Having a 3rd child and a career

[FolkSongSweet]

Does anyone have 3 (or more!) children with both parents working full time?

I’m a city lawyer and aiming for partnership in the next 3-5 years (I’m 7pqe and partnership takes longer in my practice area). My kids are 4 and 18 months (2.5 yr gap) and I’m 35. I want another child, ideally in a year or so to have another 2.5 year gap but I’m worried that I will totally screw myself over career wise, and even if I didn’t, it might not be possible to cope with 3 kids and such a full on job. DH also works full time in a stressful job but is self employed and at the moment tends to do 5 days a week but including a weekend day so that he can have the kids 1 day per week. We have a nanny the other 4 days. No family nearby.

Id love to “have it all” but wonder if it’s just not possible at this crunch point of career+fertility.

Often I think gender order makes a difference I have GBG
If you had 2 gender same order potentially some shared wins re activities and shared friends and parties

Erm if your DH is 100% in it (ie you're Both always on call and family comes #1 above all else) you'll make it work

If your DH is selfish or not family focussed it won't

@FinanceMum Yes, we have 3 of the same gender and it does feel really reassuring that they're likely to go to the same school and some of the same clubs. That said if you go selective there's no guarantee anyway and we've had friends caught out by changing catchments.

I’ve already got one of each sex so doesn’t really help me much 🤣! Would be useful I guess if dc3 was same as dc2 but obvs a lottery!

www.amazon.co.uk/Compleat-Woman-Marriage-Motherhood-Career/dp/0701208260

I'd really recommend this book.

It is interviews with various highly successful women who have 3+ DCs.

It's a little dated now but actually shows that it seemed easier for women to have it all in the 70s/80s than now.

Outsourcing seems to be the solution.

My eldest was at after school 5 days a week until he was old enough to be home alone. And did most of the school holiday days in the after school holiday club too.

It was great fun.

They are at a top RG uni now heading towards a high paid job.

Long days being normalised has helped lots in the long run.

Hi @FolkSongSweet , have you made any further progress on a decision? I found this thread and have read it all with great interest as I am in pretty much the same position as you.

I’m counsel with an international law firm. I currently have 2 children but would love a third. The differences are that my kids are younger (3 and 16 months) and my husband also has a busy job in the City. I am also 38 so time is not on my side. I enjoy my job, and am ambitious, but also happy to “coast” for a few years before making partner.

I have been reading a few threads on here and it sounds like 3 children may be career suicide! I cannot think of any female partners in my firm with 3 kids (there may be some, but I don’t know them).

I have 2 children who are nearly 4 and 2.5. My husband and I are secondary school teachers and both work full time. In the last few weeks we have decided we are going to do it! We are going to wait a few more months to start trying but the thought of having three children who have each other for life makes me think it is definitely right for us.
I don't think there is an absolute perfect scenario, but if you really want a third, do it... you don't want to regret it!

Hi @Tenlittlemonkeys unbelievably we still haven’t made our minds up. I’m still keen but starting to worry the age gap might be too big (DCs are now 2.5 and 5 so would be 3.5 and almost 6 if we went for it now).

I’m more relaxed about it though in terms of impact on my career for a number of reasons - recentish job move from the firm I trained at has gone well and I see a longer term future here which could hopefully survive a mat leave. I had felt very rushed beforehand as my last place had a strict partner track. And we’ve decided not to move house and upsize so should actually have more financial freedom. I have to say, if I had a high earning partner it would be a No brainer for me. My concern is based on the fact that I’m the breadwinner so any risk to my job would be disastrous, but in your case what is holding you back?

We have 5. Youngest in nursery, elsest in senior school. Also a lawyer. I have given up on the idea of making partner but its pretty terrible for 2 kids ( if you are transactional anyhow) let alone 5 unless your dh is a stay at home.

I work full time but fully remote in house. I see loads of my children, no nanny, and whilst i dont make what i could have made in Private practice have a good salary overall (six figure).

I found number 3 easy by the way.

Our first two were about 6.6 and 3.6 when dc3 were born. It’s quite a good gap in terms of coping, and dc1 has been pretty adorable with his little sister. Just saying! I commute to the office about 2x a week, while the youngest is a baby and we have two not at school we have a nanny 2 days and childcare 3 days for the younger 2, it’s very expensive is the only thing!

I'm in a professional role (earning less than you though) which has very long days. My husband is in a lower paid job and has always done the bulk of childcare. We couldn't have afforded a nanny and I did drop to 3 days a week after the children were born otherwise I literally would only have seen them at weekends. My role can't be done from home.
We were both one of 3 and always intended to have 3 ourselves. And we had easy babies. A temporary health scare after the 2nd was born made us stop assuming we would have 3 but when that settled we asked ourselves why we wanted a 3rd. My dh decided he didn't want another and I wavered for years but in the end we stuck at 2.
I'm really glad we did. Mine are now young adults and close friends (one of each sex). I have several friends who went on to have a 3rd and are finding the 3rd time through teenage years to be tiring and boring - and their children are much more "bringing themselves up" than the older 2. But I have other friends with 4 or more who love it so I guess it's mostly personality driven.
For us, adding a 3rd into the mix would have stretched us too thin, we'd have been worse parents, we would have grown resentful of each other and maybe them... I can see that we were right to stick at 2. I'm 50 and am so glad I don't have a 15 year old. My dh has been able to change career, travel a lot more, all things that he would have been unlikely to do if we'd had a 3rd.
But maybe we're just not nice enough to manage!

If like to echo some of what @Iwanderedlonelyasagoat said.

It may be hippocritical of me - I have 3DC and a fourth due in November. I've always wanted 4. I work full time hours condensed into 4 days, DH is full time.

However, like Iwandered, I work at a private school. I see a lot of teenagers with parents that work very long hours and have outsourced a lot of the parenting to nannies. The nannies do tend to move on one way or another, and the person the child has bonded with and brought their problems to just isn't really in their life any more. They don't tend to take their problems to their parents - I don't know if that's a habit, or because parents are still working very long hours. I often see it lead to:

• over-medicalisation: parents looking to "fix" minor behavioural issues with diagnoses, labels, expensive consellors....

• extensive pastoral issues. Bad behaviour, low self-esteem, anxiety. Parents are often really surprised when we call them in. It's very hard to tell them that their child need most is attention and affection.

I'm not saying that two full time workers can't have a family. But I think you need to carefully consider how thinly you might be spreading your time before you divide your resources further. Outsourcing may seem to be a way of "having it all" but will it be done as well as you want it to be for your children? Something has to give.

@TinyTeacher thank you for the reply and I can totally see how/why that could be the case. I’m not sure if it hasn’t come across clearly though in my replies but we don’t both work full time - my DH is part time and has a much more flexible career than me (self-employed).

He works hard (4 days atm) but once both kids are in school I think we would try for a set up where he was home for the kids after school 2-3 days/week, and we had after school club/nanny for 2-3 days. I don’t see this as outsourcing any more than all the other families I know, albeit it is usually the mother who works less than the father. What is your set up for your own kids?

@FolkSongSweet, my apologies, I hadn't realised your DH is at home more. I don't consider that outsourcing and have certainly see plenty of happy kids where dad is the one that is home more.

My DH went to 4 days a week teaching when we had my eldest, but was also a district councillor. He also moved to a state school - much shorter hours. This allowed him to be around for DC on one of my working days and to be the one that did nursery pick ups and later school run (she's now in year 2). Then he'd go out to meetings and do council work in the evenings - most meetings start at 7pm, so I'd be home and we'd all have dinner together then he'd go out. We also moved very close to my parents - they were happy to look after DD one or two days until she was 2.5 and we wanted her to do 2 days of nursery.

When my twins came along it was a little more complicated. My mum was still happy to do one day a week, but with 2 of them they are more of a handful! We do have a nanny that looks after them 2 days a week term time. Is that as good as being looked after by family? Nope. Not in my opinion, and that's with a lot of experience, and there's plenty of research behind that too. I don't claim to be perfect though! I chose not to reduce my hours because I have kind of "paused" my career, but I'm not ok to give it up all together. I am lucky enough to still have very long holidays with my children.

DC#4 may well get the short end of the stick! I will have to be working 4 days and DH will be full time at school (no longer on the council after the local elections, which probably tells you his party!). Neither of us can afford to cut hours as we will have DD's school fees, and DTwins will probably be doing preschool on 4 days. The best case scenario for DC#4 will be 2 days with the nanny and 2 days with grandparents, but that depends on how they are feeling - they are now in their 70s, although still very active.

Career-wise, basically I've put things on hold since I had children. It really hasn't been possible to push for promotions in the same way as I would have done, and I'm not quite where I'd like to be. I'm not unhappy though. Honestly, I don't feel I could do more than my current role with the time that I have - I work when the children are sleeping or at weekends when DH has time to take out all 3 sometimes.

So I don't quite have it all. I'm very lucky with what I have and my career is not bad, but not currently progressing. Some times I worry - I'll be 40 when I'm in a position to start pushing again, and the people that are mostly getting the roles I would want seem to be men that are mid-thirties and have a wife at home.... I also spend very little time with DH - either one of us has the kids while the other works, or one is doing something with my eldest (homework or music practice, or DH does board games with her as he's a good chess player) while the other has the toddlers for something more physical. My house is also often quite disorganised and there's always flipping laundry drying somewhere. Admittedly, that side of things could be outsourced - I suspect of you're going for partner you're on a better wage than a teacher!

Apologies, thag ended up being quite an essay! I just wanted to be clear that I DON'T have it all, nor do I claim to always make choices solely in the best interests of my children. I think there are a lot of different desires to balance.

@CognitiveBehaviouralHypnotherapy

@TinyTeacher sounds like our experiences at work are quite similar! I'm really interested in this thread for this reason.

OP the set up I meant is something I don't think you are ever likely to end up with - it's basically two parents who are both in senior professional roles and get back at 7 or later, with a live in nanny doing dinner and all the post school stuff. Because the nature of the school I work at and the location I think we have a lot of families like this. Some of their children will absolutely thrive but it depends on their personality I think. And there are loads of other factors which affect kids anyway like the relationship between their parents is etc.

But I'm just a bit sceptical when the the advice for women is to outsource and get very reliable wrap around childcare without either parent being present very often. I'm not sure these people know what this then looks like for teenagers.

@TinyTeacher also think I'm in a similar position to you career wise - two teacher family! DH has been promoted twice since I got pregnant and I've kind of given up on it for a while. Would be looking at Deputy Head roles and they all go to men aged 35 with small children (like my DH I suppose) who don't seem to be affected at all by parenting. Bit depressing but I don't think we could manage all the evening events etc between us if I got promoted again. Since I had children I also have 0 energy for school politics and just want to go home and do bedtime/work/exercise!