Better paid job vs more time at home with DD?

[redfox14]

To summarise - I work as a TA in a school, 20 hours a week and term time only. DD is 2.5 and will be increasing her time at nursery to 30 hours in September but I'm not able to increase my hours at work due to budget cuts. At the minute I have short working days, and get to spend lots of time with my daughter, which I adore. Unfortunately my pay is very low, I'm not able to save any money, and don't have any prospects of a pay rise/career progression. I don't even earn £1k a month after deductions. DH works full time and we do manage to get by with our combined wage but we are low earners.

My parents are encouraging me to apply for full-time, better paid jobs using my degree. They have said they would look after DD after nursery while I was at work if I were to get a full-time job. My dilemma is that I would be giving up the abundance of time which I currently get to spend with my little girl. I know I would still get holidays in any other job, but I worry about organising childcare during the school holidays or feeling that my parents aren't able to do their own thing because they are looking after DD. I know they are happy to have her but I don't want to feel that childcare becomes a burden for them every school holiday.

A lot of my friends with children dread the school holidays because of childcare costs etc., so I feel very fortunate to have all the time I do with my daughter at the minute and I would feel incredibly guilty giving it up. At the same time I do not feel financially secure and would like to earn more. AIBU?

Time with your daughter is important, of course. But think how much better your time with her could be spent if you had a more money, even if the time was a little bit less!

You could afford more special days out and maybe holidays etc.

So many parents juggle the holidays and manage just fine because not everyone can work in a school and it seems a waste of a qualification to have and not use a degree.

Twice I’ve gone ft, and then negotiated more flexibility once I’ve demonstrated my usefulness and skills. It isn’t all, or nothing. Your parents aren’t sentenced to years of childcare.

i’d go for it - your dd is going to need your input for years, and if you invest time now in getting a better job that lets you save, and have a pension, you may be able to wangle more flex or pt later, from a higher salary.

I’d jump your shoes as you sound stuck in a dead end insecure job. No wonder your parents aren’t worried and want to help.

Based on her age and that she will be in school 5 days a week anyway, I'd go for the full time job and use your parents for childcare. Remember, you do get annual leave! Have you considered going into adult teaching? You'd still get the holidays, also adult learners tend to be more independent and require less support. Downside you'd need to train for a year! But as student you'd be qualifying for childcare and student finance etc.

There is a middle ground here OP, in that you could get a part-time job that pays more than <£1k month, supported by the additional free hours you plan to claim, while also giving you more time than just the weekends with your daughter.

You have to think about yourself as well as your daughter, and that means the long-term as well as the short-term.

I’d also say… you could just do it next year when she’s at school anyway, if you really don’t want to do it right now.

I agree with this.

You aren’t going to look back on your death bed and think ‘I wish I took that slightly better paid job’ but you will think I wish I spent more time with my child. To me that says it all!

Well - she may rue the decision to put her career and personal financial independence (and therefore security of her child) if her DH decides he’s off.

As has happened to many, many women before.

Not having a decently paid job, personal savings etc leaves women very vulnerable, both today but in retirement too.

I'd look for a compromise. You can work more than 20 hours a week without needing to go full time. Even if you look for a TA role at another school you could have more hours. Most TA's work more than 20 hours a week. Or another school based role (school admin, for example) so you keep the holidays.

If she's going to be in nursery 30 hours a week anyway, I don't really see why you wouldn't just go full time? It's not loads of time with her that you would be losing

There are more creative ways to look at this, DH and I both work 5 in 4, one off on Mondays one off on Fridays. In the holidays we only need to cover 3 days a week childcare, now he's at school both sets of grandparents are chomping at the bit to have him because they don't see him as much as they did before he was at school, so we're down to needing one day a week paid childcare. In the summer we tend to go away for two weeks or one but have two weeks annual leave, so over the course of the 6 weeks each set of grandparents has him 4 times so not a huge burden, and paid childcare is 4 days. Very affordable especially on two full time salaries

I do know plenty of mums of older
primary, teen or older kids who still need time, and wish they had more savings, pensions, money to support their extra curricular hobbies, sports, music etc…

I also agree with this. I'd look for something with more hours/higher pay but not necessarily full time. You're really fortunate that you have family to help with childcare, I find myself in such a frustrating position with very limited part time working options because of the cost of childcare relative to my low wages, having no family to help.

Thank you everyone for your replies. @Favouritefruits I definitely agree with you on that and really do feel I will look back and miss having so much time with DD, but at the same time like @Lmnop22 said, there are lots of times where I want to do things on my days with DD but can't necessarily afford days out, holidays, and so on.

I do think I will look for something which is better paid and more hours even if it's not potentially full time.

With that in mind does anyone have any recommendations for jobs/career industries they have found work well around having small children (if such a thing exists!)?

It’s more the attitude of the manager really and how supportive they are - I work in a hectic IT job but having a supportive mgr for 3 critical years meant i had a huge amount of flexibility.

a decent mgr and supportive culture is more important than the actual hours per week commitment. Good luck!