Is it easier to combine a career and motherhood if you are a younger Mum?

[margerykemp]

Years ago I read hunger which basically said that if you want both a high powered career and to be a mother then your best chance is to have your first child before you are 26.

That's what I did and a decade on it's still to early to see how my long term career will compare to my contemporaries who start families in their late 30's.

As a feminist I dont know what advice I'd give to younger women/DD.

Anecdotally younger Mums I know seem to have more energy/drive to go back to work and have partners who are more 'hands on' Dads than men 20 years older but they seem to lose out in terms of relationships (more frequently left as single mums) and have to suffer the stigma from society of being a 'young' Mum- and I'm talking about women in their 20's not teenagers.

Something has happened though, for the situation to arise where very many people don't meet the right person until their thirties. It used to be the case that people met the right person in their late teens and early twenties. Long term, stable, happy relationships don't seem more common now than they were a generation ago, and I think the relationship is rather a secondary concern to the matter of actually getting to have children.

I find the whole thing a great mystery. I think LRD's comment is true - there is something of a fashion about this. It is great that people can now say that they don't want kids, but how can it be that admitting to yearning for a baby is out of fashion? Babies are not a fad.

I am also perplexed when people on MN (and pretty much everywhere else) complain about how teenagers just want a baby because they want somebody to love and who they can love back. What other possible reason can there be for wanting to have a baby? That is basically what you are creating and committing to - a loving relationship for the rest of your life with your child.

I think women have so many more choices these days that they often want to do more before having children and perhaps don't prioritise 'settling down' and would rather be single and happy than in a bad relationship. I certainly wanted to spend my twenties travelling, having fun and building my career (and did just that), and only started thinking about a serious relationship when I was 30 - and promptly started internet dating! But it all could have been different if I'd met DH in my twenties.

I don't believe that 'meeting the right person' is as hard as it's made out. I know a load of men who are lovely blokes, but have consumed the media message that women can have children well into their 40s and assumed this means all women can. Lots of women may believe it too, I dunno. I do think it must make a difference if you want children but believe it can, biologically, happen without problems any time between 18 and 49.

I met my DH at uni at 19. We had DS1 18 months later. The rest of my children were born before I was 30. I understand that this isn't for everybody, but it was right for us. Then, after staying at home for well over a decade, I have now started my own business that's thriving.

It wasn't the life I imagined as a 6th former, and I think the 18 year old me would be horrified if she knew what was about to happen, but I wouldn't change it for anything.

One other thing, I do think people meet "the one" far more often when they are young than they realise. But they let them go. Why else would that god awful Adele song, "Someone like you" be so popular?!! :D

Yes, that is what I don't understand. The priority for me would always be to have children. Relationships, travel and careers are secondary concerns. To me there would have not been any happiness in any of it in my twenties if I was also carrying this cavernous hole in my life where children should have been. I don't see how something as deep seated as that can disappear because of a fashion for putting off motherhood, but there are plenty of posters on here who will genuinely say that they were really happy in their twenties with no kids, so it must be true.

It is such a complex issue though. It is the way we have created motherhood into this terrifying thing with these implications that you can't have kids and travel, build a career, enjoy being single etc. And sometimes these implications are based in truth; women sometimes are lacking the support networks that allow them to travel or whatever after having children.

TCITH, yes I agree about 'the one' too. There are a lot of people who never get over their first love, and lots of people who go through years of relationships then end up marrying childhood sweethearts.

I can see what noviceoftheday is saying, but equally, some women I know who did have children in their mid-twenties benefited from the fact that a lot of the time in professional service firms, your twenties is just "doing your time" and getting your min.10 yrs pre-partner experience. Over a decade, two lots of 6/9 months mat leave faded into insignificance and they made partner at the same time as those who hadn't had time off. Then, once they'd made partner, their children were in school (sometimes even secondary school) and the whole thing was much easier than for women having to decide whether to wait to be made partner before they had a baby, or risk doing it whilst they were under consideration for partnership. It shouldn't be like that but it is.

This thread caught my interest as I'm ttc#1 aged 35; usually conversations about older mothers assume a certain amount of financial success as the advantage to having a child early. Yet surely I can't be the only 35-year-old who has managed neither children nor a successful career and therefore feels I may as well have had the latter earlier rather than chasing a dream. I live hand-to-mouth, rent, have no savings and don't feel I'm in any better position than a 25-year-old.

One thing though, it was never just my decision. I married aged 26 but even if I knew then that following my career was pointless, my dh would not have felt ready at that age (in fact he was 24). Although many women do choose to have children later, many, many more men choose to delay fatherhood. We then end up with a catch-22 whereby women feel a need to know if and when their partner is likely to want children; and men feel that they are being put under pressure and resist even further. I know I am simplifying this, hopefully you know what I mean though.

I am an anomaly in that having DS at 24 was a logical thing from a career and financial perspective. DH is military, I knew when we married I had to give up my job (which would never have been a career, it was tangentially related but well paid) as it demanded 24/7 commitment. We moved to the other side of the world and I took scrappy English teaching jobs (still tangentially related), started Masters, managed to get a teaching job at the local university (thanks to a lively MNer actually!) which would only ever be short term but we move at the end of this year anyway. We're financially stable because DH is relatively well paid for a 26yo and has good benefits, I supposedly work FT but teaching only 15 hours for 2 x 10 week blocks, which the lady who does the timetabling had arranged so I only teach at 1 level so have one core session to plan each week with minor tweaks. We can afford a nanny who is qualified and relatively experienced, so could have another DC (and will in the near future I hope), and I have no hope of getting where I want to while we're here anyway.

As I see it I'll have a max of 5 years constrained by childcare before they go to school when we'll hopefully have an au pair, which has the dual benefit of supporting their minority language.

Getting varied experience before I go into the career which is the first step for my eventual career is perfect because people who started when they graduated won't have that and it's quite ageist anyway (in that if you're young you won't be respected).

That said many people don't have that choice and if my burning ambition was to be a banker I'd be screwing myself totally.

It depends on the career tbh. I had ds at 25, dd1 at 28 and dd2 at 38. Might be another in my 40s if I'm lucky. Will ttc in about 6 months. I'm in medicine. Hasn't held me back at all. The first two were born while I was employed in hospital as a junior doctor. The hours were horrendous while pg and there was an insane amount of juggling with childcare but dp has always been flexible workwise. His career has stalled though, in part due to family commitments and his desire to be involved and present as much as possible. Then we had dd2 while I'm a self employed GP. The flexibility was there but the pg was hard as couldn't stop work despite hyperemesis. And was back full time earlier than if I'd been employed. But I'm perfectly happy success wise.

I had my dc at 28 and 29 (very average at the time). I was in fairly junior management positions at the time and my ML disappeared without anyone noticing too much, plus I wasn't really working very hard at the time (which was frustrating, but meant that being sick and or tired didn't really matter very much). After that I got three promotions/new jobs in a row and then really benefited from the flexibility that seniority allowed.

A lot of it is luck not planning, and having now emigrated my career has taken a huge hit from that instead.

I'd tell my children to have children at a time that seemed right for them I think. Which I am sure is what they will do regardless. I certainly didn't pay any attention to my mother!

similarly in my industry, not many women have children young - definately not actresses and very few creatives and stage management, even administrators and producers put it off - as muhc because you have to work so hard at even getting a job then you lose it a few months later and have to find the next one, and so much emphasis is placed on all the out of hours work.

it's really interesting how many women, generally fellow directors, are now seeing me manage to have children and still push ahead with my career and are asking the same questions if they can do it before they hit thirty as well. But then I'm really lucky in that I fell in love with someone who had a proper job so at least one of us has a stable income, and my parents want to be actively involved in my son's life. I never assumed this would be the case, but the first thing my mum asks when I get a job is how much she can have DS during the rehearsal period.

I however always planned to travel, work a bit, build up my career slowly but effectively make the most of my freedom throughout my twenties, hope to be in a relationship with someone I wanted children with by the time I was hitting my late twenties - I never thought I'd be finishing my baby making by this point and in many ways having children has spurred on my motivation for my career possibly more than if I hadn't.

Two of Britain's most eminent theatre directors have publicly declared how they will make their children fit into their careers - both had children once they were very established. One has said she will never run the National Theatre as there is now way it is compatible with being the mother she wants to be. The other has said she definately wants to run the NT and would make it work by setting up creche facilities etc. The latter's career doesn't seem to have stalled at all since having children, to look at her cv you wouldn't know she had and I've spoken to several other female directors who had children when they were running buildings or working constantly as freelancers - they were all back in the rehearsal room within a few months of their babies being born, babies with them etc which I think is admirable but also see the pressure on them to return to qork quickly so they didn't drop out of the loop, as I'm not quite at that stage I didn't feel that pressure in the same way, and thank god - ds's colic knocked me for six, there's no way I could hae returned to work earlier than I did, when he was eight month

Purely from the energy point of view, I think it's better to have children in your 20's. I had my first at 38 and second at nearly 40 and I am KNACKERED pretty much all of the time.

I have managed to retain my career, but taking nearly 3 years off has certainly taken it's toll. People who I managed are now at Director level, which tbh is not something I want anyway (and not compatible with part-time working). It's the price you pay I guess. I just want to earn what I have to so I can pay the bills and then will ramp things up again once the children are school age.

I probably depends on the individual, but in my 20's I used to work late and at weekends, go for drinks with clients, travel to business meetings and so on. I can't imagine how I could have given a decent life to a child.
I could have worked shorter hours, but none of my colleagues would have and I would probably have been resented for not bearing my share of the workload.
It was all about me tbh, I had a lot of fun because I could just pick up and go when it suited.
If I had, accidentally, become pg Of course I would have changed my lifestyle, but I do think it is easier now as an older mum, at least for me.
I had my son in my late thirties, have a house, feel reasonably secure financially, have flexible working and see lots of my son, he is more important to me than work at the moment, I'm not sure if that would have been the case in my 20's: I was very ambitious then.
I would say the 20s is the time when people have the drive and lack of personal commitments to really pursue their careers and the 30s is when people start to redress the work/life balance and have more patience and time for a family.
Having energy is useful for raising a family, but patience and time outweighs energy in my opinion.

In some ways now I wish I had children younger.

I worked my butt off and still do but now in my early 40's I was shocked at how I am defined by being a mother.

I found looking for work very difficult - how are you going to work long hours with young children - yawn yawn yawn.

I left a job to spend time with my child and did not anticipate all the hidden discrimination in the workplace. Technically I have only had 7 months not being employed but I am now not at the place I want to be and my current role is coming to an end which means I am now back job hunting.

I now wish I had had children younger as I feel that all my years of hard work building a career have not really counted in this climate. I now realise that I should have played it safe and remained in my old job so that I could show continuous employment.

I have just had my first DS at 32, and hope to have more babies in about 3 or 4 years.

This seems to be working well for our family. I met DH when I was 19, and we both knew we didnt want kids till our 30s. We spent our 20s building our careers and generally having a ball. I did my PhD so got to do a fair bit of travelling in Europe with that, and we were also lucky enough to have some lovely holidays together. I know that for some familes children do not stop any of these things, but personally I think I would have struggled to study and work to the level I needed with the sleep deprivation and shifting priorities that kids bring. I also don't think we could have had the kind of holidays/social life that we did with a baby/child.

When we decided to have children, DH gave up dream job in the city so that we could move oop north to be closer to family. My job is not high powered, but am fairly senior in a university which has given me a lot more opportunity to be flexible on returning to work - I'll be going back two days a week after 14 months mat leave. I couldn't have done this a few years ago because I was more junior and more expendable - being senior has given me a bit more clout for negotiating flexible working.

At the moment, it seems that early thirties has been the perfect time for us to have kids - old enough to have done lots of self-indulgent fun things and build good foundations for my career, but still young enough to have energy to cope, have GPs around and hopefully go back to career properly once kids are school age. Also, the majority of my friends are having babies at this age which is nice.

CAVEAT: in case this sounds smug, remember I haven't actually gone back to work yet, so might answer this differently in a few years time!!

My mother had my brother at 21 and then me at just 23, she claims she was permanently exhausted having two with 18 months in between, she doesn't think she could have managed full-time work, and gave up work to look after us, returning part-time when we started school.
I am a bit of an oldie, but I am more active than many of my peers were when we were all in our 20's. Most of them wouldn't use stairs, would hop in cabs for tiny journeys and didn't eat very well, I can't imagine them tramping miles with a pram or chasing a toddler round a park (unless they could do it in a cab).
Having said that I was beyond tired when I had my DS.

I dispute the point about young mums having young mums who are more able to help out, I am 26, my mum is still too young to be retired therefore I wont have any childcare assistance (MIL still working full time too).

The older you are, the more likely that your own DM, DMIL will be working less or not at all, so has more time (if not more inclination) to be able to assist with childcare.

Reading these stories about the choices women make, I do wonder why so many of us are still so willing (myself included) to take time off (possibly irreparable) from our careers, to work in jobs that are beneath us or to prioritise husbands work and/or children ahead of ourselves.

Are we still suffering from a version of the feminine mystique? After all some of us will never get our careers back on track and some will have no pensions to speak of. Is this dangerous? If my marriage broke down now, there is no way I could support myself to the level I am currently enjoying. In taking years off work - I have knowingly or unknowingly sabotaged myself. My husbands 'fall back position' would be much stronger than mine. Why does it always seem to be the women that compromise so much?

Well I don't know how it was for anyone else, but I met my DH in my mid-20s when I was working late and away and he accepted that was how it was in my job. We're still together after 2 DCs, so I think it depends on the couple.

I see your point neverknowinglyunderdressed, but surely the great advantage that many (not all) have these days is that we do get to choose whether we stay at home or continue career with minimal maternity interruption. There is nothing to stop fathers being home with the kids - I know two families where the mother works full-time and the father part- time.

Can you call it sabotage when it is a choice you have willingly made?