Fab article by Camilla Cavendish about wanting children and a career

[SethStarkaddersMum]

here
I love Camilla Cavendish.

finally.

I like her too but I'm not sure that all that many women aged 40 to 44 (the highest earning time for men) are really still at the phonics/teething stage.

Maybe the answer is to get the childbirth out of the way in the mid twenties when it may not make such an impact as having them in middle age which is what she seems to be suggesting.

Really Mumblechum? Me & most of my mates are - people I know tend to have children in their late 30s. Perhaps it depends what job you do.
I recall one of my friends who worked in Zimbabwe saying that the Zim mothers she knew had their kids in their late teens/twenties and by the time they were mid 30s were full of energy and ready for a career.
Trouble is, in my old career (academic), an interruption at any point would throw the whole thing off course with the added problem that the early jobs were neither secure nor earn enough to pay for childcare, so it was really only once you landed a proper lectureship in your 30s you could take the risk of having children.

I'm a lawyer and had mine at 29 and 31 which was quite nice in hindsight.

You don't always get to choose when you have children.

That's very true.

Good article. I'm 40 and know all about phonics.

The comments following that piece are just incredibly depressing. I thought that most of the "women - know your place" thinkers had died out, but obviously not so.

Times comments on any even faintly feminist piece usually are depressing - don't know which woodwork some of their readers have crawled out of, but I wish they'd go back there.

I am laughing at some of the comments because they are so predictably petty and thick. This is a good one:
'I just can't take the writer's views seriously until she & other women campaign for equality in:
a. Family law (letter & practice).
b. Sports - no separate women's events; equal pay & equal rules.
c. Job selection - no women-only MP shortlists.'

um, right, he's not going to listen to Camilla Cavendish till she starts campaigning for an end to women's tennis at Wimbledon?!

I think its a good article. It entirely sums up the position I am in now. Mid 30s and about to leave career I have worked in for 11 years. I know I will never be able to go back but cannot see any option as do not want to compromise on my beliefs about the kind of parent I want to be. Even if I wasn't leaving, I've already gone part time and I can see my career dying before my eyes.

Yes, some very depressing comments underneath.

TBH I'm finding these articles a bit wearing now.

Yes, women have careers. Is it really that surprising? What on earth do we want our daughters to do well at school for, and go on to University for, if it's not, at least in part, to aspire to interesting things? I don't think it's all doom and gloom, I think it's great that women have choices these days. And speaking as someone who has had 3 children, and managed to work my way up the career ladder (even though I downsized to part time when they were age 4 and under) I really don't think it's anything worth writing an article about - it's just normal life!

I read this a couple of days ago and thought it was a good article.

But I agree with Violethill that there seem to be a lot of them about at the moment and in a way, yes, it's just life.

I think part of the problem is that careers in media-related jobs, like journalism and TV (where all the writers of these articles are employed) are very competitive. So if you leave it's hard to get back in again. But is it so difficult in other professions, maybe teaching, nursing, where there are more vacant jobs, in more parts of the country? I don't know.

I have a friend with 25 years experience as a children's nurse. She is currently contemplating taking time out to spend more time with her 2 children who are 3 and 5.
If she does, she will have to retrain for 6 months and start again from the beginning.
Which, given that the NHS is short of nurses and has to recruit from abroad, is absolutely f*cking lunatic.

I think part of the trouble in many careers, especially in the public sector, is that the constant stream of new initiatives means that you would actually have to learn quite a lot of new stuff after a few years out. For my nursing friend it would be a combination of that and new technology. (But not, however, so much stuff that it would take her 6 months to learn it all ).

With respect mrsbaldwin, teaching and nursing are traditionally women's jobs, probably because taking a career break doesn't harm progress. But it's absurd that you take a few years out to raise children and it completely throws a lot of careers off track. I took a few years out and I am only just back to earning what I did before

Sorry, cross-posted. I see I am completely wrong about nursing. But I know a lot of teachers who have taken time out and gone back to the same grade or higher.

Well, in hindslight I probably did the best thing in having my dd in my late teens.

Of course I was viewed as a complete failure and scourge of teh earth at the time, however I was able to combine motherhood, working FT and studying for a degree (all that teenage energy) and now I am 32, with a 14 year old dd, and a brilliant career in aerospace engineering, which I love.

I did it all backwards. I can't imagine haviong a baby and going on maternity leave now - I can't think of anything worse. I kmow that my most productive years career wise are the next 10 and am hoping to get to director level in the next 3 (perfectly possible). To have a baby now would mean realistically losing out on a lot of career moves.

So it has all worked out for me. However, would I recommend that my dd has a baby so early. Emphatically NO.

It is a sad fact of life that most careers take off at the same time when women try for a family. I can't see that changing either.

Much harder in teaching now. With the recession, its bcome a very attractive career option, and can be very difficult to get into.
I regularly have 30+ good applications for jobs when I'm advertising a post now - a big contrast to a few years ago when it would be about 5.

I think it's going to become a lot harder to step out and just step back in - there's a lot of competition out there.

OK I hold up my hands. It's hard everywhere, even in the non-media/traditional women's jobs. Anyway this is why I'm not, personally, thinking I will take time out/go part-time etc.

Like Getorf I started my family (accidentally) at a relatively young age (21) and then the family finished when Dd3 was born when I was 30. I currently earn about 25% of dh's earnings but it will be all improvement from here onwards. With hindsight having children in my twenties has been a great 'career move'

DP wants us to have a baby now - it is something I would like however (a) it has never been on the cards (we both have a cild each and I thought we were happy with that) and (b) howthe hell would we manage childcare for a baby?

I realistically would only want to take 2-3 months out at most. We both earn comparable amounts so it wouldn't make sense for him to be a SAHD. Neither of us would want to work prt time. And eould having a baby scupper my career anyway (I think it would have an impact). So, as much as having a baby would be lovely I personally don't think we will.

Hats off to you, Getorf! Just shows what you can do if you work hard.