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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to feel uneasy about mothers leaving successful careers?

549 replies

Toodledootwo · 22/08/2026 02:08

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?

OP posts:
DustyBins · 22/08/2026 09:20

I'm reading this thread with interest. Phrases like "so everyone can come home to a calm home", "I love being at home with my children", "it has been the joy of my life to be there" sound weird to me. Even if you are a SAHM it's also hard. With little ones the husband is more likely to come home to a frazzled wife pulling her hair out because the kids are exhausting rather than a picture of domestic bliss. Some posts don't ring true.

Marroon · 22/08/2026 09:23

DustyBins · 22/08/2026 09:20

I'm reading this thread with interest. Phrases like "so everyone can come home to a calm home", "I love being at home with my children", "it has been the joy of my life to be there" sound weird to me. Even if you are a SAHM it's also hard. With little ones the husband is more likely to come home to a frazzled wife pulling her hair out because the kids are exhausting rather than a picture of domestic bliss. Some posts don't ring true.

Why would you assume a woman is lying about her experience?

pimplebum · 22/08/2026 09:23

Wow id liove to be so rich to have option to go even part time

so skint i had 2 month mat leave

Feminism is having options and being free to choose why stay in stressful job and juggle when you dont need to ?

Owninterpreter · 22/08/2026 09:23

I would say there is a big gulf between being in work and having the same career that is progressing that you had pre baby.

Lots of women are made redundant or face discrimination or are sidelined after taking mat leave which is beyond the mums control.

Then when they research mothers employment in uk it was found lots of women work part time, so 3 and 4 days a week is quite common, lots go for flexible hours and home working, lots take sideways steps to easier roles and actively stop seeking promotions, some seek out work closer to home and is often lower paid. Wheras the most likely change for men after becoming a father is they increased there pay.

So I feel a lot of women step away from thier career without giving up work as such.

Anarchy99 · 22/08/2026 09:27

ThankYouNigel · 22/08/2026 03:23

YABU in the sense that being a mother is much more important that having a high flying career, I was delighted to resign from mine. It meant nothing to me as compared with being a mother.

YANBU in the sense that you feel a bit uneasy about this. That is unsurprising, as the education system, government and mass media brainwash girls with career, career, career from the moment they start school. Marriage and motherhood are treated as after thoughts now, unfortunately.

I’m the type of person though who knows what is actually of high value. I’m delighted you’re seeing more mothers pushing back against all of the career pressure- good on them! Enjoy your children while they are little, it goes way too quickly.

Edited

Absolutely - how dare they show girls that being a wife and mother isn’t the only option in life? It doesn’t do to have them want independence and choices in life 🙄

You may value yourself as a mother and that’s great, but for some people it isn’t what they want. It’s a positive thing that women aren’t stuck in the position of having to marry/have children if they don’t want to, and previous generations have fought hard for that to be the case.

SomethingFun · 22/08/2026 09:27

When you both have a job and one of you loses your job the other one continues to work so you still have some money coming in and also maybe if you both work you have been able to put some rainy day money aside too and finally if you were made redundant hopefully you got a pay out.

If only one person works and that person loses their job then you only have rainy day money that you may have saved up and whatever redundancy that person got. Most people don’t earn more than £150k a year and get a massive redundancy, most women don’t walk into highly paid roles after many years out of the workforce, the current job market is dire and bright young things can’t even get an entry level position - two adults financially responsible for dc and neither working isn’t somewhere I’d want to be.

Mn always has someone who gave up work for 15 years as a sahm and somehow, tinkly laugh, ended up a millionaire off her little part time mummy business she set up around her dc. Yes it does happen but you might as well put lottery win as your long term financial plan 😁

WhyIsThereGlitterEverywhere · 22/08/2026 09:28

DustyBins · 22/08/2026 09:20

I'm reading this thread with interest. Phrases like "so everyone can come home to a calm home", "I love being at home with my children", "it has been the joy of my life to be there" sound weird to me. Even if you are a SAHM it's also hard. With little ones the husband is more likely to come home to a frazzled wife pulling her hair out because the kids are exhausting rather than a picture of domestic bliss. Some posts don't ring true.

Yea of course there are difficult moments and times when I’m desperate for some time to myself. But there have also been moments when I’ve been sat with my child watching everyone else rushing around and had tears in my eyes thinking about how lucky I feel to be able to slow down and soak up the early years. They grow so quickly and we’ve had so many lovely experiences together during this time I just can’t imagine having missed them.

Other people might feel differently and I appreciate it’s not for everyone but it genuinely has been so positive for our family. It seemed really scary to leave my career and I did feel really judged by friends/family at the time. Obviously everyone will choose what works for them, but this has worked for us and I have no regrets. Maybe it doesn’t ring true to you if your experience has been different but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t my experience!

BadSkiingMum · 22/08/2026 09:29

I have not read the full thread but can see there are some interesting points.

I used to be very smug about all this, working part-time for years and congratulating myself on my great work-life balance. 😂But a combination of late-diagnosed additional needs (yes, this can happen!), a long daily journey with no feasible alternative and declining opportunities in my sector eventually brought my employed life to a halt.

I think luck does have a lot to do with it. At one point I had a brilliant part-time role on a permanent contract and with a great pension but then the office relocated way beyond a reasonable commute, before wfh was really a thing. I found another job but it was on a fixed term contract and I never really regained the same terms and conditions.

I am on the self-employment train now and think that should be publicised more widely as an alternative route for women.

DeafLeppard · 22/08/2026 09:29

Fivebyfive2 · 22/08/2026 08:41

You can be a high flyer earning £££ but at the end of the day if something happens to you or it came down to the bottom line, most would be let go/ replaced at work with hardly a second thought, years of service/effort etc be damned.

Not sure if you’re talking about husbands walking away from wives here or people being made redundant….

Anarchy99 · 22/08/2026 09:30

pimplebum · 22/08/2026 09:23

Wow id liove to be so rich to have option to go even part time

so skint i had 2 month mat leave

Feminism is having options and being free to choose why stay in stressful job and juggle when you dont need to ?

It’s great that so many people have the choice about how to live their life.

Because to some women, it is just as important to retain a career they have worked hard for.

MickyMoonshine · 22/08/2026 09:30

ThankYouNigel · 22/08/2026 07:24

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.

Being a parent also requires you to provide for them financially.

Do you really think only child free people should work? What about men? Should they only work if they don’t have children?

Women have always worked. Having a SAHP is a very modern phenomenon. Not the mention the fact that society would be fucked if we suddenly saw huge numbers of women leaving the labour market.

Dery · 22/08/2026 09:31

YANBU to be concerned about this. There are things about the tired old narrative which really should have changed long before 2026: women are not having it all if they have children and a career any more than men are having it all. No-one suggests men shouldn't have children and maintain a career, do they? The nuclear family is an anomaly. Women have worked outside the home for centuries, millennia even and children have been raised in extended families. In many countries and cultures, this remains the norm - grandparents look after the small children whilst both parents work. My grandmothers worked; my mother worked once we were at school as did my friends' mothers.

The suggestion that a good mother "sacrifices" her career to her children is really insidious - it places an extremely heavy burden on the children and implicitly sends the message that they should similarly limit their own options going forward, if they are girls who want to have children. And actually, I think there is something very powerful in modelling to a growing daughter that she can have a full and independent life outside the home and be financially independent, and in modelling to growing sons that these things are and should be equally accessible to young women as to young men, if those young women want them. And as another PP has noted: financially providing for your family is also an important part of being a parent; in many cases, both parents need to work to ensure that a family is financially secure. Also, circumstances can change such that the husbands/fathers can no longer provide financially and the effects can be particularly difficult if the wife/mother has no earning power.

For me, the bottom line is that SAHMs and WOHMs (Working Outside the Home Mothers) bring different but equally valuable things to the table. There are women who love being SAHMs even as the children get older; they are amazing homemakers and take sufficient pleasure and fulfilment from this; they don't see it as a sacrifice and don't portray limiting messages to their daughters that staying at home is what a good mother does. There are women, like me, who are much better as WOHMs than SAHMs; I'm not a homemaker. My DDs are the most important people to me on the planet and I am a mother throughout the working day. However, I value the satisfaction and fulfilment that having a career and being financially independent give me and I value demonstrating this to my daughters. I also value contributing financially to our family. My DH supported this. The husbands and fathers need to step up; fortunately, I am seeing that happen a lot.

Also, a lot depends on what is being modelled by those at senior management in a business. I am nearly 60 and have recently moved jobs but for nearly 30 years I worked in an internal law firm which grew and grew over the years. In the last 10-15 years, there have been increasing numbers of female partners, including female partners with children and who worked part-time; there have been male partners who have worked part-time for childcare reasons. Young male lawyers have taken shared parental leave. I have seen male lawyers, including male partners, discuss meeting times with clients explaining that they are not available at a certain time because they are dropping off or collecting children from school or attending a school play etc. Clients have only ever responded positively to that.

So yes, it is a real shame if women are again retreating from careers on the basis of pernicious and misogynistic narratives without sufficiently questioning whether it is right for them.

eatreadsleeprepeat · 22/08/2026 09:31

I am now the mother of adult daughters both with young children and feel that their generation is suffering two huge disadvantages.
We, society and parents, told the they could do anything, they should work hard and have careers, they could keep these careers and have children. Yes, employment law (at least superficially) gives them rights but it doesn’t solve the basic problem that you cannot fully commit to two things at once without something giving way.
This has come at the same time as house prices and childcare costs have risen enormously meaning that very few people are in a position to have a choice that isn’t financially driven.

BadSkiingMum · 22/08/2026 09:33

@DeafLeppard I think she means redundancy.

Most people regard their own successful trajectory as being due to hard work, qualifications etc and fail to recognise the role played by good luck until bad luck comes along.

Mooselander · 22/08/2026 09:35

YABU. People should do whatever makes them happy.

I quit after my second because I wanted to put my all into motherhood and spend all my time with my children.

Three years on and I’ve absolutely no regrets. We’re all happier for it; it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.

To me, a career is meaningless. Great, you’ve made money! You can always make money. But you’re missing your kids growing up and you can’t get that back. Ever.

MickyMoonshine · 22/08/2026 09:35

5128gap · 22/08/2026 07:43

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.

Brilliant post.

ItsAllSoUnfair · 22/08/2026 09:37

I nearly stepped away from my career when my children were young as my DH earned a lot more than me & I was the default parent doing basically everything. I was very lucky I was able to work part time & from home so could still have some of the benefits of being stay at home mum.
My now exDH left me and things would have been so much more difficult if I had left my career.
You never know what’s going to happen - your DH could lose their job or be unable to work etc so it’s not just if you separate that you may become reliant on your own wage.
I am lucky enough that I enjoy my work & I feel I worked hard to gain qualifications to be able to do that so didn’t want that to be completely pointless.

Anarchy99 · 22/08/2026 09:41

eatreadsleeprepeat · 22/08/2026 09:31

I am now the mother of adult daughters both with young children and feel that their generation is suffering two huge disadvantages.
We, society and parents, told the they could do anything, they should work hard and have careers, they could keep these careers and have children. Yes, employment law (at least superficially) gives them rights but it doesn’t solve the basic problem that you cannot fully commit to two things at once without something giving way.
This has come at the same time as house prices and childcare costs have risen enormously meaning that very few people are in a position to have a choice that isn’t financially driven.

For most people, their personal circumstance may limit the choices they make but that will always be the case.

Women don’t have to spend their lives looking after a husband and children if they don’t want to. How they manage family and career is down to them.

Velumental · 22/08/2026 09:42

canklesmctacotits · 22/08/2026 03:18

I quit my successful and highly paid career when my first was born. I refused to do it all. DH agreed it wouldn’t be in the children’s or my best interests for me to do it all (seeing as he couldn’t be pregnant, couldn’t breast feed, had no bond with them until they were toddlers and probably older etc). So I stayed at home, he worked. He looks after and protects all of us financially while I look after and protect all of us in all the other ways. Not a great feminist or non-feminist statement, just real life. If anything ever happens to us I’d be the overall winner because I’d get the money and the kids - I can’t earn anywhere near as much now, he can walk into a big job any time he wants at this point. Both of us look at each other and our children and think we’re the luckiest people alive.

Embarrassing on his behalf to admit he doesn't bother bonding with his babies and would leave you to do all home making activities regardless of working. Ick.

TinyGingerCat · 22/08/2026 09:42

I left a very successful career for 8 years to be a SAHP and then went back to it part time and then full time (in the middle of Covid). I refused to accept that wasn’t possible as so many people kept telling me as I knew some people had managed it so I thought why can’t I. Why this has worked is my DH isn’t a prick and our finances are arranged so I haven’t lost out in terms of pension etc should he decide to fuck off. He’s now looking at partial retirement and I’m going for promotion. This works for us but may not be for everyone and if the working partner is not fair with their income from the get go then there is a massive risk. We also lived very modestly when I was a SAHP and chose to not live in the sort of house people with our incomes often do. The result is we were mortgage free by 50. We spend all our spare cash on travel. I don’t regret any of it.

Melograno · 22/08/2026 09:45

JuliettaCaeser · 22/08/2026 07:38

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.

Have you or any of these "skip back to work" posters actually seen what has happened to the job market lately?

Utterly dire
Healthcare and teaching
Nurses, physios, OTs, teachers qualifying and there are no jobs, further redundancies in the pipeline
NHS England gone
ICBs -75% redundancy
AI has wiped out so many roles
Redundancies left, right and centre
" Restructuring"
Entry level jobs with thousands of applicants

You can " resent" it all you like
Meanwhile in the real world...

Timeforachange26 · 22/08/2026 09:45

HelmholtzWatson · 22/08/2026 09:08

Maybe - if you think work is more important/valuable/rewarding than raising a family.

People raise families AND work. It's not one or the other

ThankYouNigel · 22/08/2026 09:50

Anarchy99 · 22/08/2026 09:27

Absolutely - how dare they show girls that being a wife and mother isn’t the only option in life? It doesn’t do to have them want independence and choices in life 🙄

You may value yourself as a mother and that’s great, but for some people it isn’t what they want. It’s a positive thing that women aren’t stuck in the position of having to marry/have children if they don’t want to, and previous generations have fought hard for that to be the case.

It’s gone way too far the other way. At my children’s school the senior leaders want every single child in a highly paid top job. There is also a great deal of snobbery towards the skilled trades, etc.

When I was a child and told teachers I wanted to be a SAHM like my mum, they kept pushing with but what else? I had zero encouragement from anyone at school, but I knew what I wanted to do myself, ignored them and am living my dream. I worry some aren’t strong willed enough to resist such pressure through school sadly.

My daughter is going to learn firsthand from me that yes, actually, you can still absolutely say you can stick your job!

ApiratesaysYarrr · 22/08/2026 09:53

I am a raging feminist, but feminism does mean having a choice - for some people that choice might be staying at home full time with kids, for others going LTFT or declining/no longer chasing promotions at work, and for some that means continuing to work as they did before. It does feel as if some people have to make themselves feel superior to others by criticising their choices.

These days, everyone understands that there is the potential for divorce leading to a drop in income/lifestyle, and if people make decisions knowing that, I don't think it's my business to be judging it - we all make life decisions knowing that there is some risk involved. Other events can happen as well - my friend's very well paid husband was made redundant a year ago and hasn't been able to find an even near equivalent job.

ThankYouNigel · 22/08/2026 09:54

MickyMoonshine · 22/08/2026 09:30

Being a parent also requires you to provide for them financially.

Do you really think only child free people should work? What about men? Should they only work if they don’t have children?

Women have always worked. Having a SAHP is a very modern phenomenon. Not the mention the fact that society would be fucked if we suddenly saw huge numbers of women leaving the labour market.

I do think certain more demanding careers with extremely long hours, levels of responsibility, constant travel, etc are best left to the those without young children. It’s too big an ask of them. Your mind is on work, your energy is sapped. Being there really matters. Have a read of Anne Marie Slaughter’s take on this- great read, fab Mum!

I have friends who do this and are honest about the fact their children miss them and hate them being so busy/away so much. They are making changes.