ceilings. Both you and your partner have lost your driving licenses but you appear to live somewhere where you need a car. You want to work but also not work at all but also don't want to pay for childcare but can't afford your life so you want a second (or third or fourth or whatever) child. You actually went on an interview with your child and a bunch of animals which is so crazy I can't wrap my head around it.

You need to have some sort of plan to get your husband working day shifts (it cannot be healthy for him to work nights with a sleep disorder if he fell asleep while driving - that is a huge safety issue), to get yourself back into the workforce - taking whatever you can now and working towards something better. You need to get out of this living situation yesterday. You need to live somewhere with good transport links where there are many job options within a decent walk/bus so you aren't relying on a car that neither of you can drive. You definitely need to not have another child any time soon. All these things have to happen but how they happen and in what order is tricky so I appreciate it is hard to see the whole picture.

The absolute least problematic bit of this is your child being at nursery sometimes. Am sure your child would love being in a stable environment for a few days a week - the two mornings aren't going to help them settle so upping the hours is the best solution as you cannot afford to stay at home in one room while making sure not to wake up your sleeping partner while looking after a menagerie of someone else's pets. Staying up for 24 hours in a go regularly is a terrible idea for someone prone to seizures (or anyone else really) and the entire setup of your life is not sustainable at all.

I really do wish you luck. If you don't have a parent/carer/older stable friend/something else then I think you should reach out to some local organisations to look for help - there might be some sort of job training you'd qualify for or something else you might be able to access to help you get out of this mess.

Working is so much easier on a practical level when they are this age compared to when they hit primary school.

Most parents have to work and have to use childcare. It’s a luxury not to. If you want to improve your financial situation, absolutely do it before you have a second baby. It doesn’t get easier with 2.

Dh and I have both always worked, at least 4 days a week or 4 days over 5. We’ve never missed a school play or a sports day or a parent’s evening. But it’s because we put the time in when ours were little to build the sort of seniority that allows flexibility. This meant we could leave in the middle of the day for anything we needed to be at. You won’t have that flexibility in primary school if you don’t start getting creative now with building a work life that allows you to do that.

Wow thank you for such a detailed response.

Just to be clear I didn't go to any interview with my son and animals. It was an online teams interview as it was for a WFH job but they could hear my son screaming for me and my dogs barking plus a cat or two in the background. Which is when they obviously mentioned needing to put son into childcare for the job but I think also hearing the dogs put them off understandably.

My partners sleep disorder doesn't affect working nights (we checked this when he started treatment) as long as he's getting the correct amount of sleep with his mask on he is fine. He would love to move to days but until he is in a position for a promotion it would involve a pay cut and it would also involve not having fixed shifts and working mixture of earlier and lates which would make it very hard to plan childcare around. So for now nights is best.

Unfortunately moving to an area with better transport links isn't an option due to cost of those areas compared to where we are now. But we are both just waiting on our licence back from DVLA so driving won't be an issue soon.

We can look at adding an extra morning or two to my sons nursery come September if they have space as that's when our funding increases.

Although I don't stay around in 1 room. I have full use of my living room (basically my sons playroom now), kitchen, garden and my sons room. So we aren't stuck in 1 place.

I don't have friends and parents aren't exactly the picture of financial stability. But we can sort things out ourselves after everyone's opinions.

100% understand practically it's easier at this age just financially it's not as practical but we will have to have a look over the next 5 months to see if we can find something that will work for us.

Point to consider - In the short term your full time wage maybe consumed by childcare; you could your experience in the office based role to scale up to better paid jobs in the next few years. That would be good for you and your family.

I could move up but ive always found if you have no desire to move up that usually shows through in your work. Although my track record of keeping office jobs for more than 6 months isn't on my side 🙈 but definitely something to consider if I could at least perform enough to keep the job.

5 months is a long time to try to find a job that I might work.

@Calica1 you don't have any friends?

I really think you should listen to @PurpleThistle7 's advice, particularly about reaching out to get support from somewhere - it's pretty clear you don't really understand a lot about working and parenting. I'm not saying you're not great at your job or a great mum, I'm sure you're both of those things - but you don't seem to have a grasp on the reality of living, working, parenting, and making it all work for you and your family. Why don't you look into local parenting groups, I found 'mum friends' an absolute godsend when my daughter was little? Social services might also be a good shout as well, in terms of getting some signposting to organisations that could help.

No I dont have friends. Just me, my partner and my little boy.

I did try going to baby and mum groups but I hated them. So I generally just sat there feeling awkward so stopped going as there was no benefit.

I wouldn't want to get social services involved or waste their time. Think they struggle enough to have time and resources to help families that actually need it. But I'll have a look at some information online and see if there is any support online to give us a bit of guidance. We have plenty of time to get it all sorted so we have time to research a bit.