How hard is it to go back to work after being SAHM?

[FrozenMargarita17]

I wasn't sure where to post this.

I went back to work last week. I am currently working 3 days a week and after childcare I'm left with nothing really at the end of the month. My Dh pays all household bills/insurance/mortgage etc. Our plan is to move out of the area we are in and I will stay at home with dd(1) until she goes to nursery. We would be financially better off even without me working.

I am a PA at the moment. I've worked my way up to this from being a GP receptionist 6 years ago. I am also (potentially) going to be stepping up to office manager for approximately 3 months.

I guess I'm just wondering if doing this is a huge mistake. I don't want to work for nothing, and miss out on dd. But I also don't want to be unable to resume working when she's big enough. Either way, we will still be moving.

For full disclosure. I won't be having any more children. I had horrible PND for the first 6-7 months of dds life and I feel like I missed out.

Hopeful bump

I wouldn't advise stopping work! Its so much better if you can continue to work, even just part time. Its not just loss of earnings, but loss of promotion, loss of pension contributions etc

Also, isn't it more logical to just split all bills between both of you? You are only responsible for half the childcare!

I'm currently a SAHM and going back to work two days a week in September, I'm going to work as a learning support in a school yet I'm a fully qualified teacher, the reasons behind this are to limit my working hours to the ones in there for and also in part to rebuild my confidence/ upskill myself to return to teaching when my dc are older. Knowing what I know now, if I could have carried on working part time and had really good childcare I would have done (I did try to work two days a week- the company I was working for said no) I've loved being at home and wouldn't change that, but going back is harder than I thought.

I think leaving with office manager on your cv is well worth it, try to pursue that as long as possible as it makes you much more appealing later on.

As for working / not working, honestly in the great scheme of life it’s the shortest time ever so don’t worry if you don’t have to. You can easily leave work to be at home for a year or two whilst putting out feelers or expanding your network in order to find ideal job when time is right. It sounds like you have v transferrable skills so don’t limit yourself to one job as you feel it’s your only option. As for splitting costs, if you see it that way any childcare costs should be proportionate to income, as could chores / at home childcare be ideally.... but sadly life isn’t quite that linear so you both need to be more flexible in mindset

Actually put more bluntly, imagine your 70y old self reflecting on your life...

Do you want to be part of your children’s early years? Yes by sound of it

Do you want to be SAHM forever? No by sound if it

Do you have to work for financial reasons? No by sound of it

Answer: take some time out (or reduce hours) and enjoy your kids whist they’re little

Thank you all.

With regards to splitting bills etc my husband earns 3-4x what I do and pays his proportion of the bills. There's no way I could afford to split it half and half. It just works out that childcare would be the amount I could afford to pay with my salary and so to make it easier I pay that and my own bills (a catalogue and a £10 a month phone).

I'll need to find a new job (if I'm going to carry on working) when we move anyway so in a way it's good that I'll have office manager on my CV and hopefully can go back with that on there.

I do want to work. But I also don't want to sacrifice time with my dd when I've already had such a terrible time of it. I feel like I wasted half a year because I was such a mess.

I'm so torn.

I'm reassured by all your replies.

Dazzling that's exactly what I keep thinking. Will I regret not being there, yes.

And my skills are definitely transferable, I've not found it too difficult after being off for just over a year so I would hope that I could go back when she's a bit bigger.

Do you want to be part of your children’s early years?

Er - well she is / will be either way. What an odd thing to write - almost as if you were suggesting that a parent who WOTH isn't part of their dcs' lives ??? How ridiculous.

If you are lucky enough to be able to get a similarly challening and interesting job, working 3 days a week, then, IMO, it is the perfect balance. When you are at work, you don't realise how often there are small changes, which you absorb, as part of your working life. Once you aren't there, those changes build and build, and your skill set soon becomes rusty and / or outdated. By working 3 days, that means you still get to spend full days with your dc for the majority of the week, and you maintain your skills. You are also in a better position for continued promotion, and of course you are contributing to your pension as well as the household finances.

If you really want to stay at home then I say go for it. You skills will still be there but your children do grow up. There are also lots of work from home opportunities that you could do which would ensure that you didn’t have a gap on your CV which you can work around your family. I went back to work part time after my children and am always feeling like I’m missing out (we couldn’t afford for me not to go back though) I started my own business from home which I have ran alongside my part time job but my plan now is to grow it so that I can quit my part time job and just run my own business flexibly around my kids. Would that be an option for you?

Here's my take on it (SAHM here). I'll start by stating the bleeding obvious: you have finite time. You can only do one thing at a time (as in you can't be in two places at once) and when that time is gone, it's gone. And you will never know how things would have been different if you'd done something else. This is true of all areas of life.

As with all other areas of life, things aren't black and white. There are pros and cons to every decision. If you go back to work, as others have said, the pros are that you will earn money/pension, gain/retain skills and continue in an adult environment. If you stay at home with your children, then the pros are you get to spend the maximum amount of time with your children when they require intensive input and they get to spend all their time with a parent and not with an employee of some sort. If you do one, you don't get to do the other.

How difficult is it to go back to work? How long is a piece of string? Depends what you do/did. Depends on the industry. I used to work in the City, so it's very difficult unless I decided to try for one of those returnships. My friend is a primary school teacher and found it quite easy. If you're the prime minister of New Zealand, then probably straight away or never. In your case, with a general admin background, I suspect that you wouldn't find it that difficult, although you would have to accept that you might need t do a bit of reskilling/training (things move on) and you'd probably get a lower paid job than you have now.

Have a think about what's most important to you. Think through the pros and cons, being realistic that there are both with any decision you make. And then own that decision, enjoying the pros and trying to mitigate the cons as best you can.

I was a legal PA (glorified secretary) with a year of teaching at some point. I stayed home for years at a time when my three DC needed me there. Never had any problem getting a job when I returned to work after time away. I enjoyed working as much as I enjoyed being a SAHM.