Is it unrealistic to have a city career and see your kids much?

[mickb]

Might seem like an obvious qu. but would be interested to see if anyone's come across an enlightened employer who has provided flexibility in hours to enable this to happen.

Or is this still pie-in-the sky stuff?

Most of the senior women role models in my place extol the virtues of round the clock nannies or SAHD's in order to get up the ladder. Not much evidence as far as I can see of any other way at least where I work.

Yes. I had an 'enlightened' employer and they made me redundant as they couldn't find any suitable PT roles . All the senior women either had no children, nannies or SAHD partners

I did the city job plus child for 3years.
I had a good employer and a great dh who would take at least his share of early evenings or days at home when ds1 was sick.
I gave up when ds2 was born. I couldn't do that split. I felt I had to chose. My experience was that either my dcs or my job missed out.
It was a combination of the hours plus the commute.

That was 10 years ago though. I hope it is better.

Pag - i did it with one child, but not two

I doubt it has changed much tbh

I don't think it is. AT my work, all the top female executives either have no children or SAHD partners.

I am working FT now but hope to move PT before DS1 starts primary school (he's almost 3); I think that pretty much seals a glass ceiling on my career ladder.

I think it is possible but agree with your senior women in that a nanny is essential or at least flexibility.

My employer is very flexible, I can work from home, no one chekcs my holiday or hours and that is because I deliver.
On the flipside when I need to stay in the office later or travel I can do so because I have a fab nanny, family and a DH who does his fair share. I can't see how nursery would be a workable solution to be honest.

Work for Mumsnet?

I don't think anyone has answered your original question really. To be successful, you need to work long hours. If you work long hours, you won't see your kids much.

The only way to do it is to get to the top first, then have your children. That will also mean you earn enough cash to afford the childcare. But you still won't see your kids much.

I think there are various combinations that can work and it depends on your family circumstances.

For example, even in a not particularly flexible FT job:

• you can work long hours during the week but make the weekends and holidays sacrosanct family time (do you know that the number of average annual workdays for a FT worker is only 240 days out of 365?);
• you can take a full year for maternity leave;
• you can "buy" extra holiday in many City jobs;
• each parent can take a total of up to 13 weeks' parental leave for each child up to their 5th birthday;
• you can work from home some days in some jobs;
• you can decide to go into work early and leave on time (i.e. early!!) and your partner can go into work late and leave late on the same day.

Why not see if you can have a private chat with one of the senior women at your workplace about her experiences of being able to see enough of her children - don't assume that a mother with a FT nanny doesn't do much with her children, it may reassure you to hear RL stories of family togetherness outside of working hours.

The rules are that you get paid a lot and you dont bother your employer about your domestic arrangements. You pay for the cover you need and make yourself available 24/7.

I know a few women that negotiatd 4 day weeks for a 20% pay cut but in reality they still work 5 days and they get passed over for promotion and bonus. They know they are getting a rough deal but have no choice - they are being unfairly treated but the pay in other jobs outside the City is lower and negotiating a 4 day a week deal with another employer in the City is very difficult so they cant just leave.

I make myself available 16/5 hrs a day, 240/365 days a year and usually work 10/5 hrs a day, 235/365 days a year ("buying" another week's holiday) and that seems more than fine with my employer.

YY to 4 days a week = paycut, I would never advise anyone to do this. 1 day a week at home seems workable though (assuming childcare still in place).

I would like to see my DC more but then pre-DC I would also have liked to have seen my DH more - I think it is normal to prefer the company of your loved ones! Doesn't mean our relationships have suffered, though.

I do, but I'm spectacularly lucky and have a very specific skill set, and work more as a consultant than a manager - I'm never going to be the big boss (but then I'm not that type anyway). Consultancy type roles are the way to go, or anything where you can work flat out for, say, 8 weeks and then slack for a while.
I know at least two women who tried it and quit totally because their work would not listen to the words "part time" and full time just didn't work. I think the key factor is that both their husbands had very full-on jobs with lots of travelling - if DH has a more flexible job, then it all works much better. My DH has a very good FT job but has opted not to go full out for career supremacy, and that makes a big difference.

I agree with BeenBeta's first para. The rules for mothers are no different to those for fathers. The main difference as far as I can tell is that more mothers would admit to wanting to see more of their children than fathers will (admit to not want). The way to manage it is to work out the balance that works for you and then be confident. Too many women spend too much time apologising for having children - in my office the fathers also go to nativity plays etc but don't feel the need to ask permission or explain - they just arrange their diaries and it happens - other things have to be rearranged. The mothers, in general, make a lot more effort to ensure no-one is disrupted. To be honest, this effort is not worth it and probably, if anything, counterproductive as it draws attention to the absence in a way the father's absence does not.

The advice I would give to working mothers (and I am one) is to try and act more like a man - stop worrying about what others think, assunme it will be all right - it nearly always is. And to answer the original question - no it is not unrealistic but you may need to adjust your definition of "much".

Apologies for the horrendous generalisations but they are based on many years of experience and observation

Oh, and you need a tiny commute. Moving to Surrey before you have kids = SAHM/D.

BeenBeta and LadyBiscuit are right, unfortunately. It makes sense though - you can't be as devoted to work as you need to be to be successful and spend a lot of time with your child/children.

It is unrealistic to expect your employers to be like this, but you can find exceptions.

My last employers were very enlightened. My weekends were sacrosanct and I did a 4 day week. Because in those 4 days I covered 5 days' worth of work, my bonus (which was the major chunk of my pay) was always based on a full 5 day week, and my career was not damaged by working PT (in fact I was used as a role model for others so they found it quite valuable to have me there as a barometer of when women were/weren't taking the piss). Saying that, I still had wrap round care because in return I knew I had to be flexible myself and sometimes stay late/ go abroad if it was needed.

My current employer however lives in the dark ages and I am about to leave because of it. The female role models there all gave everything to their career to the detriment of their family life. I have spoken to a lot of the senior women there and many of them (and a couple of the men, to be fair) are quite bitter about the sacrifices they felt they had 'been forced' to make. I have spent last 6 months trying to convince the Board they need to change their culture rather than keep expecting the women to change, but to little avail

It is definitely possibly, but in my experience it relies on at least one partner (parent) being the flexible one.

So for many years, men have had wonderful careers in the city, top 1% of earners, heads of big business, because they had a wife who worked flexibly enough to cover childcare, or who didn't work at all.

Now, women say they either can't have it, or they end up at breaking point - but that's because no one fills the "wife gap" for them. The only sure fire way to get around this fact is to avoid the trap altogether i.e. opt out of having children, really.

So... it's perfectly possible. But you need a loving supportive partner, just as any man in the city needs. The problem is that men aren't stepping up to fill that supporting role at the rate it's needed, hence the media stories about how women "can't" have it all, or end up burnt out. It's a lie, and it avoids the REAL issue in the modern workplace.

It's possible if you are in a job that enables you to leave at 5 or 6pm to pick up and put your kids to bed or to relieve the nanny and put them to bed, but most of the women in my DH's magic circle law firm who have climbed the career ladder at his firm have had fulltime nannies who have put their DC to bed. Three women in my DH's department have left in recent months because they could not do their jobs to the standard required all because they wanted to put their DC to bed so had to leave at 6pm at the latest. Such a sad situation.

To add to my response above: One of these women who left tried really hard to make it work eg work after she put her DC to bed - client calls etc - but her DC slept badly and kept waking up so several of her key calls were interrupted and she was not able to keep up with her billable hours. She was not asked to leave but she was given less prestigious accounts and ended up doing alot of drudge work.

frgr has it right I think. Traditionally, men could do it because they had a wife at home. So it's difficult to do unless you have a husband or extensive childcare and are willing to give up time with your children.

But it isn't possible if you want to see your kids very much - which is what the OP was asking.

Orissiah - I used to get home and go straight onto conference calls, sometimes every day. When you've picked your DC up from nursery where they have spent 10 hours and then ignore them for the next hour, they don't like it very much :(

LadyB - my life's still like that. It's not much fun at times. I need the money though.

I left the City partly because I knew it wasn't possible to have a City career and children.

I discussed it with DW who wanted to continue her City career and we agreed I would have a career with more flexible hours so that one of us would always be there for our future DCs. It didnt work out how we planned but I dont know any men who have small children and a City career who dont have a SAHM wife.

There are a few well known women who do it but they have two nannies and wall to wall coverage so they never have to choose between a client and their children.

I work in a Magic Circle law firm. Most female partners here either made partner prior to having children, thus giving them significant leverage in determining how they wanted to combine motherhood and career. All have nannies and/or SAH husbands.

If you haven't yet made partner, then you have to commit to the hours needed (actually, even as a partner you need to put the client first). So, basically, it's very hard to do any kind of flexi-working because if that doesn't suit the client, then you won't be popular with the firm.

I think with any career, you have to put in the hours - which doesn't really work well with seeing much of your children.