Professionally successful women who give up their senior roles to parent (thinking of Kate Forbes but the rest too)

[Fragmentedbrain]

I don't think children are really grateful for this in the long run - they lose a lot of potential connections for later life, not to mention added money and role modeling.

Aibu to think it's a mistake if it's a sacrifice?

(If you hate your job and just want to pack it in anyway that's a different thing)

Is this the kind of feminism where women are fully entitled and allowed to make their own choices for their own lives and what works best for them and their families, apart from if they make the 'wrong' choices?

We see the same sneering and criticism the other way around, in the (granted far fewer) situations where it works best for the whole family to have the father as a SAHD. I mean as an actual full-time hands-on parent, taking the bulk of the burden; not using it as a pathetic excuse to ignore the kids and sit on his X-Box all day.

Yes, we all need money to live; but not everybody is purely driven by earning as much as they possibly can to the detriment of spending time with their children.

I gave up a high paid very senior role to stay home with my children. My husband and I had similar career paths, I was a little ahead of him at the time, but with the travel we both did and the commitment the roles required our kids would have been raised by a nanny which, whilst a perfectly valid choice for those who choose it, wasn't for us.
Having me at home made sense, my husband could give the time required to his job and I gave the children stability and ran the house.
My opinion changed though ten years in when he had an affair. I realised I'd not just stepped out of work I'd lost ten years of career progression. I'd supported my husband in getting to where he was and he could have been walking away with a big pension, huge salary, and everything that goes with.. yes I could have fought for a fair settlement but I wouldn't gain back the career I would have had if I'd stayed in work.
It can work great for a family to have one step back in their career, but it absolutely makes that person very vulnerable to the other.

Grateful?

Kids don't need to be grateful towards their parents for providing adequate care for them, that's ridiculous. It's literally expected of a parent. It's the bare minimum you need to do when you choose to bring kids into the world.

The grand majority of mothers sacrifice their careers to provide adequate care, because they can't afford to buy it in. The kid doesn't need to be grateful for that.

Perhaps the father needs to be grateful though, as the sacrifice either had to be made by him or the mother, and the mother took the hit.

I disagree actually, I think they do it because it's what they want - the best thing for them. And that's valid too.

In Kate's case, and other female politicians in Scotland who have explicitly cited this, the Scottish Parliament isn't family friendly. It made a HUGE thing about years ago, most family friendly parliament in the world etc etc, but it's not. A lot of other professional careers are the same - just been reading about a female journalist and the juggling she has done and how she was ultimately lucky to hit on her current situation. So in those situations I don't think it's a mistake, I think it's a tough decision.

If this truly is the case, why is it almost exclusively women doing it?

my general rule of thumb is if something is genuinely the best option, we’d see roughly 50:50 split between the sexes, or a majority of men doing it.

the fact that men so rarely allow parenting to affect their work and become financially dependent on another person, suggests that it’s not “the best job in the world”.

Maybe she did because she was close to burn out / her own well being was hanging in the balance.

Honeslty I make good money and am not especially "maternal" but I think about packing it in.
The pressure of holding down a 200k pa job while keeping your mariahe alive, being a present parent who plans nice activities and facilities a nice family life, AND doesnt look and feel like worsel gummage because you preserved some space for yoursef is A LOT.

My role is FT only.
If i could job share with someone for 3 or 4 years life would be SO much better but companies arent interested in thst because "it's harder"

It should be noted that Kate Forbes husband was a widower with 3 children to whom he was a single parent before he married Kate F and that his 3 children primarily stay at home in Dingwall with him during the week. (According to reports I've read)

So the job isn’t family friendly.

how many male Scot’s politicians have families?

makes you wonder why lack of family friendly jobs seems to exclusively affect females…

Thank you for sharing this. It resonates with me a lot.

I've been struggling with the fact I'm not exactly where I'd like to be career wise, despite being in a good job (think accountant when I would like to be a senior accountant). I have two young children, one 5 and one 18 month old. I came back to work part time after having the second because the juggle would have otherwise been impossible for me. I feel I'm missing promotional opportunities, but I also feel that I am needed at home in a particularly intense and demanding way during these early years.

If you don't mind sharing, were you able to 'make up' the promotions when you returned full time, and your children were older?

I would love to stay at home but sadly have a well paid (nearly six figure) job that’s pretty much entirely wfh and I’m logged off by half five. Even after childcare costs I’ll be 4k a month better off working. Nothing to do with what is best for future kiddo, purely selfish on my part as I’d rather be with them.

have negotiated a year off with the first, but dh definitely feels the second six months is a luxury and that if he has to work I should too 😂

afaik, modern feminism is about choice not being constricted to only one role/decision. That choice means blokes can be SAHDs, too. Having Choices is the ideal, not "there is only one good choice".

I mean, for me, I would say it's incredibly anti-feminist if women choose to do the below things, that they are setting terrible examples for their daughters of what women should care about. But I'm probably unreasonable, because tbf, personal choices should prevail over "all society" considerations in such domains.

Wearing high heels : ever!!
Being "house proud"
Dying your gray or white hair away because gray hair is "aging"
Insisting that women without make up on aren't professional looking
Not giving your teen daughters freedom to go out alone
Insisting that unshaven legs or unpainted toenails are disgusting

I would never in a million years give up my career to raise kids. Why would i give up a good career, with great people, in an industry I love, that I have literally worked myself to the bone to get into and qualify within to go to mess, clingyness and the general myasma of children?

I would honestly prefer to work extra for the neccessary child care, etc than to be stuck with sticky hands, clingy people, mess and noise for years.

I'm not particularly fussed about kids, the OH is dropping hints - and I honestly want to say - then you'd better find a way to carry them yourself.

He knew getting together with me that I'm not particularly keen, (said at the time he was fine with that) and given that my mum had to work 3 jobs to provide for us both growing up as my dad was a deadbeat - I dont want to have to worry about that, and would prefer to be able to support her now, than deal with babies.

You don't become a SAHM for some notion of longer-term 'gratitude' from your children. What a weird and transactional mindset. You do it because -

• you genuinely want to and you know you have more to offer than a nanny or childminder
• you believe your children's day to day life, in the here and now, will be better for it.

Well we know why. We know women are still picking up the lions share in their families, that's why family-friendly policies are generally designed to attract women in the first place, and when the policies fail or are performative, women take the hit.

We also know from the GRR bill that the SP isn't particularly disability friendly either.

The SNP is comprised almost entirely of woke idiots. Kate Forbes didn’t stand a chance of becoming leader of the SNP because of them. She would probably have liked to be leader of the SNP eventually. This is why she stood down. As a PP pointed out she will likely move on to something else career wise. There was an incredibly long and tedious thread at the weekend arguing about career versus SAHM. I won’t therefore get into that suffice to say that in an ideal world everyone should have choices.

I don’t see the issue with it. I cannot fathom mixing motherhood with the role that I have without basically having strangers raise my children.

It’s fine if that’s the model you want but preferring to give up paid work to only focus on unpaid is fine too.

The second 6 months is absolutely not a luxury!
I was still bf my first at a year. You'll be sleep deprived and the adjustment to going from child free to Mum and Dad is not to be taken lightly.

It's great that you've got that choice.

But someone choosing differently doesn't also mean their choice isn't valid.

I’ve done all sorts - stayed at home for a bit when the DC were little, worked part time and when my youngest was 9 I started working full time and pushing at my career a bit (mostly for my own sense of worth and for my pension!) none of these have been about gratitude - I dont Think people expect their kids to be grateful that they stayed at home

None of us know their family ins and outs. Could be illness, additional needs anything. Sometimes it's about survival. Sometimes all the money in the world can't help in those situations and time with those we love is the biggest gift.

We'd need society to radically change for there to be other genuine available options. Women at the moment can't win no matter what they do.

I can only work very part time one of my children has additional needs. I am sacrificing my earning potential and career. If I didn't do that Id be potentially sacrificing their mental health and potentially their life. Their future,our relationship. It's not something I feel I can risk for the sake of a job that in reality would just replace me the moment I didn't fit the bill anymore. I'm yet to hear of anyone on their death bed say i wish I worked more.

I don’t think you can say that the majority of mothers sacrifice their careers because they can’t afford to buy care in. Many do it because they want to or think it’s best for the kids. It’s not only a financial decision.

I take at face value why people want to become a SAHM but assume they may want to keep some reasons private. Its non of my buisness what they choose.

In a world where people bang on about men and women being the same, I think that's true for many aspects but not the whole story.

The women I've known that have put their careers on hold or stopped altogether have explained more about their emotional needs to be with their babies than I've ever heard from a man. Thats not to say men don't have an attachment and bond to their babies, of course they do, but with many mothers there is more of an urge to nuture them and be with them.
I could be completely wrong amd barking up the wrong tree of course, its just a rambling thought.

I found it so hard going back to work after my babies but I had to to make the housekeeping books balance!

Women are expected to work as if they have no kids, bring up kids as if they had no career and look and act like they have neither.

Feminism was supposed to make us free all it has done it pressured women into 'having it all' and looked down upon if they don't.

Every choice is valid. Some women don't have a totally free choice due to finances etc but we should all be able to choose what we want to do and no be judged for it.

I personally wanted to be home with my kids when they were young so inbetween 3 year long maternity leaves I worked a couple of evenings a week - actually brought home more money than if I worked full time and put the kids in nursery!. As they got older I have gradually increased my hours. They are all older teens now and I work full time but DH WFH so is around when they get home from school if they want to check in and have a chat etc.

I think we lose either way. Give up, reduce mental load and have a better equilibrium. But long term lose your security, purpose outside of family and network. Don’t give up and spend 20 year juggling the load and feel utterly burnt by it. But then I’m a cynic.