Question for Accountant SAHMs

[BeckieMc]

I work as a management accountant and I am due to go on mat leave with dd2, there will be 22 months between them. I am considering becoming a SAHM until dd2 is 2 and possibly having another child and taking 2 years off with them too having 4 years off in total if we are insane enough to have a 3rd! Our family would be then complete and it consolidates the time I'm away from my career

My question is how damaging will this be for my career? 2 years I don't think it would but 4 I'm not too sure. My husband has a good salary and we are comfortable financially, he is more than happy for me to stay at home. I will do a bit of self employed work while I'm off to have something on my cv

Anyone?

Hi Beckie, I know this was a good few months ago but just wanted to see what you decided to do?

Sorry posted too soon! I think your skills will still be relevant especially if you are planning to do some work yourself during that time also.
I'm thinking of becoming a SAHM if we have another baby (currently have one DC), luckily its not out of financial cost of having two children, it is more so I can spend more time with them.
I would probably like to take a bit more time as I'd love to be there for school drop-offs/ pick-ups etc for the first year, I too worry about returning to the workforce after that and being relevant, it is a tricky one!

I'm an accountant and recently returned to work. I took off 3 years with having kids. I found it difficult to get a job as I was out of work so long and regulations / reporting standards change. I went back to one of the big 4 as a director. It's okay, but the pay is not that great and the push to sell business is high. I'd rather have gone into industry, but no one was interested in my CV without recent work experience. I figure I'll spend a few years consulting and then try to get back into industry work. I'd say it's pretty damaging career wise. I'm never going to make to those years up and I'm currently almost a decade older than many of the others in my team and same level. However, my husband has a good salary and it's nice to be back at work after dealing with small children for a few years.

I’m not an accountant but a lawyer so perhaps similar? I’m just looking to get back to work following 3 years at home.

My experience of finding work is that I have had some offers via people I used to work with who remember me, but other paths (ie new employers and any kind of slightly different job) have been harder. So you need to keep up your network and also make sure you leave a good impression in your last few months!

I have also lost confidence, I feel very rusty and don’t feel like I could go back to a job tomorrow and know what I was doing straight away, so that makes it harder to sell myself.

Also, my DH has a demanding job and understandably has got used to me dealing with almost all domestic/child stuff while he works. I am nervous about how this will pan out once I am working again as I don’t want to be doing all of it plus working, but tbh I can’t see him picking more of it up as his hours are crazy, and since his pay now far outstrips my potential pay it doesn’t make financial sense for him to downsize his job to do more domestically.

In all honesty with hindsight I wish that I had moved jobs to something more family friendly instead of quitting altogether, and also asked my dh to reduce his hours at that stage, so we had a more equal share of domestic/work.

On the plus side there are now “returner” programmes in place in many big companies, the big 4 all seem to run them, which may help you.

@The8thMonth really wouldn't have thought 3 years would hinder you too much. Congrats on the new job, how are you finding the hours in practice and juggling housework/kids etc when you get home?
I can't imagine going back to practice, it never seems the most family friendly of places but interesting to know how hard an industry role was to come across.
It's so unfair how taking time out to look after your kids can be so damaging to your career and set you back years.

@minipie thank you for the advice, its a very small world when it comes to Accounting/Finance and I'd say Law is the same, all about keeping up the connections!
I totally agree with you regarding the housework side of things, I'm back 4 days a week and my DH still expects me to carry on as I did on mat leave with regards house/child. I'm still having these conversations with him on sharing housework a bit more, but if I'm going to ultimately give it up for a few years he needs to keep putting in the hours and progressing in his career so he can continue to support the family.
I never heard of these 'returner' scheme's, must give it a google!

I feel like you can never really get back to where you left off when you take a career break, that's what is frustrating.

@excitedandnervous1

I've only been back at work for 3 months now, but it took me about 9 months to find, accept and start a new role.

I definitely agree with @minipie, that I certainly wasn't as confident after being out of work for so long and perhaps that came across when interviewing. Also, I found that the senior finance roles I was interested in were not interested in me due to my time out of the work.

I have a lot of help to be able to juggle working full time in practice with 3 young children (1 year to 7 years old). Although I have help at home, I still am responsible for all the family planning activities, such as weekly meals / groceries, getting the children to their dentist and doctor appointments, school events, etc. It's busy.

My husband also has a very busy job, so I'd say he's not involved during the week with the children, but is fully involved on weekends. It would be great if going back to work had changed this, but it hasn't and won't.

I generally get home (6pm) just in time to bathe, spend some time with the kids and then put them to bed. My eldest goes to bed at 8pm, so that's when I can then get on top of the family planning stuff.

I initially didn't want to go back into practice, but 3 months in, I'm glad I did, and didn't continue to wait for an industry role.

I find I'm much more disciplined with my time at work and tell all those that I work with that I leave by 6pm at the latest, but generally by 5:30pm. It helps that I live very close to my office and if necessary can be home in a taxi in 10 minutes. I generally spend about 10 hours a day out of the house. It's not ideal, but not too bad either.