City lawyer with toddlers can't cope

[RosieIrene]

I work FT at a city firm and have two dd 1 and 3. Have a full time daily nanny but still can't cope. Work all day, come home and put kids to bed and work all evening to make billable target or have to go to client functions. So stressed out that on weekend just want to sit in garden with kids and do nothing. Can't sleep, can't talk to anyone. How do people manage?

I blardy love Paris

So when are you coming????

ok last time we went we had a great meal at a big old fashioned brasserie place, near Montmartre, great seafood, began with W?

Lemur - good to see you again, I remember your thread well. I think I may be able to guess which law firm you are/were at by the reference to the maternity coach!

I'm really pleased and heartened to see the changes you have made and I really hope it works for you. (Personally I think the 9-day fortnight is an excellent route: I've got a mate who does it and it really works for her). In an ideal world - or if we had another child - DH and I would both work a 9-day fortnight, not taking the same day off but just using the day to get all household matters sorted so each weekend would be completely for us and the DCs. By the way, I definitely think Monday is the best day to have off - no one really notices you are not there and work has not really had a chance to build up.

Hope your move works for you (not sure it is to my firm as i'm sceptical whether my firm would be called "family friendly" although it is certainly not one of the main offenders, and things are changing. But things change best when the likes of you and I change it from the inside, I think.

Good luck!

i'm going to Paris with baby and boyfriend staying acroos from parc de luxembourg - excited yes i am

I used to go to the City of London Parents at Work Group which was good because it was women in similar jobs with children, not women working 9 - 5 but the longer hours type of jobs.

Watch BBC2 Sunday 9pm Sex the City and Me on TV
www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/noise/?id=sex_city_me third pre-view item - it's dramatising of some real discrimination cases of women in the City although the trouble with these things is they make people think women are all discriminated against which isn't true.

Anchovy,

Thank you for your message - you were very supportive in January, and I am glad to say lots has changed since then. My nine day fortnight (with a Monday off) certainly helps. I think it is a really good idea, and I only heard about it from a friend who works in-house and all the lawyers there do it. That is how they run the legal team.

On the changing things from the inside, I agree, I thought about sticking it out and fighting, but things looked better elsewhere - my decision to change is 70% to do with my practice area, and only 30% to do with flexibility/people. The new firm looked at my current arrangements and said, yeah, that is no problem at all, and we can better them. I had fought tooth and nail for those arrangements at my current firm!

I suppose the thing I find sad about trying to have a good career in the city and be a good mum is that the flexible working thing is really so easy, and so successful with all the remote working technology that all city firms have these days, and yet there is still this fear of what it means professionally. It is so backward. I guess the next 10 years will be the flexible working years - companies will realise how easy it is, and how much happier their employees are if they feel they can be in control of their working situation. HSBC have just announced they are looking to sublet half their Canary Wharf office, and getting the equivalent number of their employees to work from home... it is in the Guardian today.

And they're trying to save a load of cash too. You then sometimes get people who really have completely unsuitable shared rented houses with half a bed room and no privacy desperate to rush into the office to share a desk when there is one desk left between 5 yearning for the days before hot desking etc.... but yes I'm sure more and more people will work from home. Save employers heating bills too - apparently it can be quite bad for the environment because instead of your house being powered down every day and that of 500 other staff in their homes and one office heated you have 500 homes churning out power all day long.

Xenia,
Its true - it is clearly cost driven rather than employee happiness driven, and what you say about heating homes at the employee's expense, rather than offices at the employer's expense is also true. But still, the idea that employers might start to see working from home as work that is as valid as being in the office, is a good thing, I think. Working from home is still the preserve of the bosses in most places, and seen as skiving in a lot of workplaces. Working from home is one of the easiest ways of making work easier for people who have kids and a long commute or restricted childcare arrangements. Obviously, the bosses of home working employees should be contributing to heating, lighting and also subsidising lunches!

Yes, once businesses' see the benefits of it they use it. Some people are born to skive though and only if they are right under the thumb of their boss 24/7 is their productivity any good at all. Just depends on the work. And some work can't be done at home because of its nature.

Also some working parents might actually prefer to get out - plenty of men and women go back to work because they want the company/social side.

Enid - Wepler?

thats the one

I have just read an article in the Times about weekend childcare. Apparently, Nichola Horlick has never missed a school play or sports day for any of her five children.... quite impressive really.

I read that too. I haven't missed one either. The point of the article was that they were saying people like her (and me I suppose) earn enough and have enough power to ensure we can choose to be with our children at weekends whereas given the Sunday Trading laws and how much we all like to shop etc at weekends think of the legions of people whose working week includes Sat and Sun. That more and more parents do work parts or all of the weekends and their days off might be Mon and Tuesday so it's not very fair on them and they are often at the bottom end of income levels already if childcare is denied them.

Punctuation please ma'am.

Except school plays aren't generally on a weekend.

Even harder if you're powerless at work to get time off for school plays etc unless you're in charge. I've blocked off part of a day in July, two actually for school things in the day, no problem and then I arrange everything else around that because no one tells me what to do. Many jobs you don't have that freedom. Actually if you have a baby it can be hard to attend too although the twins' school does put in creche to leave noisy littles ones in so you can watch in peace which is a great idea.

Well, working freelance for myself, whith dh doing the same, means we can attend anything we like. When I was working for someone else - at a pretty senior level- that would have been a nightmare.

RosieIrene - how are you??hope you are well, rested, and maybe feel bit more at peace

DEEP BREATH

No hasty decisions- take time consider your options

remember you area professionally qualified hard working woman - well done you

LLB (hons) LPC and traineeships - all bloody hard work

for what its worth i also veg out after week at work - we all do