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.

It is possible to he a young mum and still put in the hours at work. I worked between 45 to 60 hours a week depending on the week. Anything from 8 am to 23:30. It was very hard, but possible. The only thing I found frustrating was that even though I put the work in, I wasn't taken seriously because I had a child and obviously not useful to the company.

But as I said previously, I'm sure that with a lot of work and good will, I will have the career and good wage most of us aim for. When the time comes.

I think that the bottom line often involves making choices that are not the most comfortable in the short-term, but will gain the results we want in the long-term.

Many of us do not play the long game when it comes to careers, and it seems to be part of our female conditioning not to do so.

(eg we calculate that we will only be $x better off by working, rather than thinking of the childcare fees as something to be deducted proportionately from each of the working parents, and bearing in mind the effects of being out of the workforce on our promotion prospects, pensions, etc.)

These facts are hardly newly discovered, and I'm frankly very surprised that some women claim to be so surprised to realise them, a few years down the line.