Do you regret giving up your career to be a SAHM

[Sofshiz]

I am 28, have a two kids under 4. I've been working since I was 15 as student jobs, got myself a degree and masters and worked in my marketing field until now. I haven't progressed amazingly but content with where I am (given I been on maternity leave twice).

Now I am at a stage where my salary doesn't really justify me working when I take childcare cost into account. So I'm really just working to keep my career not to make any money. My husband does well enough to support us.

A bigger part of me wants to quit, stay at home and look after my kids (I really want to be there for school drop offs and pick ups which I currently miss out on 3 days a week with nursery). Once proper school starts it will be even harder/impossible to do without help of my mum or childminder.

So my question is, do you regret having given up your career to be at home? I guess this would mainly be good for me to hear from mums of older kids and have had few years at home to really have the chance to see if they regret it or not? Am I being stupid to be fully dependant on my husband, throw away my education and the 6 years of professional experience I've built up?

I’m not defined by having kids,it can’t be the only thing I do.
schoolgate isn’t that fundamentally pivotal to development that it requires an adult to give up work

I agree with others to keep your hand in at least pt. That way, you continue to gain seniority and experience and keep your CV polished, even if you are in a holding pattern at work.

I feel that SAHM in the early years is more for the mother than for the child. I don't think children mind either way so long as it is balanced and the child care good quality. Where it starts to make a difference is when the children are older. I believe children need you more when they are older than when younger.

I see this with my children and their aupair. When they were young, they would adore all their aupairs. Now that they are older, 14 and 11, they are selective in who they like. My dcs also notice disparities in income between themselves and their friends (size of house, holidays). They want to go on school ski trips, which cost.

The holy grail is getting enough seniority to be able to negotiate flexible working once your dcs are older. The ability to work from home is life changing. Technology facilitates remote working. I earn ft salary and promotions. It gives me money to spend on dcs. I work in the home office and they come in and out to chat and show me stuff or ask for help with homework. It is a lovely fluid arrangement which works around the dcs and my/dh's lives whilst bringing in maximum income, pension and work benefits.

I but my career on hold as I'm lucky I can go back to it.I was incredibly dedicate to my job.I probably was a workaholic truth be known.

But this time with my children has been amazing and I'll never regret it.

It's also been bored lonely and depressing at time.I had to work hard at finding hobbies and making myself go to group s when keys at school.

I say go with it.If you hate it after a year go into jobs market again.:)

@blueshoes what do you do? That really does seem like the holy grail!

@susannahmoodie most people in my work place is (public sector) work flexibly and from home. I’ve had several promotions during the years i’ve been working part time and am pretty senior now. I do 9.30-2.30 in the office (no lunch break) then extra work from home when the kids are asleep

I’m glad I didn’t give mine up. It was a long hard slog through the under 5 years, with the vast majority of the extra income we had from me working going on childcare.

My youngest started school last September and our lives have been transformed. My salary allowed my husband to start his own business which is now doing amazingly well, and the extra money we have means we can actually get on top of the pit of a house we own (long term renovation project that stalled)

Out of interest, those of you who gave up career,will your sons & daughters be advised to do so also
Will your son be warned about missing kids growing up,and imperative to be there
Or will this message be extended to our daughters only. And sons carry on unimpeded in their career

It will depend pretty much entirely on their personal circumstances. Just like it does for everyone else.

I worked or while my DC were in primary school. I honestly think it was the best thing for me and I had the best of both to an extent.

I never missed assemblies...or school liturgies...I had a flexible employer and could swap days if necessary to attend school events.

I could never have been fully dependant on DH...I'd have been very miserable.

Really, will it be that equitable. A male equally subjected to the same pressure
I don’t know of anyone who sees it as purely person choices do not a maternal issue
I read it in mn,I hear it rl. Children need their mum,it’s different for women etc
Currently most men don’t even drop hours or go pt when they have kids.its women who give things up
Statistically from ons and social studies it Is overwhelmingly women giving up work or going pt

But @LipstickHandbagCoffee, its also down to personal choice too. Some women want to give it up or cut down their hours.

I strongly believe that women should be able to choose what they do and those who are strongly driven by their careers shouldn't have to give them up. But these conversations need to happen with your partner before you conceive so you both agree on how you will divide things post children.

I have drastically dropped my hours because I want to. I want to spend more time with my daughter and it makes sense financially. He brings home the larger income and if we both cut our hours, he wouldn't be eligible for promotion in the near future. Due to the state of the NHS, I am not going to be promoted in the near future whether I am full or part time so keeping my hand in my career at reduced hours makes sense.

I simply pointing out it’s not as straightforward as both parents can equally chose
There’s social,gender,employment pressures in the mix. Different gender expectation
I read it on mn often,dp couldn’t or wouldn’t go pt. so it falls to woman
And overwhelmingly it’s women who give up career. Not men. That’s noteworthy

@susannahmoodie, I work as an in-house lawyer in a City law firm.

I took a step down (in terms of pay and status) after I came back from maternity leave by becoming working pt in-house rather than continuing with external client-facing fee earning work. I then re-tooled sideways into compliance. For the compliance role, I started practically at the bottom and took a big pay cut to gain experience. The work is inherently more flexible than being a practising fee-earning lawyer. Now I have specialist legal skills in a booming area of compliance.

I have changed jobs twice and each time negotiated higher salary and made flexibility as a condition of my joining, which was not a problem to get. All City law firms.

To those who say being a City lawyer is not flexible and it is all or nothing, there is a middle way.

It does get easier at work when the children are older. After my youngest turned 5 and all were at school, I could gear up again. It would be a shame if I had been an SAHM for those 5 years, after which, my very pt WOHM peers are all starting to get their mojo back at work and re-climbing the work ladder, I am left eating their dust and trying to even get entry level work.

Appreciate these circumstances are specific to me.

I agree that expectations are different for each gender and the assumption is usually that the childcare, school runs etc will fall to the women. For this reason, it's upto us to discuss this with partners before having children. The biggest issue is not considering this until the baby is here

All our circumstances are unique and what is the right decision for one family isn't the right decision for another. I just don't feel it's fair to assume all women who have cut hours or given up have done so without fully considering the implications and consequence of doing so

Haven’t read the whole thread, but I wouldn’t give up work unless there were no other option. Have you considered part time work or requesting parental leave? Those options worked for me, plus DH also went part time. We both earn and have careers while the DC have one parent at home after school most days. DC also do one day after school club, which works ok for us.

I dropped my hours to 4 days per week after first DD, then, 6 years later, to three days after second DD. After a few months I gave up entirely and became a SAHM. My only regret..... that I didn't do it for my first DD. I feel I missed out on a lot with her, as she went to nursery from 9 months old from 8am-6pm, and then straight to school. My second DD only had to do that for a few months. I was really hard on my first DD, as we had schedules, mu husband was away a lot, and I was alone for a lot of the time. By the second DD we decided financially and for sanity sake it would be better for me to stay at home. I have loved my last 14 years. I do a lot of volunteering at school, and have never regretted giving up work. Personally, I don't care that I live off my husband, as neither does he, everything we own is joint, as are all our finances. In the early years, I earned more than him, so quid pro quo. It has worked for us, but as others have already posted, you have to do what is right for you and go for it.

I think it depends what sort of a career you had also and if you were working your way up a ladder or at a standstill. I was working as a dental nurse for 9 years before having DS and although it is a career and it pays the bills, I had been at a stalemate within it for a long time and it only took me 1 year and 1 exam to qualify, which I think within reason I could easily get back into. I've been left since November 2016 when I went on maternity leave, and I do have days where I regret it as it can be boring days at home - but then I think I made that choice for a reason and that doesn't change, and me and my son are never ever going to get these lazy days at home together ( not that they're lazy for me, lol) but the first few years where you have cuddles on the sofa and no particular structure don't last forever and once he starts school we'll never get them back.

Every situation is different and there is no perfect solution. What works for one family won't work for another. The most important thing is that the children are in a secure, happy, loving environment. This could be at home with a parent, a childminder or in a crèche.
Many parents love being at home. I don't think someone is going to look back and say, 'I wish I hadn't spent so much time with my children when they were growing up'.
I think it's great to be at home with your kids, if you are happy doing it, and if it's financially possible.
We are lucky to have choices, let's support one another.