Help: FT lawyer having a horrible time (long...)

[lemur]

All advice on how to sort my working world out would be gratefully received... here is the thing:

I have a 9.5 month DD, in FT nursery care, a job in the City as a FT lawyer in private practice and two male partner bosses who just don't seem to realise the pressure that the above combination creates. It is Saturday night and I have just had huge row with monster of boss because I have to be in meetings tomorrow (Sunday, yes, I know it is the weekend) and I physically cannot be there as have to look after DD. DP cannot look after DD as he has football match to play(and does not want to be dictated to by my bosses) I have no handy relatives nearby who can look after DD and cannot leave DD with a friend as the meeting could go on indefinitely (i.e until Monday...).

And why am I even worrying about that level of detail, when the point is that the monster boss has, beyond saying "well you are the breadwinner so DP should sacrifice what he is doing" is also making me contact all my childless colleagues in a grovelling fashion to ask them to go to the meetings tomorrow, to punish me.

I am a lawyer and I know that somewhere in all of the S**T that is currently part of my working world, there is something breaching some of my employment rights, but I am not an employment lawyer. DP is away all next weekend and I am supposed to be working then too. I feel like just not bothering to go into work ever again.

DD had Chicken Pox just before Christmas, I had to be home with her for 7 working days and the matter ended up being referred to HR and me having to take unpaid leave because I came into work one day while DP looked after DD and so lost my right to any more emergency leave for the rest of the time DD was contagious (as was not an emergency as I knew she had CP!!!). This gives you a flavour of the way it works at the firm I work at.

I have only been back at work since the end of September 2006 and the gruelling routine of half an hour each way walk to nursery and then to work plus the working on work from 8pm until midnight plus the manipulative bosses (who had/have wives at home to look after kids) being totally unreasonable plus the fact my mum died a month before DD was born and I miss her all the time = I am somewhat losing the plot. That is a bit of an understatement.

So I guess the question is, do I just accept that you cannot do it all and find new, normal, job doing something that will never mean I have to work after 5.30 or weekends, or try and win against forces of chauvinism in the City of chauvinists?

Ideas welcome. Thank you.

I don't get the joke - I must be tired?

No we are tesaing silly jargon.
"Magic circle" bollocks.

meb, don't want to offend you. Find it increible you think women should be primay caregivers (if they work) though. Is this 2007? It's not the kind of women I know, women whose other havlves want to be as involved as Anchovy's. It reads more like 1880s Victoriana set up except you'd have had a load of cheap servants then so not really seen much of your babies anyway.

I think the assumption because you're female you will be the primary caregiver even if you work full time is the ROOT cause of women's work and domestic problems these days. I think largely there is not discrimination at work in most sectors and if you're good you do fine at work but if you see yourself as primary caregiver therein lie all your work and family problems. It's the inherent cause of teh difficulties you see women having time and again. What you need is equal care givers at home, not necessarily everyone doing the same tasks but dividing it fairly in a way you're happy with and that doesn't mean he gets home and puts his feet up and plays golf all weekend whilst you do 100% of the child care. Women who tolerate that sexism at home cause problems for their children, soceity and other women. I fell you almost have a moral duty if you work full time and are married not to end up being main care giver.

"I have always thought it very unfair on employers that they have these issues of children foisted on them. "

xenia - but surely this is part of the pact when an employer takes someone on? my boss offers me flexibility so that me/dh can share childcare when there's any sickness in the family (and during my father's recent illness and after his death) and I in turn am flexible for her eg changing my days when I returned to work after having my 2nd child so that I could be involved in certain projects (we're busier on certain days during the week). Part of the reason people who have families are valued is that they make good employees who are willing to reciprocate when they're given flexibility (but not take the piss) and the sooner employers wake up to this, the world will be a better, happier place (and - oooh - more productive)

Yes, but depends on the job I think. If it's on track for partnership at £500k - £1m a year or £20m bonuses then that's a very different thing from your average job.

I am always very accommodating to my cleaner/housekeeper about her famly arrangements and in return she's never off sick and always turns up and that's worked well for years. So I agree with that. In fact chidlren can help you at work. When I was 22 and married with a baby and working full time in the City I always found that was a wonderful connection with client - it gave me overlap and things to talk to them about which most 22 year olds don't have. I think it helped the employer and when I was being recruited when I had a baby somewhere else and then again when I was pregnant with no.3 I could say I have children already; the arrangements work. I'm not going to leave have a baby and then not be sure if I'm coming back. They could see that stability whereas hiring someone who might marry have chidlren and leave is in s a sense more of a risk than hiring a working parent with small children who is managing to work full time. People wtih children are less volatile. They don't decide to give it all up and go round the world. They have mortgages and school fees and they fit the conventional pattern so I agree they can make very good workers.

I think the emphasis you put on how much money they can earn, therefore how important their job is says a lot about you xenia.

when it comes to jobs like caring for an elderly person with dementia or checking whether heating systems in a building harbour legionnaire's disease, they may not be recognised for their importance financially, but are obviously crucial to people's lives/wellbeing. obviously they don't have the same kind of kudos. I think £20m bonuses are obscene and in no way indicate their worth/amount of hard work they've done to deserve it.

Oh right Xenia, so employers shouldn't hire women because they might go off and have children and that would be a WASTE because they might want to work flexibly? Why bother educating them at all hey?

I agree with bundle wrt value/cash.

Lemur, just to add to anchovy's very sensible comments, I am also an equity partner in a city law firm with 2 children under 5, but I also like my job and have always done so. If you don't like the job, it's hell.

I'd suggest you move firms, to a related field. A 2PQE is always welcome. Say you are becoming more specialist than you anticipated, and want to move to a smaller firm where you can do more generalist work. You have had valuable training, worked on top deals etc at your current firm but been pigeon-holed and do not feel you can shift to a different team. This will hold water at interview and is all you need to say.

I think you need to sort out the sleep issue.

If you need sensible advice - Fox Williams? They do a lot of this sort of stuff. Ask them, as someone else commented, whether any claim will eat up your life.

don't let the dinosaurs get you down! and good luck

xenia, given your strongly held views i take it you are not primary carer for your children and that your dh does at least 50% of the childcare??

I've tried to say people should do what works for them. Not enough full time working mothers poublicly say they like their work so I think that needs to be said quite loudly a lot particularly when every newspaper you ever see says all women want to work part time and not do the job they did before they had children. This is untrue so I think we should all who like work help to show the true picture, that's all, of women and men working full time with small children and that for them being the best thing.

cf, I have 3 children at university now but yes, before we married we talked about what we would do if we couldn't get childcare and he said he would if necessary give up work (as he would earn less) but it never came to that. However he was often home first as he finished work about 6 and we lived near his work so he was the one who mostly let the nanny go (she came each day) and although we had her in the school holidays too as he was a teacher he was around more so e.g for 17 years he did every dentists appointment and things like getting new shoes plus of course loads of day in day out cleaning. It was the usual two working parents sharing the home thing that mnay couples manage to achieve but not those who foolishly marry sexist pigs.

(I was divorced 3 years ago but I don't think that's very relevant except that I may have had to stay married had I not had the money to afford the divorce and had I not worked we would have been plunged into poverty etc by it)

you were lucky then..... what i have found is if both parents have full on / ft / demanding jobs..... either the children suffer or something has to give..... someone has to do the things your dh did while you worked all hours....

Don't you just buy in care and help though? I've found the more I earned the more attention and better care and more direct parental attention the children got because in my spare time I wasn't doing any cleaning or gardening or cooking or washing because I got someone to do all those direly awful dull jobs and instead the free time was time with them, not time dealing with the house so in a sense mothers on these high wages have a much easier time because they tend to have cleaners for a start. For example I got the nanny to go to the school uniform shop when the twins started school and she got all that stuff and then called through to me to pay by card by phone. Then we took the unifrom to someone who sews all the labels. I don't think I even drove it there. Wht I have always liked to do is be around a good few nights out of the 7 to tell stories and cuddle in bed and hear bed time school reading etc. With the second lot of children though I got the nanny after their tea to do hbathime and although I used to enjoy bathing the first 3 it was hard work day in day out after work and suddenly to have someone do all that and hand over the bathed chikdren you would didn't have to force into a bath, make wash, get teeth cleaned and instead take them ready washed and happy to be realease from that process etc to talk to you was easier.

Of course it's not easy for anyone with under 5s at all. I don't want to look back (and my eldest is 22) with any kind of rose tinted spectacles of course.

xenis, people earning the sort of sums you keep posting about in city jobs will be working hours that preclude them from being there for bedtime / stories etc more often than not. my point is that if you are both in demanding jobs your children are likely to miss out on these things (and you will mis out on them too) as neither parent will be available in this way. of course you can (and i did) pay others to do all sorts of things.... but imho what children really want is your time and attention and to know that you put their interests first...... "but darling if mummy comes home in time for bed she wont earn so much money to give you all these lovely things" dosent cut it with the under 5's (or 10's) imo..... and nor should it.

But I know women who earn those sums (and men) and they alternate with their husbands or take work home and you can't do that every day of course not (and I'm not sure I want to do bed time every night for 22 years anyway but that's a different issue) but to have a parent ther most nights, that is manageable. You buy a house near the City for example or several nights a week leave early. It's the money and power which can enable you to do that and even if you can't do it more than 2 nights a week you usually manage it at the weekends anyway.

Anyway it's good to see how other parents manage these things. And then you get to the stage where teenagers will barely grunt at you... I find you can get more out of some of them chatting to them in the same house on MSn than by real speech.

well the op doesnt have those options xenia..... hence her post and hence the thread....

xenia .i don't think you have told us what you do yet. i would love to know..

she said somewhere that she was an unemployed trucker..... bit i THINK she was joking.......
she won't tell us.
may have to guess..... maybe a milliner.... or a bovine dentist???

Hi,
This thread just keeps on going - its great, thank you for all the comments and support. If only reading it all were billable (haha). ..Anchovy, Fridayschild, thank you for the suggestions and advice.

Tigermoth and everyone else - on the issue of childless colleagues having to cover in various ways for parents also employed - it is of course horrible to know that happens sometimes. I feel awful about my colleague covering for me, of course I do. And as junior lawyers with kids are an exception, which means there are few role models for junior females in the law, such colleagues can't always look at the situation and say "that will be me one day and I hope that someone does that for me". I have been asked by practically every female trainee/vac scheme student I have spoken to since I returned to work whether working FT with a baby is manageable because I am about the only person in my situation I know. And the worst thing is I just give them a platitude about being organised...

But there is another question I have reading all of this. A lot of people have referred to the need for a DP/DH to offer support and be a team and help mumsnetters get enough work done but it is not the DH that is employed by the law firm/accountancy firm/IB/etc.etc. So when DH has a FT job of his own, the idea that he also somehow has indirect obligations to the mumsnetter's employer is difficult. It ties in with the point about a colleague covering for you because you have to be with the kid because the DH is off doing his own thing. At least the colleague is paid and employed by the law firm/IB etc. The DH isn't. I have really struggled with this this week, particularly when thinking about male colleagues with stay at home wives, who presumably stay at home more when there is more work to be done at their DH's office. I think it is a tricky question.

Hi Lemur, It must be so hard to be a pioneering an example of a junior female in the law working full time with young children. So different to the local goverment environment that I work in. No wonder other junior females are keen to ask you how you manage.

If you really are one of a very few, I think you have to look hard at other options. Can you really keep up the pace for the next few years? Your baby is only 9 months old so you have a long way to go before things ease off.

Would it be any good setting yourself a time limit?

I do not know how things work in your profession, but are you likely to have much more money (so you can move to a bigger home, hire a nanny, buy in more help) and more power (so you have a bit more control over the hours you work) in the short term future? Will the stress by less for you say, in 2 years time?

If the future is uncertain and the chances are you will be in much the same position in 2 or 3 years (so no big lifestyle change) then is what you are doing really the right thing for you?

I still think you are being a bit too kind to your dh. Of course he is busy in his own right, and not an employee of your company, and if his work commitments clash with yours then it's not fair if you company expect him to cover for you. But spending time in his own home with his baby is part of his leisure time IMO. Looking after another persons child is work for a nanny, but surely looking after your own child is not work, in the same sense, for a parent.

Lemur, I certainly agree with you there. Imagine if a mnetter said that her husband expected her to give up a netball match/booked gym session/you-name it on a Sunday because his work came first! We'd all be up in arms, wouldn't we? I certainly wouldn't do that for dh, and he wouldn't do it for me, nor would I expect him too. A planned arrangement every now and again is fine. Being told to drop something on your day off at short notice is not. In future, I'd tell your employers that DH is working on that Sunday too.

Many a time over 22 years my ex husband and I gave up things we'd do for pleasure to look after one of the 5 children because the other was working. It's something most parents do every week. The obligation to look afer our children is ours, not our employers. Is that a key issue here? It is in a sense nothing to od with the employer we have children or dogs or a garden to look after so of course it's our other half, if we're lucky enough to have one, who looks after the children if our work interferes. And looking after his children at weekenes is something most parents accepts usually takes up 100% of the weekend actually and hobbies got out of the window for 5 years for most people when they have little babies.

On the other post (and I hope lemur you don't mind my views on here ) when I was your kind of age there were two of us with small children - one male and one female (he was orthodox Jewish and had married young). I always compared myself to him. It seemed irrelevant 22 years ago he was male and I was female but it was helpful there was someone else having babies at my stage. If you don't have those examples it's harder. Most women I worked with waited another 10 years. Now I'm 45 it's huge fun having a 22 year old daughter and I'm glad I did it that way but it's isolating. My brother's baby is one. It is as if by having children at that earlier stage I put myself into a different category, out of sync with others who do my kind of work etc. I always made a point of talking and writing about having children and working for exactly the reasons you mention. At one stage I was in the City of London Parents at Work group and that was quite helpful beacuse we weren't ordinary working parents - We were those doing that kind of work, the long hours etc with children.

Anyway best of luck with it all. My teenagers by the way love it that I work,what I do, to talk about it (and I'm afraid sadly also to enjoy the economic fruits of it).

I guess yo both need to sit down and really talk about it. He must know the demands that are being put on you (still think you should speak to an employment lawyer) and together you need to come to a conclusion as to the best way forward.

I agree that when your DP or DH has a job that impacts on family life it is iritating. My DP works from home and it seems to me that he never quits. I do continue to do the lions share of the domestics and his job (or his attitude to his job) is largly responsible for this unfair division of domestic chores. I feel we need to sit down and talk about it and reach some conclusions and agreements but off course one of the problems is that you rarely have time or energy to do this.