Page 4 | Mom vs career-woman - advice needed

sonta8 · 2023-05-21T11:07:05+00:00

Heyy, All moms here who are working in highly competitive and intense jobs - how did you manage the change from career women to career women + mom? We are trying to conceive now. I find it hard to reconcile that I am adding another priority in life apart from my career goals. It’s quite scary. I am worried I won’t be as ambitious anymore or will resent having a baby if my career starts suffering. I do really want to have a baby. But, can I still dream of being super successful in my career or I am making a choice to let that dream go? It would be great to hear your experiences. How did you manage it all?

Original poster

sonta8 · 24/05/2023 13:44

TheMoops · 22/05/2023 11:17

My career has soared since having DS. In fact, I'm more career focussed than ever. Things that I think are important are:

Ensuring that both our careers are valued equally. My DH doesn't get a free pass just because he earns more.
We share school drop offs/pick ups, sick days, etc
Flexible working for both of us not just me. DH needs to be clear at work that he has childcare responsibilities - it can be more challenging for men to push back on this because society expects women to pickup the slack

Thanks for sharing! That's awesome that you have become more career-focused. Feeling hopeful for myself 🙂

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Original poster

sonta8 · 24/05/2023 13:49

Ecclescakeyum · 24/05/2023 09:00

Also, be realistic. Younger kids are easier to ‘manage’. End to end childcare. Once at school, their days are shorter and they have school holidays.

The older they get, the more driving around they need. Three nights a week I’m in various car parks picking up and dropping off. often I’ve no choice but to kill the 90 minutes or so.
The more kids the less post-work feet up time. Also, your income requirements go up. energy levels go down.

I didn’t expect for my husband, now ex to decide to simply give up work at 40. Who thought I needed to factor this in?!

I didn’t expect to be diagnosed with a chronic illness. Then there’s the menopause. The gifts keep coming!

For me, work gives me a purpose. Also, if I’d not continued working snd built my career, my kids would have been buggered. They 100% rely on me financially and 99% physically and emotionally.

My career keeps me, me and not someone’s mum. Not someone actually concerned about school cake stalls. It keeps me learning about the world, through integrating with colleagues.

We’re just going through the last GCSEs process. To help your kids with these you need to have an active mind. I’d not have this as a stay at home mum. I, personally, would have rotted. I’d also wonder why I went through the efforts to do well at school and uni to then while away my days. There are lots of mums where I live who had the best educations money can buy, doors opened to good career opportunities and now the reason for being is to raise “warrior, pioneer” daughter/women. To repeat the cycle?!

You’re in the for the long haul.

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Thanks @Ecclescakeyum ! Do you live in London? Does the driving around get better in the city with public transport? Or kids still need someone to accompany them?

P.S. I live in Central London where its impossible to drive a car 😒

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Coaltitmum · 24/05/2023 13:49

Aw this thread has made me cry a bit. I've been made redundant and the job market is dead. So I'm accidentally a SAHM while DC are at school. I feel so lost and isolated and I'm scared about the gap on my CV 😭

Original poster

sonta8 · 24/05/2023 14:09

Fleur405 · 24/05/2023 09:44

I’m a senior lawyer in a corporate firm. The juggle is hard but I actually feel like being a mum has made me better at my job. When you’ve had a tiny little newborn all hooked up to ventilators in the NICU it sure gives you perspective on what’s really important/ urgent /an emergency. Also I wouldn’t say I was a time waster before but I am much more efficient these days because I know I have to leave for nursery pick up (on the days my OH can’t). You just have to be focused on what your objectives are and work towards them - but also be clear with yourself and your employer as to what your boundaries are. For me a I have a great partner and we really do split everything (except cooking - he does most of that!)

I am just about to start a new job and told them at the interview that my OH often works away and when he does I will have to leave at 5 sharp every day (I’ll log back on after bedtime when I have to but I don’t want to be doing that everyday)) and if that was going to be a problem I’d rather they just told me there and then.

TBH I think working makes me a better mum too. I love my DD and I love spending time with her. But spending all day every day singing songs and dealing with the torrent of chaos she leaves in her wake is not for me! I am very strict though about having time with her before and after nursery when the work phone is ignored and I sort out bags/clothes/breakfast/evening snacks for the next day every evening so that we can spend quality time with together.

That's amazing! And being a lawyer is quite an intense role. I think I am comparatively in a more relaxed profession. I work in tech. Thanks for sharing ❤

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Original poster

sonta8 · 24/05/2023 14:13

A1b2c3d4e5f6g7 · 24/05/2023 09:58

It's tricky. I'm still in the full time childcare stage, so I haven't had the tricky school drop offs and pick ups etc. However we both have big careers on six figures, and we split everything - pick ups, drop offs, sick leave etc. A lot is arranging our diaries and meetings etc to work around each other.

I'm still ambitious, I got a 50% pay rise after mat leave. However there is a limit to what I want to do now. I only accept evening invitations if it's an important client. I only go away on trips where it's really necessary, rather than saying yes to everything like before. If it's me picking up from nursery, I have to leave at 5pm on the dot so I don't pitch in for extra work unless it's really urgent. I'm still meeting my income targets but I have had to (and want to) take a back seat on the other stuff. I have two hours with him in the morning before daycare, and whoever does the pick up has two hours with him in the evening with the other getting in before bedtime. I wouldn't want less, neither would my partner, so I'm prepared to compromise.

Best thing we did I think was Shared Parental Leave. Both got full pay for our leave, but more importantly it set an expectation that parenting would be shared. We both loved our leave. It also meant less time out of the office for either of us. I still exclusively breastfed for a year, and he is really attached to me. Nursery call either of us interchangeably if something happens or he gets ill.

My priorities have changed, but I still want to maintain my career, and that hasn't changed

Shared parental leave is a great tip! When did you get back to the office? Do you feel you were recovered enough to get back to work and was it hard to be in office so soon?

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Original poster

sonta8 · 24/05/2023 14:16

Vermin · 24/05/2023 10:31

you need an excellent nanny. Nursery will not work. Your nanny will do a lot of the home tasks (baby bed linen / laundry/ doctors appointments/ buying birthday presents to take to parties etc) which doesn’t happen with a nursery, and with the kind of jobs you describe, taking time off for every doctor appointment (there are many of them for little kids) just isn’t feasible. One of you will need to leave home late enough to do the nanny handover somewhere around 7.30/ 8 & the other will do pickup- split those days so one of you isn’t always in late / leaving early.

Thanks @Vermin ! How much do nannies cost though? My understanding was it is lot higher than nurseries? Nurseries already cost £2000+ per month in my area 😓

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Original poster

sonta8 · 24/05/2023 14:18

Brefugee · 24/05/2023 12:58

Sorry OP first thing i am going to take you to task for your thread title. It can be both it need not be either or.
Switch Mum for dad and think how bloody ridiculous the question is.

Outside of that? Try to think realistically about how you and your partner can make adjustments to your (working) lives so that you can accommodate first a baby, then a small child and so on. Babies are relatively time-intensive but fairly easy compared to toddlers and so on. Be realistic. Make sure your partner is fully on board that you will not be the only one making sacrifices. Be realistic about, say, both dropping a day, him taking proper paternity leave (not just a 2 week jolly while you are post partum - proper parental leave when you go back to work) and so on.

It is hard. It can feel insurmountable. But in the end with your career not stalled, your pension not non-existant and with an empty nest you have nothing to do... it will be worth it.

And be prepared for both of you to constantly re-evaluate where and what the priorities are. Sometimes you may want to concentrate a bit more on your career - will he step up and be supportive? Can you promise, and mean it, to do the same for him?

Thanks a lot @Brefugee ! Makes perfect sense! Re-evaluating priorities is a great idea! I will keep that in mind.

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Vermin · 24/05/2023 14:22

nanny salaries vary depending on location and hours. They’re more than nursery but you will have cover when your child is ill and have a lot of the child related domestic stuff done for you. It’s simply the best way to spend your money if you seriously want to maintain 2x high flying careers- and with 2 such careers you should be able to afford it. Rough guide - £34k gross plus expenses, more in London and more if you need extended hours. And obviously it’s paid out of both your salaries.

SouthLondonMum22 · 24/05/2023 14:27

sonta8 · 24/05/2023 13:33

Thanks @SouthLondonMum22 ! What were the timings for the full-time nursery? I assume before you go to office and then pick them up on the way back?

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7-6. He is never there as early as 7 or as late as 6 though, always home in time for his bath at 6!

This is where having flexibility really helps. I now work from home more than I'm in the office and his nursery is just a short walk away, if I do have to be in the office for whatever reason then DH will be the one to work from home and pick him up.

Saschka · 24/05/2023 14:28

SouthLondonMum22 · 21/05/2023 17:39

I grew up with a SAHM and went back to work full time when my baby was 12 weeks.

It happens both ways.

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Same, DM was a SAHM and regretted every day that she had given up her career. She went back into PT entry-level work when we were in school, but never regained her seniority, resented my dad’s glittering career, and was determined I wouldn’t make the mistake she had.

OP, it depends on your sector. I’m in medicine, where you are deemed “junior” until your late 30s, so don’t need to worry about credibility or being sidelined. I worked part time until DS was 4, which I loved, and still have a lot of flexibility around my hours.

I do the school run 3 days a week, get to take DS to afterschool clubs a couple of nights a week, and spend most weekends with him. I do pull very long 12-14hr days the other two days of the week, and often work weekend evenings to keep up. But it is worth it to me to spend the time with DS - as somebody said, you don’t get the time back. But I’m very successful in my career, have literally achieved every goal I wanted to.

Saschka · 24/05/2023 14:39

Correlation · 24/05/2023 12:48

@SaladRooney why do you think it was “wasting her potential” for your mother to stay at home and look after her children? I think it is a very important and highly skilled job.

My DM found it boring, lonely drudgery. She did it for 9 years, and bitterly regretted it. Much happier when she was back in a PT job, “using her mind”, as she put it (it was a finance job, she likes problem-solving and maths).

Didn’t help that my DF literally thought moving a plate off the table onto the draining board was beneath him, and expected DM to wait on him hand and foot. But that is the risk as a SAHM, literally all the housework falls to you while the WOHP comes home from work and sits on the sofa all evening.

I enjoyed maternity leave, but DH stopped doing any housework whatsoever while I was off - he didn’t have the shitty attitude DF had, but I could see where that was heading. And once your children are in school, being a SAHP must be pretty boring.

jojobud · 24/05/2023 15:19

I think it depends on the support you have wider around you, i went back full time when my child was 3 months old, was in childcare 7-6, but her nan would have her if she was ill, my employer wasn't flexible back in those days, so i did miss out on school plays and award ceremonies at primary school age but her nan would be at every one of them and once she started school nan would take her every morning, pick her up after school, feed bathe her etc, so when i picked her up we had that time with no jobs needing doing. Her dad was unhelpful and we split when she was very young so it all fell to me, but i wanted my child to grow up seeing a woman can work full time and financially being a single parent with a mortgage with no contribution from the father i had no option but to work full time. As an adult now she has a great relationship with her nan, she has a successful job and puts that down to me working so hard she aspired to do the same, she doesn't feel she missed out on time with me we can have more of that now, where as her nan is now elderly and frail and she wouldn't get to do the things she did with nan now what she did then. Without her nan's support and her nan giving up her own early retirement to help me out i wouldn't of been able to have done it, so support is the key.

A1b2c3d4e5f6g7 · 24/05/2023 15:58

@sonta8 re: the shared leave, I took eight months and he took five. We did it in blocks and also overlapped for a couple of months and went travelling. I was fine being back in the office when he was with his Dad, and I was only in for two days a week, with the other three days working from home. Putting him in childcare was harder emotionally at nine months, but actually they're so fantastic there and do so much with them that he loves it. Even with us getting out to baby classes, swimming, lots of walks etc, it's nothing compared to all the activities nursery does.

Physically I felt fine to be at work. They set me up a pumping room with a nice comfy chair so I'd do that 2-3 x a day.

To be honest lots of my friends did shared leave also, and a lot of my antenatal group (London) so it wasn't a weird thing for me

legalalien · 24/05/2023 16:36

Hardbackwriter · 21/05/2023 16:07

I also really worried that I wouldn't be so ambitious and focused after having children. But in hindsight I can't work out why I couldn't understand that if my mindset changed then inherently I wouldn't be sad about that because what I wanted would have changed. I guess it was a fear of being 'boring', and an internalized misogyny - I didn't want to be one of those women who stepped back after kids.

My attitude to work did really change after children. I ended up leaving a career that at one point was my whole focus and identity in life. 25 year old me would be horrified. But I'm much happier overall than she was, and I think she was a bit stupid to put so much into a job that, as it turned out, did not love her back.

You may or may not feel like that. If you want to keep going exactly as you were pre-kids that will be possible if you can afford the childcare to support it.

Exactly this. I went back to work after nine months maternity leave, DH had a work intensive job as well, we could afford to outsource a lot of the childcare but it turned out that when push came to shove having a more hands on parenting role/ physically being there for my children for a large percentage of time was more important to me. I think it could have worked if I hadn’t felt that way,
I’ve seen others manage but I think you need to be prepared to throw full time nanny amounts of dosh at it, unless you have supportive/ available family nearby to pick up the slack in times of emergency / when nanny is ill etc etc. Also need to consider weekends and holidays - we were both in jobs where you were expected to work weekends and cancel holidays on a regular basis and a full time nanny will generally not be on board with that.

Ecclescakeyum · 25/05/2023 22:32

sonta8 · 24/05/2023 13:49

Thanks @Ecclescakeyum ! Do you live in London? Does the driving around get better in the city with public transport? Or kids still need someone to accompany them?

P.S. I live in Central London where its impossible to drive a car 😒

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No. I live at the end of one of the rune lines. We moved out when children young. It’s for you to decide when you think it’s right for your kids to travel on the Tube alone. Hockey clubs, for example, aren’t conveniently positioned by Tube stops. L

Hardbackwriter · 26/05/2023 05:37

legalalien · 24/05/2023 16:36

Exactly this. I went back to work after nine months maternity leave, DH had a work intensive job as well, we could afford to outsource a lot of the childcare but it turned out that when push came to shove having a more hands on parenting role/ physically being there for my children for a large percentage of time was more important to me. I think it could have worked if I hadn’t felt that way,
I’ve seen others manage but I think you need to be prepared to throw full time nanny amounts of dosh at it, unless you have supportive/ available family nearby to pick up the slack in times of emergency / when nanny is ill etc etc. Also need to consider weekends and holidays - we were both in jobs where you were expected to work weekends and cancel holidays on a regular basis and a full time nanny will generally not be on board with that.

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And that's assuming that you have full-time nanny dosh to throw at it. I guess there's an assumption in the thread that being career-minded is synonymous with being high-paid. The career that I loved then walked away from was being an academic - I wasn't making nanny money and actually one of the things I couldn't make work about it was that I wasn't on a secure, permanent contract and we kept having to move around geographically (and I had to travel a lot to do my research). Throwing money at the problem wasn't an option. The way a lot of female academics square this circle is just to have babies much later than I did - I didn't want that and turns out it was lucky I didn't try because I did start trying to conceive just before I turned 30 and it took two years and three miscarriages so I'm not sure it was an option I really had to wait until my late 30s.

To be clear, I didn't give up working. My 'stepping back' means that I actually earn more now, have more day-to-day responsibility but my job now isn't an all-consuming passion and part of my identity that my academic work was before DS. I work four days a week and so does DH. I guess what I'm saying is that there's lots of ways to reconfigure what you want post-children if that is indeed what you want. It isn't a choice between continuing exactly as you were or becoming a SAHM for 10 years - they're both legitimate options but not the only ones. I know a lot of women (and a couple of men) who have gone freelance to gain flexibility, for instance.

SaladRooney · 26/05/2023 17:15

Good post, @Hardbackwriter -- important to say this.

Can I ask what you stepped out of academia into, if it's not too outing? I quit my permanent job for life-related reasons just before Covid, and have just finished a fixed-term contract, having decided that I'm not moving the family again to a new place for a new academic job, that work is going to have to work for me for a few years, and to be local to here. So am casting about me for congenial other options...

jennymac31 · 27/05/2023 08:49

@Coaltitmum - you might want to set up your own thread for support but I wondered what field or area were you working in?

YukoandHiro · 27/05/2023 09:01

The thing that most women (including me!) underestimate is how physical being a mother is beyond birth and recovery. Sleepless nights, breastfeeding, being up with them when they're ill. Plus there's all the additional physical work to do around the house (loads of extra washing, cleaning, food prep etc). Basically you sometimes have to slow down at work for a couple of years to stop yourself physically coming undone.

For me I survived after my second by becoming self employed.

jennymac31 · 27/05/2023 09:52

@sonta8 - completely agree with pp that you need a really supportive partner and good childcare. That said, there will be hard times to push through especially when priorities change.

I went back to work FT after 9 months mat leave with both my kids and whilst I did more of the nursery drop-offs / pick-ups, my husband did more of the housework and cooking. Since the kids have been at school, it's been a bit easier but that's because their school is close to both my office and DH's office plus the breakfast club and after school club facilities are always available, if needed.

I got a new role a year after returning from my 1st mat leave and whilst I did enjoy the work, the travelling away was getting too much and was impacting my DH's job as he would have to switch shifts to cover the times when I had to go away last minute. I moved roles but ended up getting a promotion doing the identical job but without the travelling.

My DH has always known that I'm ambitious and want to progress in my career (work in financial services) but there have been times that i've not applied for certain roles due to the travel commitment required. The pandemic, however, has now made a lot of these role more remote-based.

I got my next promotion during the pandemic but happened at the same time my DH's team was disbanded and he got moved to another team. It's been tough couple of years but we've supported each other throughout and i think we've turned a corner.

I would say that the key to success is a supportive partner who doesn't take advantage of you but that you too treat them in the manner.