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!

I like to keep it separate as otherwise it feels like I never get a break and I really don't sleep if I can't switch off at least an hour before I go to bed. Having said that, with dd in the same school buildings, and I will definitely be teaching her at some point in the future, I obviously overlap the two. Ido find once I am in work and getting on with the job I rarely even think about home or dd or whatever. It makes it a nice surprise when I get back and discover that the cleaner came, not so nice if I forgot about the mess in the kitchen.

I'm not sure if my MA work counts as home or work as it covers a range if topics which interest me and are kind of connected to work.

Hmm I don't think about home while I'm at work, but I do think a lot about work when I'm at home!
Hence the need to compartmentalise better or perhaps schedule the times when I will pick up work again at home, rather than just letting it all blur. Otherwise I'm never really 100% engaged in my family even when I am home!

Any tips about compartmentalising are welcome! I am really struggling to get my head around that once the baby arrives that I really will need to do this better not just for my family but also for me. I've never been good at switching off....

Compartmentalising: what works for me was pausing for a couple of minutes before putting the key into the lock to think of some positive things to say about my day to h, imagining the dc's yells of joy that I was home, turning off the bb and generally getting into a positive frame of mind. Then changing into jeans and spending a lovely hour or two with the dcs. Then adult supper, then bb on again as needed, plus doing all home admin at home always. It becomes a habit and the time in front of the door reduces.

I have never been tempted by housework when I'm working at home by the way (much too dull).
I often work based from home (every day this week which is rare for a whole week and lovely). However the children are at school so it's not very difficult.

When they are babies and you get home then you don't have much choice but to be in mother mode as you're breastfeeding or holding them so I never found that adjustment hard. It is hard if you are tired after work not to have a break to recover first and then children rather than the very second you walk in a baby is dumped on you. I remember that being hard. I think about 2 times in 10 years I was home whilst our nanny was still there and she was looking after the children and that was amazingly easy but not very common in those days as if she was here I wasn't.

Another lurker on this thread. I found compartmentalising quite difficult when I first went self-employed because things are just more fluid. While I loved the advantages of being able to drop my daughter into school some mornings or taking my son to his speech therapy sessions, I found the requisite evening catching up on work pretty difficult.

I have found that being more disciplined with both when (daytimes mostly) and where (my study, which is the only place from which I can check my email) I work really helped. Also, I would echo what LauraBridges said about it being really hard to finish work and be straight into mum mode. I have found that I need twenty minutes or so to 'de-role', get changed and listen to radio 4 (or whatever). Then I can go downstairs recharged and ready for bathtime, bedtime and stories. I find that driving home in the car really helps with this, but not so much commuting on the train. It's a bit of a luxury, but having our nanny work for half an hour more than I really need her to at either end of the day really helps me.

I commute by train and find reading a book really relaxing, mumsnetting less so and catching up on emails on my blackberry even less! But if I can walk home from the station I get home in a better mood.

I have always picked dd up on the way home so never had a break but had to be in mum mode before we even got to the door.

It can be quite odd when something happens at school. one time I was going to an informal meeting when I saw dd at the school office. She'd fallen over and was bleeding an crying. At the time she was 7 and had only just started at the school so I kind if stopped in my tracks and never made it to the meeting.

thanks for this thread, I'm joining too.

I have started freelance consulting in my field and have the potential to earn big but need to build it up. DH is also a high earner but fortunately has a measure of job flexibility.

Has anyone got kids with special needs? - 3 of mine have additional needs so finding appropriate after school/before school care is difficult. School also tend to expect me to be able to drop everything and come in when the brown stuff hits the fan.

Working is my sanity, after I finished my full-time PhD and then project-managed a major house renovation I tried being a full-time mum for a few months and things seemed to be far more disorganised than they had before.

I agree with the need to compartmentalise - am sitting here now looking at 2 baskets of washing that need hanging up - I think that's the hardest thing about working from home.

Good quality child care is such an essential aspect. We had no help from family so have always had to pay and luckily I have found the right kind for us. Dd has asperger's so we have to be confident with who looks after her.

That is the problem with saying that women should remain financially solvent. It doesn't need a very high level of additional needs before it becomes almost impossible to get childcare and then one of the parents does have to step up. In the UK I would be on higher tax but that isn't enough to cover a specialist nanny for even one child.

One thing I've noted since living in the UK (for more than 10 years as a worker but also spent many years as a student), is this sense of guilt of using 'home help', whether it's a weekly cleaner, nanny, or whatever in between. I know the women on this thread use them and are generally happy with them but it just seems to me that there's a sense of guilt and not something people should own up to... Almost like a whisper when people say 'do you have a cleaner? Can I have their number please?'..

And perhaps it's this that makes people in this country bang on about part time work (good for the family)?

I come from a country where it's pretty common to have home help. Having met many others from other countries including places like the US, it seems very common indeed to outsource these home activities to others if one can afford it - and why not?

Of course if you find ironing therapeutic then fair enough but if not, why wouldn't you outsource it? Why is there such a societal guilt (again not saying it's present on this thread) about home help?

Surely if we can't do it all, earn a crust, have kids, run a household, travel for work, work long hours... Then the thing to do is delegate. We do that at work, surely we can do that at home?

NK5, I never felt that guilt (nor guilt about working) but I agree some men and women in the UK have it probably a legacy from more socialist days.

Delegation is fine whether to other women or men and plenty of us delegate to men. My older son cooks for all the other children every night for example. Plenty of people have mannies these days so the socialist feminists who object to women working using other women for cleaning jobs should realise this is not really a gender issue which harms other women and anyway plenty of those other women who work for us (and yes we always had a female nanny) are glad to have the job.

I see the proposed new tax break announced today for childcare can be usd by nannies if Ofsted registered. Parent puts up a maximum of £8k per child eg £16k and the state chips in £2k per child i.e. £4k in that example. In our case at one point we had 5 children for which we were paying for childcare so that would be £10k from the state but only if you put uop £8k x 5 and have that many children and the nanny is registered. Anyway it's pie in the sky as they may well not win the next election (and for me too late as I think age 12 is the minimum and my teenagers are over that now.

have4, good luck with it. My children don't have special needs. One (now adult) is slightly dyslexic but it was not so bad as to need any special help. I am sure it is harder for women (and men too if they play their full part) where a child does. However as you say for your sanity and presumably your husband's too you both want and probably need to work and that will be better for the child long term too as everyone will be happier.

Like LB, I feel no guit whatsoever at outsourcing housework to someone else.

Given the hours I already work, it makes no sense at all for me to even attempt to do it myself. I want my non working time to be free for me to spend with my DC and DP, walk my dogs or ride my horse, not clean my kitchen.

FWIW, I am a great strategist, but a rubbish cleaner anyway

I have a cleaner too - so I don't have the guilt. But my in-laws don't know that we have a cleaner. and I wouldn't openly tell them either!

I feel no guilt about having a cleaner. I'm sure most people would if they could afford it. But where I live (sw london) it's pretty standard to have a cleaner, in fact I think people would be more if I didn't!

What is holding me back at the moment is nothing to do with guilt. It is sheer bloody exhaustion. DD is teething and is up at least once in the night and then waking for the day at 5.45. DH has been away for work so I've done all wakings. She doesn't go to bed till 8.30 so once I've had dinner and checked emails and had a cup of tea it's 10.30 so I am not getting that much sleep. And it's been like this since September as she's had back to back illnesses since then, though at least most weeks I've shared it with DH.

How do you or did you all manage when your DC were small and not sleeping? Or did you all have great sleepers? Or do you not need much sleep (I can survive on little but I feel grey).

It's still easier to be at a desk than looking after a lively toddler! But I know I'm not doing a brilliant job at work I'm just too tired.

It is tough when the little ones are babies, there is no way round that. When I had DS1 under 2 and was pregnant with DS2 I used to sneak out of my office at lunchtime, drive down the road and have a 30min nap in the car. I was a director of a large pharma co at the time, but it was the only thing that got me through the day

It does get easier though

oh elastamum I can't even begin to imagine pregnancy tiredness on top of this current level of tiredness. DC2 is never going to happen at this rate - no energy for sex even if I could face pregnancy. No options for napping at work sadly except the loo floor (tempting). Annoyingly most people I know and work with have children who slept well from 6 months (or their SAHWs do all the wakings ) so I am not sure they really get it.

Sorry for the moan!

minipie I have struggled with that too. DS is 15 months and has still only slept through perhaps 10 times. He is getting better but it is so so slow and every time we have a better week it is followed by an awful fortnight of colds/teething etc. DH and I split night duties scrupulously fairly and have done since about 10 weeks - I had a very bad bout of post-natal depression and my GP told both of us that it was very important that I didn't do two nights in a row if we wanted to avoid hospitalisation etc. It was a very difficult time obviously but the only upside is that we did establish quite a fair division early on so there's no issue with DS only "wanting" me or only settling for me etc.

One thing that I have discussed with a colleague with young children is that in our profession (academia) we all have a range of tasks including teaching (essentially performance), admin (sometimes quite complex and technical but still essentially admin) and then the most demanding aspects of original writing and research. In our jobs it is clear that everyone has to do all three but status/promotion wise it is research that counts. But we agreed that if you are exhausted you can sit down with a cup of coffee and get through some admin - perhaps more slowly than usual but you can do it; and you can almost always teach because the adrenalin of standing up in front of a room waiting for you to speak carries you through even quite serious distress/illness/exhausation - but it is the research that suffers because it is almost impossible to do that sort of rigorous and very precise but also creative work when you are totally shattered. So this is another way in which the most prestigious aspect of the career becomes more difficult for mothers in particular - assuming that they are almost always doing disproportionately more of the nightwakings etc in the early years. I was interested to note that the European Research Council automatically adds 18 months to your career 'clock' for every baby - I assume that it is this long partly to try to allow for this effect.

Re: employing domestic help, I think it's partly a class issue isn't it? E.g. my MIL is a wealthy woman and has been for decades since she married DH's step-father but she grew up in much more ordinary circumstances and she still really struggles with managing domestic staff - DH says she hardly has any help because it is almost always a disaster. My mother on the other hand is a terrible snob in lots of ways but she has always been a "good employer" when I think about it and is at ease in that role, which makes the whole thing easier for her but also for whomever she is employing. She and my Dad can certainly be patronising and cringe-worthy but they also take it for granted that, e.g., when their cleaner's husband suddenly upped and left and it was apparent that he'd racked up massive debts without her knowing that they immediately arranged (and paid for) her to have a session with their solicitor for advice.

Anyway, I feel no guilt about it at all. I really do not see a problem in generating a good, well-paid job and being a good employer. I am an employee myself and also a manager so I know what I appreciate: clear terms, good communication, due acknowledgement for good performance and so on.

Oh dear kalisada your DS sounds like he beats my DD for night wakings! We have at least had a few spells of a fortnight or so unbroken nights at a time - just long enough to fool us into thinking it might be permanent . I do try to split night wakings with DH but tbh I struggle to sleep while he is settling her - so usually I do more of the night wakings and he takes DD for 45 min in the morning so I can sleep more. We've both caught illnesses from DD too.

You are totally right that it's the most demanding/prestigious work that suffers most when tired.

I know you had various health problems when you were pg - may I ask, how was your work about that? I was not ill when pg but I am worried that work stress contributed to DD being premature, so I am likely to want to take it quite easy next time round. Not sure how that will go down.

Softcookie how are you doing?

just to add to the cleaner debate. We never had a cleaner when I was a child, it was not something I would ever have thought about, none of my friends did. When I first got a cleaner I felt embarrassed about it and on the odd occasion I was home from work whilst she was there felt obliged to go out because I couldn't sit and watch someone do my hovering. But many years on I now have a housekeeper who comes in and does the cleaning, laundry and anything else domestic that we ask and I have got over any sense of embarrassment - I am providing employment to someone who is good at her job and takes pride in it, and does it far better than I ever could. And my children are completely comfortable with this, so much so that the eldest who has in theory moved out still brings her washing home sometimes to be done.

I occasionally suffer a twinge of guilt that I am bringing them up to be spoilt brats - but, the one who has moved out has managed to keep herself alive and looked after without assistance (other than the occasional support from the laundry fairy) and given she has proved herself employable I am confident that she will afford a lifestyle that includes a cleaner once she is completely fledged (she's currently on a gap year so apron strings not fully severed). And I see no sign that her sisters are less able/motivated so I need to tell myself to stop worrying about this.

Yes mrswobble I think a lot of people feel embarrassed or awkward about domestic employment because they didn't grow up with it so don't feel confident in how it works or how to interact. And it is an intrusion in a way, having someone else working in your home. I think if you are a good employer who speaks respectfully about your cleaner and treats her well then you are providing a positive model to your children just as you would be in any other interaction. I'm sure we all appreciate our cleaners/nannies more if we have done that work ourselves for a bit and know how demanding it is.

minipie work was OK actually. Not great - in that I didn't really feel at all supported by them, no-one wrote or emailed to find out how I was doing (except in an official capacity) or sent a card when I was (repeatedly) in hospital or anything like that - but I think that was down to my slightly clueless head of department. In a way I was lucky with the timing - I went into hospital for the first time at five weeks pregnant and that was just after the end of the spring term. We don't have much teaching in the summer, just revision classes and marking, so that was really the easiest bit to reallocate, and by the time teaching started again in the autumn it was nearly the beginning of mat leave anyway so they put me on a light load. It was my research/writing that took a massive hit - months and months when I couldn't even read a book lying still in bed, let alone do any work. I am one of those people who has never been prevented by illness from working for more than a day or so - even though I've had quite a lot of ill health, e.g. rheumatoid arthritis, I have always kept up with work - so I found this incredibly difficult, but more so psychologically and emotionally than practically with work.

We are about to start trying again and I was just very honest with my (new) HoD and my colleague who organises teaching loads about the likely implications so that at least they can have it in the back of their minds and have a back-up plan.

I think in a way though it was easier because I was just SO ill. If you are in and out of an (NHS!) hospital with repeated stays of 4 or 5 days no-one questions that you are in serious trouble. I even had to explain to my HoD that we might have to terminate the pregnancy because I was so ill (NOT a fantastic conversation!) so please not to explain that I was pregnant. And then for the final months I was on crutches/in a wheelchair which again is pretty unarguable with. I did have to go through the standard HR processes, speak to a doctor working for my employer etc but she was very nice and just pretty shocked about how ill I was and how many drugs I was taking!

This time round I am doing everything I can to clear my desk before we even start trying so at least I won't be constantly worried about all the work I'm not doing or people I am letting down. I have absolutely slaved for the last year to reach this point but I realise many jobs don't have this option to get ahead in that sort of way.

just saw this and thought of you lot here! :) www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/education/helping-women-get-back-in-the-game.html?hp&_r=1

My mother had a cleaner until we were about 10. I think she then just got fed up of having someone else in the house and didn't need the help so much (not that she liked or did much cleaning). Her own mother took herself off to India alone in the 1920s to work as a nanny to an English family so we certainly have had servants in the family from the other way round as it were. Nothing wrong with doing work which is paid. We all serve others in all kinds of ways.

Ah tiredness, for me the worst thing about when we had young children who did not sleep. None of the 5 slept through the night not even once in the first year for a start (all were breastfeeding which actually is easier than bottles a night).

It's just a phase which passes. I remember when the twins were little (or perhaps I was pregnant with them) arriving early for a meeting with clients off a motorway service station at a hotel. I was early so I slept in the car for 20 minutes then was worried if the client had walked past he may have seen. I also used to take the twins to the gym on Saturday afternoon when their father worked to the creche for 2 hours. I would usually have a sauna and then sleep for at least an hour on the bed. That was what I needed most - that Saturday afternoon sleep.

Now I go to bed at 10 every night and every night am glad I don't have a baby waking me up.

What do you do if very tired? Check and check and check again. If I am tired even now there are more likely to be mistakes in work so I make myself pause think, read the document, read it again or even leave it until the next day.

(Kal, that sounds awful. I was very very very sick - as in vomit - with the twins in the first 3 months which is very common with twins, but not ill in the way you describe. )

minipie - I didn't have good sleepers for children. DS who is 6 now sleeps wonderfully but from about 8.30/9pm. He only started sleeping through after 2 years old. DD who is 3.5 (so conceived whilst DS was 22 months?) never slept through till about 3 years. By then, we co-slept and DH was sleeping in spare room just because that was the only way I could cope. I went back to work both times when they were about 6 months old.

With DS the pregnancy went smoothly until about 30 weeks when I had early contractions and long story short, I got signed off work. this was thankfully, during christmas break (we'd just broken up for christmas) and DS was due in Feb. So basically the run up to christmas, I was told not to go back till September. The school manager was very good then and organised for everything to be passed on, reallocated etc.

DD was a 'perfectly timed' academic baby, who arrived in September!! so I had the summer months to clear my desk (not really - but that's what I thought I had!!).

Thanks laura. I was very sick too (severe hyperemesis) and then the crutches/wheelchair was because of severe SPD (basically your pelvis comes apart). Both probably connected to excessive hormones so they said, or excessive sensitivity to them. I was so sick that I couldn't even retain my own saliva, let alone any food or fluid. I threw up so many times on an empty stomach that I tore my oesophagus. You can actually die quite quickly this way from dehydration, and women did so routinely before the invention of the IV - although it is a very rare condition it used to be the leading cause of maternal mortality in early pregnancy. So basically they just keep admitting you to hospital, hooking you up to an IV and pumping you full of drugs to try to stop the vomiting (with limited success in my case, even on the hardcore chemo antiemetics through the drip). It did improve after about sixteen weeks but I threw up all the way through - every day without exception until 26 weeks and then less often - and the nausea did not stop for a single minute until I had the baby. It took me a year to learn how to eat confidently again.

Actually on my first admission - the week after I missed my period! - the consultant was totally convinced it was twins because it is more common with them (two babies = more hormones) and he sent me for a scan to check; when I got back and said there was just one he said "nonsense, it's just too early to see the other baby" and booked me in to have it done again a fortnight later! But there really was only one. I shudder to think how ill I would be with actual twins, it is my worst nightmare. Not sure I could do it actually. They do terminate the pregnancy if they cannot stabilise you.

Lord knows why we are even contemplating doing it again. It's a funny thing, isn't it, how strong the urge is to have a(nother) baby?! If I had normal pregnancies I think I might even be tempted to have a few more but as it is I reckon we'll stop at two!