Big families and big careers: do they mix?

[SylvanianFamily]

I've a great 3 child family. Youngest is about to go to school.

Would more babies put a bomb under any professional plans I might have?

I'm in a good situation at the moment. The job is an interesting 4 yr contract, flexible, not great money now but good long term prospects. They really took a chance on me, and I'm definitely long term committed to this job and this organisation. Can't shake the broodiness though!

I know (of) a family of 10 where 1 parent is a teacher and one is a solicitor.
Solicitor does police work at night.

I would imagine it depends on

• whether their father is willing to take a large share of responsibility for pick ups, illness days, general family organisation etc.

• whether you can (or could with promotion) afford help

I know plenty of very successful professionals with large families. But they are men and their wives are SAHM and shoulder pretty much all the childcare and family admin.

I am an inner city Child Protection Social Worker, I am also a practice teacher for Social Work students and lecture in university from time to time. My husband works full time and we have 4 children. My OH and I share the responsibilities, however, it wasn't always like this and he has changed alot as my career has progressed. I think its about how much you want something. You can do it but you need passion to keep you going.

Sometimes its stressful but you just need to try and be organised. I work long hours but can then claim it back through the hols which cuts down on childcare costs. We have had times that we just did not know how we were going to deal with it but we managed in the end.

My children are my inspiration and I have been successful because of thems and not inspite of them. I would say go for it! It really is amazing what you can achieve if you want something enough.

I don't think it works really if I'm honest.
I have four kids and the sheer amount of housework, laundry, shopping, cooking ... it really is a full time job in itself. Not to mention all the things they need like just for you to be there with them, know them, talk to them, help them with homework ... make sure they have a solid home base from which to thrive.

I mourn the loss of my career. I freelance and keep my hand in, but am finding it very difficult to get back to work properly now the kids are older. However, I'm really glad I've been here for them and not had to farm them out and pay strangers to look after them.

My DH is very good with being flexible etc. He works fairly long hours, although with that comes the benefit of a good family income (i.e. i don't need to worry about keeping a roof over the family's head, and I can afford to take professional risks).

My current position has panned out to be very flexible with regards to working from home etc. I get a project, then go underground for weeks, before returning to share my progress. The downside is that it seeps into weekends and evenings (with the associated sliding sanity for me). However, it has proved invaluable for times when the kids are ill, or teacher needs to see me etc. I can expect this to carry on for another two and a half years, until the end of my current contract. Realistically, the job after that will require me to have more face time. Still the same kind of independent work, but not the same autonomy as I have now.

So, on the one hand, if I was going to have more kids, I'd be better of doing it now, while I have the flexibility already to work from home etc. we certainly 'want' more children, and could provide them with a nice life.

On the other hand, I fear people may give up on me (or for whatever reason I struggle to regain my mojo). It'd be gutting to fall off this career path. In long term it is a very good choice for me and for my family.

I'm working my heart out at the moment, trying to 'overachieve' to build up personal credit to 'allow' me leave .

I think it depends, to some exent, on your personality and drive, and of course on your home set-up. I have 4 dcs, and am currently pregnant with number 5. I work as a university lecturer/research active academic, and while of course things are tough, I don't feel my career has really suffered as a result of having a large family. Of course there are gaps in my publication list when I've been on maternity leave (though I write up some of my best work then but on paper I'm as successful as my colleagues who have smaller, or no, families (male and female).
There's no way I could have acheived this without:
a/A partner who does 50/50 childcare/housework. Without this, I think you can forget it.
b/Without sounding showy-offy, I have worked my arse off and have always been 100% committed to my career. I'm lucky in that I can work from home at least 1/2 days a week, and as such can squeeze in a sneaky toddler group on a Friday (shhh) and collect/drop-ff the dcs from school twice a week. It works for us!

Be my mentor, diege!

Did you really find that you could effectively write up over mat leaves? I fear baby brain.

I have a similar grand plan where I break the back of the theory now, do programming through a pregnancy and then write up my thesis over 'mat leave', hence not really 'lose' any time.

I'm obviously not new to either babies or juggling work, but compared to what I did before, academic work seems to require more adrenaline and caffeine. There is also a big aspect of not wanting to let my colleagues down, because I am part of a close knit team, and I am very appreciative of the opportunities and good working conditions I've been offered.

Your brain still works when you are on mat leave. I sat law exams when one of mine was 12 weeks old and did really well.

I don't find that people give up on you, the reverse if anything. Although I have had the same unpleasant comment that Spidermama made about "farming my children out to strangers" which I have never done but we are all different aren't we and make choices that suit our individual families.

I work from home two days a week so I can put a wash on etc during the day and my hours are flexible so never miss school assembly, sports days etc.

slyvanianfamilies. I think as slipper says that while the pace of maternity leave might be different, your brain is still there and, without the stresses of deadlines etc you'll be surprised what productive stuff comes out! I was lucky in that I did my PhD years before I settled down, so had got my credentials 'banked' and had built up quite a good reputation. There are those detractors you come across (passive aggressive types - 'I don't know how you do it - I couldn't leave my children with strangers -) which seems to say more about them and their insecurities than me, but above all at work I'm 'Dr. Diege' and tbh no one has ever suggested my busy family life detracts from what it is I get paid for.
I agree too slylvanian that feeling valued by colleagues is crucial to feeling inspired to contribute to the best of your ability. Like slipper I am lucky in that, other than teaching hours, I am pretty much able to run my own ship, but because I know I'm getting a good deal I'm happy to say mark essays on Sat evenings without grumbling. Oh and spidermama amazingly as there are 2 of us at it, we can manage to keep the house clean before/after work .

I will be watching this with interest as I have 3 and am struggling, dh does 50/50 (all the drop offs and I pick up, house work - he has his fave things to do but its shared) but its hard, I work 31 hrs a week over 4 days, miss my boys and don't feel I can have a career either - its made harder as dh (who obviously has never had a career break) is moving onwards and upwards, I'm pleased for him but 1) jealous and 2) its involving more travelling and, for example tomorrow, he can't drop off so I have to take time off work... thats happening more and more, it probably doesn't help we were at uni together on the same course and I can see him doing what I should/could be doing, we were probably level pegging until ds3 and now I am supporting him (and I want to - this post is starting to sound like a proper whinge! ) by fitting the sterotype and being the first one to drop work to do childcare - obviously my children are number 1 but I wouldn't have an issue with dh being part time as I know they would be in great hands, more of an issue with vast amounts of random childcare (we've been let down before)
I think it depends on the job you do and who you are 'competing' against, if you get school holidays or are high enough/well established enough to get flexibility/work from home - I had children young-ish (straight out of uni) I always wanted to be a young-ish parent but I can now see advantage of waiting and reaching a certain level before having children.

It didn't work for me. 4 pushed me over the edge and I gave up my freelance work completely.(I had cut it down with each dc)

We find that there is so much to do.dh has a big job so doesn't do much childcare however he does do alot of shopping .

It didn't work for us as a family when I was working.I have had the offers of my carear in the last year but my priorities are our dc.(I am lucky I have the choice)

It's worked pretty well for us with 5 - when the family is large it makes much more sense to have a nanny and fortunately my mum was interested in the role... I work 3 long days plus have someone who comes in 2.5 hours a day to keep on top of the laundry and cleaning situation - so when I am home I'm focusing on the children. Personally I think it's a much great role model for the children that I have a professional job, and besides I'd go totally potty with all that amount of housework and school runs...

We have 4 children, the youngest is 20 months now and I'd say we have both made some career sacrifices, but still been able to hold on to 2 professional jobs. I work 3 days a week now and DH full time - we both work a lot from home, which helps a lot with flexibility, and I took 2 years off with my last child, which means I have only really gone back to work 2 months ago. I also took a professional exam after this last lot of mat leave, so it is definitely doable.

My DH could get a much higher paid job with his skills and experience, however he is unwilling to do so as he is worried that then most of the housework/childcare will fall to me. If this was to happen I would have to leave my job. In a weird way, the two kind of cancel each other out; ie if he went for a bigger job then I would lose out on my salary/career, so we would end up earning the same as a household. So it's not really worth it!

Of course we could get a nanny, but again financially we wouldn't be much better off if we had to pay for that, and also it would feel strange having someone around the house after years of being just DH and I and the children at home, if that makes sense!

I plan to go back full time at some point, but not yet. I do enjoy working and find that absolutely the hardest thing for us is the illness cover - we don't have any family around so this always falls down to us and this winter has been particularly tough.