Has parenting ruined your career ambitions? Does it matter?

[Artyparty]

I love being a mum to my 2 dds but having a down day today.

I recently found out that the woman I employed as my assistant 4 years ago will be my boss when I get back from Mat leave.

She doesn't have kids and has covered both my Mat leaves. Good on her -but Ive just realised, I'll never have the time or energy to take on a bigger role.

Another acquaintance has got a book deal- something I was also persuing until I had my second dd... Now it all seems so impossible to meet deadlines and create space for the focus required.

I really am trying to count my blessings but - call it vanity- there is no public accolade for being a parent. I've lost all my confidence but am still quietly longing for career success , while hanging out the washing & doing the nappies etc.

Has anyone else felt like this?

jasmine im curious what do you do when DCs are ill and need to stay home if you don't have a nanny? I am in
A similar situation to you, work ft but still feel I have had to take a slight backseat re my career because I just can't put
In the long hours that other childless people can (people
Work late often in my job, do lots of evenings out
For networking, travel etc). And ultimately I sometimes have to work from home if DCs are ill which is fine but jut project the same image as being there round the clock and drinking with the boss.

Also what has age got to do with it?

I'm trying to live by the motto "where there's a will there's a way" - keeps me feeling in control Just wish that worked for the lottery but I do feel constantly torn between home and work.

I envy those who want to be SAHMs and also envy those who happily work FT. I'm somewhere in between which, in the corporate world, does mean I have to take a back-seat for a couple of years. It does feel like a sacrifice and is frustrating because I never realised I'd feel quite so conflicted about the whole thing.

Im lucky in sense I havent taken any sick days for either of mine in last 2 years. Before that I get my friends to do it who also work but have different shifts to me.

Age hasnt always got anything to do with it but dh and Istarted having babies at 23. There was no way I was slowing down at work then so worked lots of hours.

I was never ambitious which probably makes a difference but I do think if I hadn't had children I would achieve much more highly in my career as I wouldn't have anything else to do. I'm in a place now where if I pushed I could go up a rung into management etc but I just don't want to, I like spending time with my children & I miss enough already.

I also had children young & for us I think it has made it harder as it means building careers at the same time as having a young family, & DH career is very long hours, very inflexible & much more highly paid than me in the long run. But in the short term we can't afford the childcare we need to both push ahead.

I was the same as you cinema just felt I was doing everything badly. Now I am on mat leave again, I can see how being a SAHM makes life nicer for everyone; things run more smoothly.
Agree with you nearlyready. It would be fine if I was completely fulfilled being a SAHM or - like jaminemai could be a guilt free worker.
As a friend said to me recently - something has to give when you have children.

It's just so sad that it's usually the womans hopes and dreams for herself...

I think it works for us as my dh cooks, cleans, does equal night feeds from day 1 etc etc. I never worry or think about housework or that the home isnt sorted as between us and childcare there is hardly ever anything to do. It probably takes me a couole of hours a week at max as we are rarely in.

I used to feel like that but not anymore. The priorities on my life are my choice, conscious or not. I could still have the upwardly mobile career but if I'm totally honest with myself it isn't my priority anymore and I'm finally happy with my choices.

I still have a good career I'm just not as high or as motivated as I once was.

It depends on the career though doesn't it? If you're in a career where you can be a high-flier on 50 hours a week as Jasmine says she is, or one with wages that will cover the childcare for 70+ hour weeks, it's more possible than if you're in one where you need to work 60+ hours to get anywhere but the salary will only cover your basic 40 hours of childcare.

Whether you have chosen such a career might be a matter of luck or of judgement, of course. I think in the future we should encourage young people starting their careers to think about these things - I certainly didn't think about the cost of childcare when I was choosing what to do with my life.

OP, your kids are little. I found a huge burst of energy once mine got a bit older, which is allowing me to establish a new career (in which I will probably end up doing more hours than I did pre-kids, but working more flexibly and from home, so it'll be easily doable). And once they're all at school the sums work out differently because you're not spending every penny you've got on childcare.

In my late teens/ twenties I thought I would always work. I had ambition and was very driven. 3 DCs later I retired in my 30s. My career was a young persons game and was impossible to facilitate properly with DCs. DH business took off and we made the decision that I would stay at home for consistency and everyone's life just became smoother.

Now, in my mid 40s, with only one school age child left, I have no idea what to do. My career is over, there is no way back. In theory I could do anything I fancied. In reality I don't even know where to start.

Im not a high flier Im doing social work. Im just career obsessed as I think its because I like my line of work. I want to keep rising higher and higher and am happy to do any hours.

Tunip nailed it for me. If I am career ambitious, I have to work more. I can't afford the childcare I would need to do this. So I have to really want it to make it happen, go into debt etc, & I just don't want it enough. I never considered this element when I made choices in my younger days...

I think a blanket statement that anyone can continue to work and progress in their career and it is all about choice, is misleading. Your health after children has a huge impact on your ability to work as before and many women cannot physically or even mentally work at the same level. Even something as simple as chronic sleep deprivation will prevent a woman from working to her maximum capacity. Everyone has some sleepless nights with babies and children but the extent varies considerably. I personally had 10 yrs without a full night's sleep and in the very early days of my DCs I went for weeks and months on end snatching an hour here and there across 24 hrs.

Many chronic health conditions have childbirth as associated triggers and these also make it impossible to continue a full on career. Often the generally feeling of tiredness etc is just put down to being a parent but a clinical condition may be lurking underneath for years. Mothers who can pop out a baby and be back to work fighting fit within weeks are the lucky ones-but certainly not the majority. Couple that with the extra workload of parenting or organising others to parent in your place and the situation again becomes unworkable for many.

The situation also depends on your type of work. I appreciate that many roles now involve working outside of a 9 to 5 day, but those that have no rigid structure and involve working nights, weekends, public holidays etc make childcare a real challenge. When both parents are in similar roles it can make it an impossibility. Of course your children (or nanny) will always pick the least convenient time to be ill and emergency childcare at 2am when you should be out at work becomes an impossibility.

The other question to ask is if you want to continue un-disturbed from your career path, contracting in other people to bring up your kids, maintain your living space etc-is there really any point having kids? The amount of people who claim their lives won't change once they have kids oh how we do laugh at them! confuses me. If you don't want your life to change-then why have the children in the first place? That is a pretty major change you are bringing about! I have great respect for married/co-habiting couples who decide that they are happy with their lot, their jobs and lives and freedom, so they choose not to have children. It's not as if a child is a new pet-something to love and take responsibility for but not allow it to steer you away from your ultimate goal. A child is a major life changing event so people should anticipate that their life with take a different direction.

Don't get me wrong-each to their own and if continuing to work and scale the career ladder is for mums then so be it. But everyone has to appreciate that some people can't and won't have the same abilities and it isn't always all just as simple as choice.

I think the issue is that working culture has become a kind of behemoth that does not account for families, relationships, caring needs, life events, illness, grief .... Ambition and 'getting on' are associated with working long hours and being basically on call to your employer. But why does it have to be like this? Doesn't this culture assume there is someone else (a wife?) at home, doing everything else that keeps a family and a community going? Now that a lot of couples need 2 incomes just to survive, that whole culture is unworkable. There's an obvious irony in the fact that in order to fulfil her ambitions in social work, jasmine only takes 2 weeks maternity leave. Obviously jets your choice, jasmine, and I admire you for it. But it is also practically superhuman - absolutely extraordinary, and no doubt not something you would recommend to any of the families you work with.

Yes I could afford more paid childcare, but I can't do that to my dc, and I say that as someone who's carried on working when I've had to drop dc1 off screaming to nursery many times over the last 3 years, take her in when I wasn't sure of she was well due to nbr of sick days taken etc. honestly. I just didn't realise that paid childcare doesn't cut it for my dd, she's very mummy focused and she doesn't see dh that much as it is. I'm hoping she'll have better options as I'll be able to babysit for her!

There are so many variables that come into to play when you have DC as regards whether it is possible for both parents to continue to work so hard and push for their career. It's never quite as simple as definitely a choice and there is nothing to stop you doing more with your life.

As other posters say, what if you have a job where career progression means actually working more hours, doing 70-80 a week? What if you have a job where you can't do any work from home or make up the hours in the evening? Then you could easily be faced with a complete choice of career v seeing the children. Not many parents would be happy with that.

You also have to factor in your partner's job. Mine is in the police. It's just not a job where he has flexibility - it's shift-based, it's unreliable, he can't drop and run for the kids as I can from my office job. This has an impact on what I decide to do with my career.

There is also travel and commuting, and how close to your job you can be. Unfortunately I have well over an hour commute each way to work, and it's not a job where regular work can be done from home or in the evening. If I went the next stage up to managerial level, I don't think it would work given DP's job, unless we had live-in childcare and we do not earn that amount of money.

In reality, actually, perhaps I have have stayed as ambitious because I have not dropped out of my city-based job - I am in a sector that is London-based, so no local jobs exist without me dropping out of my career path completely. As it is, I've stayed in the city job but am coasting at the same level, probably for the better part of the next decade.

Add in to all that the fact that as much as I want to work and keep the career I trained for, I also want to spend some time with my child, as does DP. I want a career but I can coast for a while and focus when my child/ren are older, because I'm not in a job at the moment where pushing all-put would be possible without rarely seeing my child.

Obviously everyone's situation is unique, but there are often dozens of factors that feed into your ability to continue pushing your career while your children are young, it's rarely very straightforward.

Jasmine I think you are in an incredibly unique position that you had friends who could look after your DCs. I am in my twenties as well and none of my friends have children but are all working full time so would very rarely be able to do me a favour like that (as I imagine is the case for most). It is great that you are managing so well to have it all but I don't think it's fair to make a blanket statement like 'I never get why having children should have to slow your career'. It hugely depends on your circumstances and crucially what kind of career you have. I have great childcare (but not a nanny) but with 3DCs things can't always go smoothly and while I am still plenty successful I am not as successful as some of my peers because there are times when I have had to just not go to the networking drinks or push to be on a project that I know will have me coming home late. That's not about making sure I am the one to pick them up or play with them at the end of the day. That is because I couldn't afford someone to look after them 12 hours a day and I'd venture most people can't.

I think my main advice would be that you need a job that can be done remotely (catch up in evenings, on the hop phone calls etc) and that good contacts and networks from your full time, in the office all the time days are vital. I notice that on the whole men are better at creating work networks than women (mine is on the whole a pretty male industry so I may be wrong for all jobs here), so I think mentoring helping younger women achieve better networks pre children would help.

This plus the practicalities of short commute and good childcare make this doable imo (including some time during the week at home to see the kids).

..and of course with the 'good childcare' that really means a part time (at least) nanny and therefore a high wage.

Really very difficult.

The thing is it's only women who ask themselves that sort of question.
Very few Men tend just to carry on with their chosen career, don't stop their progression or feel they have to retrain to adapt to family life.

So why are we?

I completely agree that things change after having children. What I don't get is why one parent change their life around to accommodate the change coming with having a family but not the other...

We should be able to pursue our career in the same way that men do. We should be able to make the choice to carry on, stay at home or retrain. For me it smacks of thinking that women's career aren't important enough.
And when things like the cost or the feasibility of childcare comes into play, it should be solved as a family. Not with the idea that the mother will have to adapt, make do wo a career etc... but as a unit. And that means maybe the mum stays at home, the dad changes job and retrain to a more family friendly job, or both mum and dad adjust their hours or whatever.

pommedeterre, don't you think that men should do all that accomodating too? so find a job closer to home, work from home to see the kids, have one day when they stop early to go and pick them up from school.

I am finding that the people who have the best balance are the ones where both partners are equally involved in raising their dcs. Both get to carrying on doing the job they want, both get the see the dcs more and most importantly, the kids do have more time with one or both of their parents.

Agreed pomme dh completely facilitates my career. Couldnt do what I do without him there for me.

Absolutely. Dh and I work together. Currently I'm going more time at home as I want to but last year he probably did more time at home (other than travelling as for health reasons I have to limit flights).

So depending on the demands of the business we take it in turns to step up. It works for us but we are lucky.

I was talking more about things women can do pre kids to help post kids!

Wise words, DaVinci.

I was very interested to come across this thread as I have been thinking about my career or lack of it today after a stressful day with toddler and newborn. I spent ten years training to become qualified in my profession, but had ds immediately after so am yet to actually practice.

Nearlyready hit the nail on the head for me; if I was happy doing ft work, or fulfilled being a sahm then there'd be no issue. As it is, having no job to return to after both maternity leaves, I stayed at home for 22 months with ds and was ready to jump out of a window by then! However, I'm also not prepared to put dd into full time childcare at one year old.

For us as a couple it is very much shared; dh set up his own company when ds was born after being made redundant. He chooses flexible contracts and we're incredibly lucky he earns enough that I can look after the children.

Has having children affected my career? Yes, but hopefully this effect will be short term in the grand scheme of things. Children are young for such a relatively short amount of time, and I've got years to have a career. I just hope these years out won't count against me.

An interesting question, op.

I also highly recommend the book 'shattered' by Rebecca asher for evidence based discussion on this very topic.