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Original poster

How many of you returned to work after your 1st child thinking you could have it all, then realised the truth and...

163 replies

artichokes · 14/09/2007 21:32

...expedited getting pregnant again just so you could stop working?

I ask on 9.30pm on a Friday night as I finish catching-up on the work I could not finish this week because I had to pick DD up on time. Once I have finished with this thread I will go and pack my bag for my Sunday morning business flight that will take me away from my daughter for a week.

I never realised how hard juggeling work and family would be. DH and I have been discussing it all week and instead of leaving a three year gap we are going to try for a baby ASAP so that I can be at home again. If we are lucky enough to conceive I will take a career break after my maternity leave.

I know three others who are rushing their next pregnancies because working is too hard. Are there more out there?

OP posts:
LyraBelacqua · 15/09/2007 00:15

Some of my friends have had six months on full pay. Sadly not me.

MrsMarvel · 15/09/2007 00:32

So in the same way people used to accuse poor working class women of getting pregnant to get a council fact, rich middle class women are openly confessing to the fact that they are getting pregnant to get maternity pay!

mattersnot · 15/09/2007 00:57

Pinkveto yes we are working in a different NHS!
The flexible working arrangements are pants at the moment but slot shares are cheap.
You will manage fine you become superorganised and you get work done in half the time, there is simply no option for me to be late to pick up the dcs so I'm not, on the rare occasion it needs to happen I have collected them and sat them in my office (supervised of course) while I go and do whatever, or I have taken them home handed them over to dh and gone back in or I do it by phone. Xenia is right in your case your dh has to do his bit.
The main problems are tiredness (I find it difficult to be genuinely sympathetic to patients who tell me they are TATT) and lack of a decent enough salary to make the hours workable!! It would also be difficult with an unswappable rota/collegues who wont swap. Despite totally different frequencies if I could match lottery numbers as well as we can match on calls I would not be writing this! I have tried part time and went back to full time since it was so unsatisfying....

mezzer · 15/09/2007 03:52

I started back at work when dd was 3mo and I've been daydreaming ever since (she's 20mo) about ways to get by without having me work. That and wondering about whether or not to have a second... But, worried about the long-term consequences of dropping out of the workforce - what if I decide when all the babes are in school that I want to take up my career again...

At the end of the day, I should have married a rich man. Silly me, married for lurv.

Twiglett · 15/09/2007 09:48

By Xenia on Fri 14-Sep-07 21:46:59
Well yes, some people who can't cope with work wimp out and make babies instead, not an option most men are given. Being home can be the solution if people aren't very good at their work or fed up with it.

But most working women do a very good job and are happy to work and have children.

oh yes indeedy, I patently 'couldn't cope with work' having been in the industry for 13 years and board level for 4 years, running a company .. clearly I wimped out because I wasn't very good at my work

oh Xenia please try harder to be an obnoxious twerp voice of reason, your one-dimensionality point of view is rather dull

NadineBaggott · 15/09/2007 09:57

applause tut at Twiglett

Xenia, it's quite obvious, even to us dullard women, that some of your posts are blatantly trying to wind people up and get a reaction. Do give it a rest there's a dear

TheMadHouse · 15/09/2007 10:03

As as said earler in the tread I am a pleb with a sad job, who needed to give up work - oh yes. I actually love my job, but could not fulfil my requirements part time and wanted to spend time with my children now and then work once they are at school.

twinsetandpearls · 15/09/2007 10:03

I sometimes think my job is all too much and that i should just get pregnant to escape. I know lots of fellow teachers who started a family early so they could escape. I have to remind myself i would rather teach a day full of nightmare classes than have another baby.

seeker · 15/09/2007 10:09

I was a senior civil servant - and I left work two weeks before dd was born - saying cheerfully "See you all in three months" I had a nanny lined up and I was so sure I was going back that my job wasn't filled - it happened that I was going to be off in the quieter part of the year so there was a bit of juggling, a bit of temporary promotion..... 11 years later, I still haven't gone back! If anyone's interested in this scenarion, I am prepared to discuss it further - and explain why I don't think I'm a bad role model for my children!

mattersnot · 15/09/2007 10:40

of course you're not a bad role model seeker you just did what's right for you, problem comes when people can't take a rest/cut hours because it is just not possible in their career. Also for those who can't do so because of finances, admirable and sad for them it must be very hard to work full time with small children in a real low paid job or even shifts with children if low paid I know people who barely ever spend time as a family because of back to back shifts but they do it because they have to /need to etc and they deserve a lot of credit. Totally different from working with a full time nanny!!

kittylouise · 15/09/2007 10:54

It's all bloody exhausting sometimes, and I have convinced myself over the years that once my daughter got into senior school it would be somehow easier. But it is equally hard in a different way. Of course having one 11 year old is not as full on as having a babies and toddlers (god knows how you lot with more than one child cope).

I think I am just knackered at the moment, house got destroyed in the floods in the summer so am dealing with 6 insurance policies, living in temporary rented accomodation, doing DP's accounts, DP being ill with a mystery illness, DD just started senior school which she has found exhausting, supporting DD's mad activity-filled life, plus deadlines at work and requirements to go on 2 overseas trips for work in the next month. (Oh god, woe is me, shut up kitty).

I think Xenia made a very good point below, in that you simply cannot be a perfectionist, you just have to be content in all you do. Easier said than done, somehow I think I should be making my own bread/have an imaculate house/work 65 hours a week to make sure everything is faultless. That way a nervous breakdown lies.

Gobbledigook · 15/09/2007 10:58

I loved my job, I loved the money and I was bloody good at it but not as much as I love seeing my children every day - talking to them, laughing with them, wondering in amazement at them. There's nothing better - no job comes close. When I was coming home at well past 6 and seeing ds for all of half an hour I just thought 'what's the bloody point?'.

Original poster
artichokes · 15/09/2007 14:35

Just came back to this. I was joking when I said I dream about 6 kids and never going back. I actually agree with something Xenia said below - some women give it all up and then when their kids are teens they regret it and their lives are empty. I know some mothers who did that and it made their kid's teengage years very hard because the mother's couldn't let their children go. I hope I never do that to my DD (and any future children). I will keep my career going somehow so that my kids are not my only reason for being.

Like Seeker I am a senior civil servant. My Dept give 6 months full pay maternity leave and offer a 5 year career break. I know I should count myself very lucky as this gives me the flexibility to exit the workforce for a couple of years, have my kids close together, then return when they are a bit older. By that point maybe, just maybe, we will be able to afford a nanny.

IMO women like Xenia only cope because they have live-in help. Those of us who cannot (yet) afford nannies are at a major disadvantage if we want to "have it all".

OP posts:
WideWebWitch · 15/09/2007 14:57

I've only skimmed the thread but I think it can work, being a ft working parent and being happy but there do have to be certain conditions imo and e: things like both partners have to pull their weight, you might have to lower your standards, you need a certain amount of help with housework/shopping/chores because you're just not there to do them. And you need to be completely happy with your childcare arrangements and have back up plans and back up plans for the backup plans.

I think we've got a reasonable balance atm. I went back to work ft oth after having ds, nearly 10 years ago and then decided I'd be a sahm, so was one for nearly 4 years. I wish I hadn't done it tbh, the professional and financial loss wasn't worth it, given that I spent a portion of it disliking it. But hey, hindsight's wonderful isn't it?

I went back to work when dd (now nearly 4) was 4 months old and it was 100% the right thing to do. I liked working, we needed the money, dh did a stint as a sahd, it was right for us.

Now we both work ft oth, have a decent income, I work compressed hours so am paid for a ft week although I have Fridays off (I work 35 hrs during Monday to Thurs) and both children are at nursery/breakfast/afterschool club for those 4 days I work.

Artichoke, I think it takes some getting used to but I do think it's possible to be happy at work and home and do both well enough for everyone to be happy. How old is your child? I Think everything's harder when they're v small and you're struggling with being a new parent and potentially not getting enough sleep too

WideWebWitch · 15/09/2007 14:57

Btw, Artichoke, I don't have a nanny, we use a nursery adn a breakfast/afterschool club.

Cammelia · 15/09/2007 15:02

Your dd is never nearly 4 www

I'm [shocked] that I'm asking about parties for 11 year olds

WideWebWitch · 15/09/2007 15:04

Cam, she is, end of November, less than 2 months away, I'm a bit ed too!

WideWebWitch · 15/09/2007 15:04

Sorry, it's more than 2 months away but only just!

puffylovett · 15/09/2007 15:19

i'm not even back yet and already thinking what a gresat idea !!

unfortunately dp disagrees

moondog · 15/09/2007 16:54

I work full time,do an MSc,run a p/t business and look after my kids with no help (apart from child care while I am at work and occasional babysitter.) My family and dh are all abroad for up to 6 weeks at a time.

My house is tidy,I cook,I exercise and I do plenty with my kids. It's hard but not impossible.All it needs is organisation.

fillyjonk · 15/09/2007 17:40

oh lol at some of the comments, esp xenias.

Go back to work because a. you love it or b. you need the money

but ffs, don't go back because otherwise, when your kid is a teenager, you might turn into Amanda Wingfield or something. If THAT is your concern, use the time at home profitably. Take up a hobby, ballroom dancing or volunteering with the poor and needy or something.

Or just learn to chill a little. There is so much more to life than work, and one of the great things about being a SAHM is getting the chance to step off the treadmill and see that.

fillyjonk · 15/09/2007 17:41
ElenyaTuesday · 15/09/2007 18:20

I'm definitely with you on this one, WWW. I went back to work f/t after ds1, then p/t after ds2, then was a SAHM for 3 years. Now I work f/t again.

For me the financial loss and the damage to my career was very real. I now earn about half what I did before I gave up work. Plus, truthfully, I hated being a SAHM. Reading all these posts from women who loved being at home with their children makes me wonder what was wrong with me!!!!

WideWebWitch · 15/09/2007 18:36

Hi Elenya, I earn more now than I did before BUT I think a) I've been lucky and b) it's not as much as it would have been had I not had children/time out - I would def have progressed and been much more senior than I am now. But I do like working.

Neverenough · 15/09/2007 18:41

I have constantly sought the right work-life balance for me and my family. Still haven't found it now, though it's as good as it's ever been. And no, I can't have it all-I have to make some sacrifices in my career (I jobshare, hate it as am v territorial about my patients-GP) and also at home-I can only manage with a nanny as my days are long and so some days I don't see my younger DD-but that's only 2 days a week now. When they are older I will may be go back to 3 days or 4 for job satisfaction .
I would not like to be a SAHM for many reasons, I found being at home with them hard, socially isolating(though I had just moved countries so that didn't help)and it's hard to return to medicine when you have had a career break, never more so as all funding has been cancelled.
And also I basically enjoy my job, have the respect and status of a profession and feel that I provide a good role model for my DDs.
Now I know some of you will not like that-I am not slagging off SAHMs at all, just saying it's not for me and I am thankful that I had the opportunities I did and a mother who wanted to see her daughter never be dependent on anyone else.
I am also thankful that my DH is happy whether I work or not and does his bit to help.
Phew, my longest post so far! Apologies if I'm waffling but this is a subject close to my heart.

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