High earning mothers

[ClarissaG]

I'm interested to start a discussion group for Mums and Mums to be who are juggling (or planning to juggle) a high flying career and motherhood. I loath to use the term 'Power Mums', but those who earn enough (£100k plus) to afford a team of help, but have the kind of pressures and working hour expectations that that level of salary brings.

I read the Mumsnet Guest blog with interest (www.mumsnet.com/Talk/guest_blogs/1977242-Why-is-society-so-unsupportive-of-high-achieving-power-mums) but the comments less so.

Is there scope for a supportive group for such Mums with practical ideas, experiences and thoughts rather than judgement about whether we can 'have it all'?

I am mid thirties, a VC, 12 weeks pregnant and have not yet told my fellow partners. I want it all but have no idea if that is realistic or how my future is going to pan out!

JohnnyUtah - if you don't mind my asking, when you went back after maternity leave to 9-5 hours, did you ever consider your dh taking any of the childcare strain?

we always split the nanny handover responsibility so I did mornings and dh did evenings and we had to either trade with each other or negotiate with the nanny when I had an early morning meeting or he had an evening one. I think getting the 50:50 responsibility at this stage is key to avoiding the "mummy track" - if you slip into that role without really noticing then your firm will follow your lead I think.

I have one man working for me at present who is a real high flyer - he has a small child and shares the handovers with his wife who also works. Whilst it's a real pain for me that he has this limitation on his availability I am really careful to avoid saying so; it's nothing that a bit of advance thought can't deal with and there's no reason why his wife should do more than 50%. My male colleagues don't see it this way though and get annoyed when he's not available between 5.30 and 7pm. And I think they are too traditional/conservative/sexist (pick whichever) to appreciate that if push came to shove his wife almost certainly earns more than he does so from a family finance point of view his career should be the one to give.

and it's really only relatively few years out of a long term career that this is a problem.

Thank you all for your comments and for giving me the strength to start thinking about this constructively again. I am coming at this with new motivation this morning!

Laura your comments about basic needs really resonate. In the last 3 years I have done no exercise, and lunch is a sandwich at my desk followed by too many cakes in the afternoon and 8 cups of coffee. I do not go outside during the day unless it's for an external meeting. I have no social life and no hobbies. Mat leave is giving me a chance to catch up on all of this and I am fitter or happier than I have been for years. I'm certainly not lonely - I have time to see people again for the first time in years! I have also been dealing with several traumatic pregnancy losses over the past 2 years so during all this time I have never really been in a fit state either emotionally or physically. If I come back in a better state I may be better equipped to cope with the pressures of work next time round!

I absolutely think it is best for my family and for me if I can carry on.
I think the key will be to find a setup in terms of working week / childcare / other help that really works. Having done it once I can hopefully learn from my mistakes. For example I think I had the wrong nanny last time (and we ended up ditching her in favour of nursery). That worked for a while but absolutely can't be done now with two children. So I feel finding the right nanny (and other support) will be absolutely crucial.

It is so helpful to see all your perspectives on the various options available and also the long term consequences of these decisions. I think I have reached a crossroads now where I have to decide what's right for me and my family - although of course if I go back to my current role I always have the option of moving on at a later stage.

In retrospect I don't actually feel like I've missed much of DD1's first four years even though it felt like it at the time. And I absolutely think I would be bored with 16 hours of childcare / housework per day as well - I suspect it's just a case of wanting what I can't have!

I am making a list of my "hygiene factors" to try to understand what my real priorities are and will have to try to find a work setup that matches them. I suspect there are some difficult conversations to have with work but hopefully I'll be able to find a setup that works.

Hi all,
Can I join? I'm in a sector very similar to Imogen so not quite earning plus 100k but doing very well/ leadership / high level of management/ public facing role.
I chose not to return to my v senior role after DC2 to seek similar/ more senior role in the same sector. It was the easy option to return but not for my career. I was successful ( though i had a tough slog and had a thread on this) and will return in a few weeks for a senior fixed term contract for an org I wanted to work at for a long time. I have found this thread really helpful.
A couple of things to add to discussion:
I took 9 months with first but felt very strongly that I wanted longer with my second. This is personal choice, of course. I felt far more established as a Director and comfortable to take longer. In the end I will be off 14 months. I'm very ready to return from looking after a pre schooler and a 13 months old and am very honest about that to people which can be shocking for them. For me personally, it was important given I'm stopping at 2, that I felt ready to return and that I had enough of being at home.
I was exceptionally confident ( surprising myself) I'm negotiating flex working. I will be doing compressed hours. So will have to one day a week off. The organisation took my request v well and saw it an opportunity to test such working with a number of senior women pregnant. But I'm the first to do it. Which will be very interesting. I think I'm going to be using 'don't explain, don't complain a lot'. For me, even though I out earn DH I needed this one day extra with the kids. Iit wasn't about a gender division - it was about my wishes. It took me a while to understand this...
Finally, we live in zone 2 in an ' interesting/ upn coming ' part of london. Its not everyones cup of tea but very commutable- 30 mins door to door maybe. We have traded space for distance but with two small children it was a conscious choice and one that I will never regret. If we long for green fields we can do that when they don't go to bed at 7.45pm
most of the time

Ah yes, where to live is the big issue. We bought a house 5 minutes from where my husband worked in zone 5 so one of us (his career came second to mine as I earn a lot more) cold get home with any nanny crisis and because here we could in those days afford a house rather than a tiny flat - it's the same today actually - more expensive in zone 1 or 2 than 5. I still live in zone 5 but work is mostly by email so that works fine from the house. I have only worked from the house since small children weren't in it (as by that stage they were big enough for school). My daughter lives in zone 1 (and her sister almost in zone 1 by about a street into zone 2). I wonder where they will live when and if they have babies. It certainly makes any long hours easier for them that they are 5 minutes from work at present.

I think we shouldn't forget money particularly those with a husband who earns much less or no husband. It is not wrong to provide financially for your children and working full time and working hard can benefit children in all kinds of ways. also it allows you to buy help with cleaning at home and outsourcing other jobs so the hours you are there you can spend with the children (in theory anyway) rather than vacuuming the house.

Love this is still going. Back later!

We actually moved out of London a year ago and for me, it has improved my quality of life despite the commute. It now takes at least 1hr vs about 40 mins when we lived in London but I now have a much clearer separation between work and home - while we lived in London it all blurred into one, a much bigger house, closer to friends, family and weekend activities, and a much greener and more child friendly environment.

We did split the nursery drop-offs,yes, but doing the nursery run meant arriving at 8.50 or leaving at 5.05 for whichever one of us was doing it. It was no more acceptable for DH to do that for half the week than it was for me.

The current reality is that we will still have children in school for another 5 years (with sixteen weeks holiday a year) and someone needs to be around to some extent after school and during school hols, to support their study and facilitate their extra curricular activities. Any money that I earn is irrelevant as without London expenses (we have paid off our mortgage) we save a significant amount each month. So it makes little sense for me to work more hours.

I'm not complaining - I have plenty of money and two days each week to do as I like. The children are happy and the stress is taken off DH. I have a job i enjoy and time to pursue other interests. Someone near the top of the thread referred to lives like mine as "golden" or "gilded" or similar.

But what I don't have is a career, despite being very highly educated, organised, professional, whatever. And it seemed relevant to the thread to explain how it came about. I'm not sure whether I regret it or not.

MrsW, DH has always made it clear at his work that we would do fine on just my salary - meaning that if they want him to stay (which they do) then it's on the basis of a 50:50 split of childcare responsibilities. He did his flexible working request at the same time as me.

As novice says - if you have an option other than the single wage slave, you can be a lot stronger in negotiations.

Agree that location is def a trade off... we brought in Zone 2 (not so great area) but I work in the city and DH in canary wharf so its about 30 min door to door for both of us, which hopefully will make it easier when little one pops out and we need to split the getting home in time duties. We did explore further out but the trade off re space and commute just didn't work for us logically.

Yes, space is tight but we did really think long and hard about the amenities around where we were (shops, parks and green spaces) and were confident that it is a happy compromise.

So sorry to hear of your losses Brynhilde. My mother had two late losses between me and my sibling, and this was absolutely a factor in why she chose to take time out of work, I can imagine it knocks you for six.

Re social life - will your friends who you see now still be around next year? Or would you have to find new SAHM friends? One of the reasons I didn't enjoy mat leave much was because my mum friends generally went back to work or moved away quite early. I am impressed you find time to exercise

Re commute - I have the worst of both worlds really, 50 minutes commute but still in expensive London! On the plus side we are 5 mins from my parents and there are lots of DC friendly activities and nanny employing families nearby which makes it easy to find and keep great nannies and a great social life for DD.

Johnny I think the term "part timer" needs to be reclaimed and rehabilitated! It shouldn't be a pejorative (sp?) term just a factual one. But I acknowledge it depends on the internal culture, some places are (wrongly IMO) more presenteeist than others.

I spent the best part of a decade living PT in the country and working in London, living in a flat on my own for part of the week and when I was O/C as site manager where i would be responsible for basically crisis management only. Nobody ever bleeps the psychiatric site management to tell them good news! Husband would come and stay with one or more children when he was working later in the day or they were on holiday and I would break the week up by spending a night in the country too. It was really hard.

I did this because I left my 'home trust' because of harassment/ bullying after I had to blew the whistle on a senior staff member caught abusing a patient. The trust at that time operated via cronyism with very few females in positions higher than senior charge nurses. It has changed a little but not enough for me to ever work for it again.

This definitely made me more guarded about socialising with colleagues and I maintained very firm boundaries between home/work which references my earlier comments about not mentioning children at work (and also because some of my clients- you wouldn't want them seeing photos of your kids).

Brynhilde it is definitely worth working on a plan as to how you can carry forward those aspects of maternity leave that have contributed towards your greater sense of self and health. Even building in small daily working pleasures such as finding outside space to sit for a few moments or maybe walking part of the way to work.

Concentrating the bigger pleasures into a smaller space and time in the manner of 'quality not quantity' will help a lot to mitigate that sense of being a worker bee!

Importance of location/commute also very interesting and relevant for us. We are also in zone 2 at the moment, a 30 minute commute door to door (or even desk to desk) which is fantastic. But after putative baby §2 we will need to move further out and we're trying to weigh up the options for that. Like everyone else we need to balance the importance of space/location/commute.

Career counselling has been mentioned a couple of times now. Has anyone any experience of this in a commercial setting (ie not in academia?)

There is a lot of support within my firm and I have had a couple of interesting chats with recruitment consultants. But obviously both those sources of information have an agenda in terms of guiding my career. Is it worth paying for objective advice? And where would this come from?

UCL has an independent service for a moderate fee.

Lots of places offer it but it's expensive!

My observation on career counselling is that you need to know what question you're asking and also be completely honest. And that's much harder than it sounds when you are conditioned to sorting out problems and finding solutions.

Binhylde, i am like you in that i come home completely drained and im sure the fact i dont get enough sleep, never exercise, etc contribute.

A few things happened this week: i broke down at work and told my boss i have too much on and need staff or fewer deliverables; i worked from home today; and i called employee assistance (confidentual helpline) who have referred me to a counsellor for stress management. I feel really close to burnout

But i know that the only thing that would help long term is to be able to leave work at 5 every day. Or 6, at least. Take my kids to school once in a wgile, be there for them when they get home. And that will never happen. So.... Idk where that leaves me

Well done softcookie for giving your boss a reality check and calling the helpline. I hope they come up with some concrete ideas to help.

What would happen if you said to your boss "I need to leave at 6pm 3 days a week"? Are you certain it would be turned down? In my case I was sure it would either be turned down or (more likely) just ignored in practice but so far it has worked to my surprise. I work late one night a week and pick up emails after dd bedtime but I do get out by 6 3x a week. occasionally (including today in fact) that has meant having to leave colleagues to carry on without me in the office, which is uncomfortable. Hopefully however it doesn't happen so often as to cause resentment or reneging on my arrangement - we shall see.

Minipie - Most of my friends are (ex) professionals who now work part time or are SAHMs. In fact I dont know anyone else socially who still works full time (!) So I am comparing my life to theirs and jealous of what they have - more time with the children, meeting friends, and possibly even hobbies.

On the other hand I know they all miss their careers and their financial independence even though leaving work was probably the right decision for them at the time. I do not know anyone in real life who is 100% happy with the balance (or lack of it) that they have achieved.

I wonder if part of the issue is lack of friends / role models on the professional side - which is one of the reasons I'm finding this thread so inspiring!

hmm I suspect that may be true - and of course the bits of their lives they tell you about will be the lunch they had with friends and not the dealing with tantrums or cleaning out mouldy lunch boxes...

Softcookie - well done for putting your foot down and seeking help. I have had to do that on a couple of occasions and have been surprised at how positive the response have been. I have also been speaking to a therapist to deal with work stress as well as personal issues and has been really helpful to learn how to look after myself and my interests even if I still have a long way to go.

You may be a long way from your work ideal (as am I) but every little step will help.

I definitely agree about friends/role models - I think both are important. I had a five minute conversation on Wednesday with the only colleague in my department who has combined a successful career with two (now grown-up children). She's partly retired so I hardly ever see her and don't know her well but even that five minute chat made me feel a lot better.

I am also isolated at my own level - I am the first woman in my department to have a baby for about ten years. On the other hand, there are a group of five or six women all in our thirties - in fact I think I'm the youngest. I "went first" but I'm pretty sure at least a couple of them will have a baby in the next few years. So it will be interesting to see how that changes things.

Agreed about friends/ role models. I have several friends who still work full-time after children, but where I work I'm one of only three senior women, two of whom are childless, and that has contributed to my decision to keep very quiet about DD's existence. (I don't lie if asked, but I never volunteer information.) I work exclusively with and for men as the other women are in different bits of the organisation. It is actually a factor pushing me to look elsewhere because I do feel pretty lonely - it's a new experience for me as I've come from the Civil Service, where there were plenty of high-ranking women around.

It must be the organisation Imogen. Even though I will be the first in my new org on flex working I know lots of CEO/ directors in the charity sector both women and men working very flexibly/ four days round their children.

Yes, it's the organisation, toomanywheeliebins - it's peculiar in many ways (can't say more without outing myself!). My next move will probably be within the charity sector and one of the factors will be availability of compressed hours - in my previous job I worked four long days a week and it was brilliant. Sadly had to leave as I was at risk of redundancy and didn't want to wait to be pushed.

Time to move Imogen. FWIW I applied for ft jobs and then negotiated when offered..
Ire our sector. It is very women dominated at all levels but while their is some good role models much more many men at senior levels