AIBU to feel uneasy about mothers leaving successful careers?

[Toodledootwo]

All my friends are quitting their successful career jobs after having children. They all seem to be throwing their hands in the air saying what’s the point. Is there a revolt happening against women working? It seems we were encouraged to get to work and be independent….but when becoming a mother….still be that mother, still be that provider till burn out?

I’m seeing a bit of this, usually at the point the children start school - so the childcare has become more complicated, and the children are becoming more aware, ‘why am I in wraparound care when others aren’t’.

Two observations.

1. the dads often just refuse to help with childcare. No they won’t ask about flexible working. No they can’t work from home. They are happy for the kids to be in clubs 730-630. If the mum doesn’t like it - it’s her problem to find a solution.
2. Flexible working doesn’t really work to the degree needed to accommodate nursery and school routines / within the 12 hours a young child is awake. Include a commute and you’d need to be leaving work after lunch to collect a child from school.

It is incredibly difficult to know what the right thing to do for your children is, alongside yourself, and that creates a lot of pressure.

Because it a balance and if it works it works , it makes life easier. Without everyone constantly rushing around getting burn out

Being with my children is more important to me than ANY paid job I could be doing.

I would respect any of your colleagues stepping away whilst their children were young. Others can do those jobs who don’t have children.

Agree with this.

I have lived my life exactly as I wanted

Having a rich husband is essential in this scenario. In most modern families both parents are working. The home needs two salaries.
It’s not easy for women to get back into their career, especially older women. With children.

I also stepped back from my career after child 2. I couldn’t cope with the juggle, my eldest dc was miserable and hated childcare. This made us all unhappy and it wasn’t worth it for our family.

I’ve since struggled to find fulfilling part-time work that gives me flexibility. Somethings I do regret ‘giving up’ my career and I do look upon my former peer’s success wistfully. Hoping as my dc get older I can get back on it.

i have found it hard having less money and i tried not working for a spell and it made me miserable having no independence and I resented my dc and dh. I’ve now hopefully found a role for a lot less money but it does feel more fulfilling and the flexibility is fab. That’s what I need in my life right now.

I do feel we’ve been fed a lie that we can have it all. Realistically unless you have a lot of family help, a dp with an equally flexible role or a nanny you just can’t commute, work full time, manage family / life admin and look after yourself. Something has to give! I chose my career over my sanity in this instance…

Mothers have either had to give up careers or chosen to give up careers for years, people only notice when it happens to them.

My kids are young adults and realise that they should not have kids until they have established their careers, and they will hopefully not become sahps. Who knows what the future holds. Not everyone is lucky after a split or bereavement and retaining some financial independence is everything.

I kept my career (NHS hospital consultant) and as retirement approaches, our lives are going to be so much more comfortable with both our pensions.

But how limiting.

If the women giving up work are earning £150k plus I imagine their partners are earning more than that so between them they should be able to afford a nanny. That brings considerably more flexibility.

Choosing who you have children with is of fundamental importance.

Re point 1 making sure you don’t have a child with a selfish twat really helps that problem.

Re point 2 School years are trickier than pre-school years but it can be done.

And we, as women, are expected to do/have it all (thank you, Helen Gurley Brown), whereas for some reason, the same is not expected of men.

Yes, the not being able to return again is a real problem for many. I think it should become normalised to take longer gaps than standard maternity leave offers, with some extra support/training/mentoring put in place to facilitate this. Theresa May spoke well about this.

Why would it be limiting to choose to be a stay at home mother?

I increasingly wonder if MN is fully populated by bots or maybe it’s some kind of time and space fabric tear and I talk to people from Victorian England without knowing?

In real life I know one (1) person who doesn’t work after having children and relies fully on her DH’s income. She didn’t have a career to begin with, so gave up her job gladly. All my friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, neighbours with children work. It’s not country-specific and it doesn’t depend on the number of children, I know two families with 8 children each and both parents working.

Both my parents and grandparents on both sides worked full time. My DH’sparents as well, same with grandparents, so it’s also not a generational thing. Gen Xers are called the latchkey generation for a reason - because both parents worked!

Giving up paid employment is very unusual from my experience but seems to be common on mumsnet.

I joined a company that had a policy of 2 days in for more junior staff & 3 for senior. Its now being increased to minimum 4 for everyone.

I have a team that includes younger staff who havent had kids yet and im so worried they'll either decide to leave for more flexible roles, or will ask for part time if they have kids & want to come back. Ive also got a co-worker with caring responsibilities struggling.

Its already really hard to get experienced staff without this. Dont employers see how many parents etc simply would have to reduce hours etc? 15/20 years ago a lot of women went very part time after kids.

The cost of childcare is often a factor. You might as well do it yourself! Long hours are often needed for£150,000 so who is looking after the baby? At what cost? A nanny is expensive.

Then there’s DHs job. How much is that paying? Few women give up £150,000 is dh is on £40,000. You would really struggle and the mortgage needs paying. Obviously people who inherit money are in a different situation.

The only high flyers I know who have given up have husbands earring a lot. More than the woman does. Lots more. Two doing long hours and not seeing dc is hard. If you can take a back seat for a couple of years, why not if DH is a very high earner.

I don’t understand how a father could have no bond with his babies.

However more importantly If anything ever happens to us I’d be the overall winner because I’d get the money and the kids is a bloody big assumption that is unlikely to come to pass.

I resent all these solemn “warnings” and expressions of concern at women giving up paid work. How bloody patronising!

If you don’t want to do it fine don’t but don’t judge other women’s different choices. For most of us we do have it all. Good career a break then resume again. Often not in the same career. I actually think the doom mongers hate that.

My friends described us as the only ‘truly equal’ couple she knows. Where we both worked, did childcare, cooking and laundry etc. The kids saw us as both doing everything which I like.

She was a SAHM and the family had a terrible couple of years when her high-earning husband was made redundant age 53 and she scrabbled around for work as he became depressed. She often says that we got the balance ‘right’. I think with all these situations, it is family-specific, with a heavy dollop of luck.

Lack of flexibility isn’t always mitigated by paying for a service though. While you can pay for a nanny who can do pick up if you’re working late you can’t pay a substitute to do Mother’s Day tea in nursery, or sit in the school play, or the 10:30 Carol session.
It’s not just a cost driven choice which is why women from various careers may still make the decision to leave the workforce with young children.

I think all the women who are out there in the world contributing at a societal level are just as important as mums. In some cases objectively more so.
I'd not want to live I'm a world where I couldn't see a female doctor, rape crisis counsellor, police officer, midwife, or have other women inputting to the decisions that impact women's lives.
Nor would I want to live in a world where child free or childless women were seen as second class citizens to the women doing 'the most important job in the world'. Where we took a backwards step to a world where men were in complete control of every aspect of public life and we were given only so much autonomy and influence as they allowed us in the home.
You made a decision right for you. But your rhetoric that this is the most important job for women is dangerous. Its just manipulation to force us backwards. I'm very glad to see it's lost traction in the mainstream and hope it never comes back. So much talent amongst women would be lost to us.

I think ‘truly equal’ is a state of mind not an exact 50/50 division of every task.
I have worked full time and now I’m having a period out of the work force with young children, I don’t think that suddenly makes my relationship dynamic unequal. We both respect the other and their contribution to the family, we both take an active role in all areas of the household.

One thing that has really helped us as parents is moving to be in a walking commute of our jobs. We both work and live in a city centre, and can walk from work to pick up at afterschool club, It means housing isn’t cheap but it means that our lives work but better.