To feel jealous of work colleagues

[Sliverofdarkness]

I've taken a career break and have gone back to work after several years out with the kids. I didn't have much choice in the matter as the kids were close in age so childcare was so expensive that there was no advantage to working, only a logistical nightmare. And we had no family support on either side.

I now find some of my peers far ahead of me (mostly male but some female ), in director roles. I know they have similar age kids. But whenever any mention is made of school holidays, teacher training days, teacher strikes etc, and I end up taking time off, often unpaid, it emerges that they simply send their kids off to be minded by grandparents, often for weeks at a time in summer. Or they get away for a weekend with their partner, while their parents mind their kids.

I can't help feeling really annoyed. Neither of our parents would ever do that for us, and at this stage we wouldn't even ask. But these people I work with seem to act like it's totally normal. They also all seem to have free holidays in their parents' holiday homes whenever they want, in France or Spain. Am I being unreasonable to be pissed off about it?

You can't change the choices you made. I too chose to be a SAHM as DH was a high earner and it made sense. But I didn't think it through to my older years and am now regretting not remaining in workforce, adding to my pension. Especially after divorce in my 50s . Now I see my contemporaries retired , enjoying their rewards , travelling,lots of disposable income, even the divorced ones .

I can't say that it pisses me off as that's unreasonable. But I do feel a pang of envy which I have to move on from.

It’s ok to feel jealous but this is life when you decide to have kids. It’s also okay to refuse to help your parents when they’re old and asking you to help. “No sorry I can’t do that I’m looking after my grandchildren” on repeat. It’s their loss.

I get how you feel, I really do. We've got absolutely no support at all and I'm envious of anyone who has a spare pair of hands to step on and lighten the load. Being pissed off about it is unreasonable though. Life isn't fair and people have different advantages, I'm not going to be bitter about the ones other people have and I wouldn't expect them to be bitter about the ones I have. I'm currently not working because of the same logistical nightmare and childcare costs you describe, I know that when I eventually go back I'll be substantially behind anyone who worked throughout having kids. But that's a choice I've made, so I accept the natural consequences. The payoff is (in my opinion) the absolute privilege of having all this time with my kids while they are young and not having the daily juggle of work and childcare etc.

Comparison is the thief of joy, focus on what you've got, not what other people have.

YABU to be pissed off they have help and you don't but YANBU to be envious.

Grandparents definitely make it easier, but where is your partner in this? Are you taking time off for school events/ illness/ holidays equally? Some women pick everything up so their career suffers. I split it all with ex so it was more manageable.

How can you possibly make this assumption? Since when did it become taboo to have children and have them spend time with grandparents so you can have a break?

could you and your partner not have both worked part time?

It is true though. If you had stayed in work, you'd be further along now. That's the pay off. I had 5 months Mat Leave with my children, and when I went back I was only £140 a month better off, once the Nursery fees were paid, but it kept my hand in and kept my career going.

How many years did you not work?

Your dc will be teens before you know it and you will wonder why you ever worried about this. You are in the trenches now, juggling everything but it gets easier.

As someone said comparison is a thief joy but I also think you need to look at holidays and parental cover in general. Why is it you taking unpaid leave? Why not use children's holiday camps or split holidays with your husband?

I get that childcare is expensive when I had 2 in nursery it did cancel out (and slightly more for a few months) then an entire wage. But we decided that extended absence/leaving would make it harder in the long run.

I would say it sounds like you are default parent and that would be the thing I would look at to readdress.

We don't have GP support, we have always been our own little unit and we sort it out ourselves. We do weekday lunch dates rather then weekend dates for instance and we get a babysitter if there is something we both want to attend.

It's not unreasonable to be envious of advantages other people have. I'm massively envious of people with grandparent help on tap. Sometimes my initial response when I hear them mention it is an unkind thought about them. But I just keep that to myself and remind myself that other people are probably envious of other things I do have.

I also try and remind myself that everyone makes choices and trade-offs. Other women might be envious that you could quit work and spend longer with the children. Even if you think quitting work was the only option that worked for you, it wasn't literally your only option. It was still a choice, even if it wasn't a pleasant one.

Yanbu.
They promised help but then when needed they chose to be uninvolved.
There is helping out when stuck and providing regular childcare.
Both are very different.
I can understand your envy.
It is an enormous thing to have support from parents.
If an opportunity to move somewhere better arises, take it without any guilt.

I feel you. It's one of the reasons I'm leaning towards not having children, I have zero family support. Unless I happen to meet someone who has relatively young parents who are dying to have grandchildren I can't see it happening.

I'm not sure that people in your colleagues position necessarily understand that the experience of having children can be vastly different determined by your support network. I'd be tempted to have children in their position, mine not so much.

I totally understand why you feel like you do OP.
Sadly my parents had died and I had friends whose parents were heavily involved in cc. Taking grandkids away and babysitting like it was no big deal. And those friends seemingly took it for granted.
I also know people whose parents made it crystal clear that they were not available for cc.
Take care OP.
As hard as it is, please try not to compare, it only serves to make you feel worse.
Celebrate YOU and yours!

I think there’s a lot of truth in that. I found that friends of mine who’d been SAHM and only returned to work once all the children were in school, tended to balk at wraparound or holiday childcare - either worrying the children wouldn’t like it, or feeling it was a huge expense. Whereas when you’ve paid for nursery care since they were tiny, you’re just relieved that it’s cheaper! Obviously this is a bit of a generalisation but I certainly recognised it.

the OP would be better off focusing on how to progress her own career now, avoiding taking unpaid leave and instead using a childminder or other provision. Focus on making up for those years out of the workplace as quickly as possible- not begrudging colleagues who didn’t take time out.

YABVU

Most people would give anything to have a career break.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

You can be pissed off with yourself for making the wrong choices but you can’t be pissed off with other people for making different choices to you.
Most of them would not have had the luxury of having a career break.

You can be envious of people who have hands on extended families but you can’t be pissed off with them.

I am a single parent with no support my family or the dad/his family.
Should I be pissed off with you because you’ve got an involved DH and was able to choose to take a career break?

If the majority of kids were looked after their grandparents, there wouldn't be so many nurseries open. Your colleagues must be in a very privileged situation.

The majority of grandparents still have to work themselves and when they don't, they are often too old to take on FT childcare for two young kids.

I continued to work FT, going back when my kids were 9 months and 5 months old. My parents and parents in law all worked FT (2 abroad), so couldn't help at all. My kids went to childminders and nurseries.

It's a parental crime on MN to send your kids to full time childcare especially at that age, but quite normal in real life. I have no regrets at all. I made brilliant progress in my career, my income went up significantly. I was able to give my kids a nice lifestyle and more importantly opportunities that came at a cost. They are now young adults and are doing brilliantly. As for me, I was able to retire early.

We all make our own choices and most accept the consequences that come with them. It is not automatically a case of blaming others.

I understand what you’re saying but situations can change overnight - grandparents can get ill, or decide to relocate, or their financial circumstances may mean they need to continue working…. I can see that it might feel more tempting to have children if you assume that you’re going to have a great practical support network from relatives but surely that shouldn’t be a condition of having children. Surely the default should be ‘we want a child and as parents, it’s our responsibility to look after them, or pay for childcare, and anything else is a bonus.’

There are many parts to raising kids. You chose to take time out of work. I chose to part time, we both experienced detriment to careers thats life. Iv fiends who paid the huge childcare bills, juggle holidays and school and have massively progressed. Each to their own

I did the same as you and I regret the lost professional/ earning years. I too had no family help and it is really galling and envy-provoking to see other people getting financial and childcare help from family I agree. That doesn't mean you begrudge them it necessarily! It's just a lot harder in lots of ways if you don't have that. So many people even if they don't get practical/financial help can go and stay with their parents during holidays or escape for the weekend and we never had that either.

What I don't regret is the time I spent with the kids and that they got to spend with me. You can't say this on here because it's seen as a criticism of people who go straight back to work, but giving children early years with a primary care-giver is giving them a really firm emotional foundation which sets that relationship up for the future. I have been criticised on here as unfeminist for saying that but I don't think only mums can do it. I do think it's valuable work and an investment in your kids future though. Unfortunately everybody these days sees everything in binary GOOD/BAD terms and giving your kids an infancy/early childhood with a parent instead of childcare settings is sometimes seen as doing nothing because seeing it as anything else means the alternative is BAD. But it isn't nothing. We don't have to function as economic units all the time to be doing something worthwhile.

Or loving parents with a village and a good support network. Good for them.

Isn’t it better for all of us that there are people who are able to organise their lives so they become net contributors. Who don’t wail and moan about their choices and responsibilities whilst expecting others be involuntarily liable for their decisions.

The endless expectation of government support to overcome inconvenience or mild adversity is going to cripple this country. We need to set expectations that some of the problems people create for themselves are just that, their problems to resolve.

I fail to see how this is relevant to this thread as it could apply to any of the scenarios described on this thread? You could be contributing (financially I'm sure you mean) by becoming an earner yourself or by providing your own childcare.

Unless by 'organise their lives to be net contributors' you mean 'be born into wealthy families'?

YABVU to be ‘pissed off’.

You're only just learning that life isn't fair?

On the flip side, they've had years of rushing around and juggling work and family life whike you sat at hone with your kids.