Do I have a lot going on?

[New2Mumming]

I don't know whether I should be cut more slack or I'm just slow.

I went back to work 4 days pw in September after one year maternity. My kids are now 3 and 1 yo. I commute once per week (2hrs each way). Husband works 5 days, 3 of those commuting. Helps with nursery drop off and pick up when he can and has been doing more about the house since I stopped mat leave. I sleep with youngest, never made it a full night through.

We are about to buy a house, should be exchanging soon to move in a month.
For about 6 weeks weve been considering that I become a teacher from September 2026 as my industry is at risk of redundancies and AI.

Crunching the numbers I don't see how we can afford me to stop working for a year with two kids in nursery, unfunded hours because I won't be working. Hard to find with Student Finance but I think Dh earns too much for me to get much maintenance/childcare support ( and yet on his wage alone we'd struggle, even on a shoestring). We could have worked this out sooner but it's hard to find time and focus with everything else.

DH is putting the teacher training above the house and thinks we'll need to pull out.

I don't know what the hell we should be doing.

Can I even train to teach with such little children.

Very aware we're horrific to pull out for the poor others in the chain.

Am so stressed and confused. Feel so much pressure and like a horrible person. But what else are we supposed to do - we're staying with family and that can't keep on

It makes you laugh because it’s always the same response? Maybe there’s something in it.

It makes you laugh because you are being snarky, more like.

That's hard, especially with little children. Lots of preparation in the evenings and lots of energy needed in the day.
OP, can you hang on, move and get settled and then re-evaluate?

Mate if you're stressed now, you'll be buried by becoming a teacher. I work in a very high pressure, high stakes, literal life-or-death job with the emergency services and I wouldn't touch being a teacher with a ten foot barge pole, especially not in the current social climate.

I think you have to be really passionate about it to survive it. Wanting job security isn't enough.

Alright babes if you like.

You are absolutely crazy to go into teaching just because it's job security. The honours are brutal! I left after completing my ITT as I had zero time to spend with my child who was 3 months when I started training. I now have a job where I teach adults and work 50% from home. (My dc are now adults).

I couldn’t have done the training with two small children. I found it hard when I was young and single.

I think it’s something to consider when your children are older and also only if it is something you really want to do. It seems like your husband is pushing it mostly.

Oooh you’re an hardun

Teaching is a 60-80 hour a week job.

Unless he's prepared to take on 90% of domestic/childcare duties, there is no way it'll work for you all.

Teaching isn't just a change of job. It's a full on commitment and as others have said, you have to have a vocation to do it. It's the only way it's doable as a job or a career.

I think you need to really want to go into teaching. Not because it’s a ‘safe’ job. At my old school, the teachers would largely arrive by about 7.30am/7.45am and wouldn’t leave until getting on for 6pm. Often had to take books home to mark, or sort out resources for the following day. That’s all without all the stress and the declining behaviour in class. Don’t do it! Loads of my colleagues left because it just wasn’t how they thought it would be.
As you’re living with family with two young children, finalising the house is your top priority.

I decided against doing a PGCE (from a role as a TA in a primary school) based on the workload and money when my DC were 6/7… I loved working in a school but the qualified teacher workload was bonkers. I think there are better options for you OP. Good luck

This post tells me you're not going into it with your eyes open.

The hours and the pay aren't necessarily the issue. We all know lots of people work long hours with not much pay.

It's the unique demands of the job that cause the stress and the exhaustion. And the exhaustion is physical, cognitive, and emotional. You're on your feet all day. And you don't stop thinking, all day. You don't get any time to 'switch off'. No down time whatsoever. And you are 'on', constantly - there's nowhere for you to hide in a classroom. It's like being in a play in front of an audience with no interval for six hours. You are under constant pressure, making continual decisions at speed, dealing with the fluctuating and often uncontrollable emotions and behaviours of numerous children at once, all while trying to teach academic content in a way that the 30 kids in your classroom can all access and remaining calm, supportive and utterly professional at all times. And that's without mentioning the moments when you're just sitting down to get some work done and there's a knock on your door and it's a child who's come to tell you they're feeling suicidal, or their parent hit them last night, or they got raped at the weekend, and you have to find the right words to say with no time to prepare yourself for what's come at you.

And at the end of a day on your feet with no headspace whatsoever, you have to sit down for another three to four hours to mark the work that's been completed that day, plan the next day's teaching, and also respond to all the emails you've received from colleagues, parents, students, etc.

You don't know the deep exhaustion of it until you've done it. Nothing prepares you for it.

I've done many other jobs and I've been teaching for almost 15 years. I love it, I don't regret it, but it requires a level of resilience that you can't possibly understand until you're in it. So please don't kid yourself that you get it, because you don't. That doesn't mean you won't be good at it, that doesn't mean you won't cope, that doesn't mean you won't love it. But you are going to be in for a shock, and you do need to make sure you understand that.

I have a friend who is still in teaching (I have no idea how) who frequently has to work until 1am.

At school for 7am. Leaving at 6pm because the caretaker was locking up. Taking work home. Working until 10pm.

I got out. Once I was past 30 I just couldn't keep up the pace. Not to mention the constant knowledge that no matter how much I worked that it was never enough.

OP, do not train to be a teacher. You can only survive it if you genuinely love it. People who go into teaching because it's 'secure' or 'family friendly' don't tend to last five minutes.

Forget all about teacher training. Buy your house. You have not actually been made redundant and your employer hasn't told you that you're going to be imminently, so there is absolutely no urgency for you to retrain or find a new job right now.

One thing at a time. Buy the house, move in, get settled.

Moving is incredibly stressful. It's not a good idea to be making more than one major life change at once if you don't have to.

As a teacher OP I would say it would be ambitious to train as a teacher with such young children. Not impossible but very very ambitious.

Teaching has changed a lot, I think it might be beneficial to talk with someone who is working as teacher and get some insights. If it’s your life ambition and you desperately want to do it I would go for it! But if you have a perception of it being an easier option it really isn’t in a lot of ways. For example if your children are sick there are no AL days to take to mind them. You will be in work when they need to be dropped to nursery or school so you will be reliant on others for that. There are significant additional educational needs that increasingly catered for in mainstream environment which can be very challenging. Parents demands have increased exponentially and you now contactable 24/7 via teams&email. Paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork.

Don’t get me wrong i absolutely love my job but holidays aside it is not as family friendly as you might think initially.

Yep. 100%!

DC 1 was 18mo when DH did his PGCE. We rarely saw him evenings or weekends for most of a year. He was home between 5&6 so could do nursery pick up at 6 if he finished early then he was back working when DD went to bed at 7. Until about 1.

I did cooking, cleaning drop offs and could do any pick up I needed to facilitate this.

Unless your DH can manage all term time nursery drop offs, sick days, and single parent at weekends, I wouldn't do it yet.

But the OP saod she isn't desperate to he a teacher.

The profession doesn't need people like that The reaaon people have spoken about teaching is because the OP asked about teaching. I'm sure if they'd asked about a different career people would have espoused about that instead 🙄

This! Assuming you get a decent redundancy payout. If you like your job I wouldn't leave and would think more about teaching - if it something you really want to do then fine but it doesn't really sound like it - maybe there are other options that would be more flexible with kids. And if you are living with family surely you really need the house to have your own space

You don't want to be a teacher. Buy the house and think of some other course you can do part-time while still earning.