Is it possible to have it all?

[Justthelifeofamum]

Hi all,

I’m a mum to a 3 year old and 8 month old…the dreaded return to work is looming.

To say I had a bad time returning from my previous maternity leave is an understatement. It was a sh*t show. I was trying to get a promotion so refused to work part time but instead condensed my hours to have a day off with my DC.

It was unworkable, I completely burnt out which honestly led to the decision to get pregnant again.

Now I feel like I have to make a decision to either take a significant step back in my career or barely see the kids mid week.

In my industry going part time holds a significant stigma, it’ll set my career back about 5 years, the pay cut is significant and I doubt I’ll get any promotions whilst part time. It’s a very male dominated sector.

Has anyone found anyway to balance both progressing a career and actually seeing your kids mid week without completely losing their mind?

TIA x

I feel pretty happy that I have a good balance. I’ve worked part time since having DC1, and have ramped up from 2.5 days a week to 4 days since returning from mat leave with DC2 3 years ago. I (mainly) love my job, have been promoted twice since having my kids, and have taken on more of a leadership role. I’m not at the peak of my career yet but I’m doing pretty well. Family support and a flexible employer have helped.

I felt like I had it all earning an ok salary working part time so I could have 4 days a week with dc. That's what I wanted at the time.

You can if you're in an industry that values the contribution of their highly skilled part-time professional working mothers.
The NHS runs on them, the midwife delivering your baby, the surgeon removing your appendix, the physiotherapist treating your bad back. All working part-time and at the top of their tree

Thanks all, it’s good to hear your perspective.

My partner is good and helps out, I think it’s the work situation which will be the hardest to juggle. Even working condensed hours I had to constantly fight the perspective that others thought that I was working part time.
But keeping up with the workload meant I was working 8am till 11pm every day (I’d take a couple of hours out to have tea with and put DC to bed)

I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and chose one over the other…I was just hoping someone had a magic formula I could follow to do both haha.

Thanks!

No you need other people to pick up where you can't. My friend has an impressive career earning ££££££ she has a dog walker and a cleaner. Her dh picks up a lot of the slack especially as she travels a lot (he also has a career but his is more 9-5) they have very supportive parents who helped out with childcare when kids were young. And paid a family friend to be a childminder for many years. She is extremely organised and always on the go she literally can't sit still. She loves it and thrives on it.

Nonsense. It is perfectly possible to balance both if you choose to do so.

I would add that I don't think condensed hours work from a perception pov. Everyone will know you don't work Friday, no-one will remember you did 12 hour days.

I work fewer hours over 5 days and I never hear about me being PT any more. I leave early for the school run but this appears to be more acceptable than having a whole day off. People are weird.

Not without support though.

No. You cannot have it all. At a push you come close to having it all with one child only.

Like childcare? Or do you mean other support?

I guess I do. kids are 12 and 15 and i've been back at work full time from 6months for each of them. DH has a flexible job and wfh so has done the majority of school pickups etc over the years. when the kids were under primary age, we had a nanny doing pickups. I also have a cleaner and a gardener and buy in help as needed. And, most importantly, my job has flexible hours and that lets me juggle things.

look for what flexiblity you can get in your industry. are their programs to promote women? do you have a mentor? ask for and take any help you can to get through the next few years and it will get much easier.

I tried part time and just ended up more stressed. The job doesn't shrink just because you fill in a form and at least now I get paid for the work.

I haven't found the whole solution yet but it became a lot easier when we had two parents around instead of one travelling with work, a nursery we could see from the front door, and local friends who would help out when we called them in a panic because we were stuck in traffic on the way home and would miss pickup by 0.3 seconds so get a huge fine. I suspect a really good nanny and cleaner would help but a bad cleaner definitely didn't.

Also look at changing jobs if it's that bad.

I've said this before on here but the phrase 'Having it All’ can just get in the bin. I absolutely can’t stand the way it is applied only to women (see ‘Man who has it all’ memes 😆).

I have a very senior job and two primary aged children. I work 4 days a week and DH also works 4 days a week in a less senior but more specialist job in a similar industry. Neither of our jobs are deemed more important than the other even though I am the higher earner.

We have no family help (live too far away) and DC went to a lovely nursery attached to their primary school 3 days a week from the age of one (I took 12 months mat leave both times and it did not damage my career). They now go to after school club for 2 hours 3 afternoons a week which they love. We have a cleaner for a few hours every two weeks but otherwise don’t ‘outsource’ any life tasks.

I don’t ‘have it all’, I just have my life, which works for me and my family. There is a middle ground with career and family and I find i see it most often when the father of the kids doesn’t just ''help out' or automatically assume that his job is the most important and therefore can not be flexible in any way.

No, but I think having one child rather than more helps, and for us we are lucky to have family help. We both work FT compressed, have a day each with DD. I got promoted shortly after returning from mat leave. I do what I can in the house on WFH day lunch breaks and nap times on days with DD, or DH and I take turns to watch her in the evening whilst the other cooks/ cleans. It’s exhausting, the nursery related sickness is debilitating, we have more processed meals than I’d like and the house is basically always a mess because it’s bottom of the pile, DH has a hobby but very little chill time and I have chill time but no real hobbies (except I like to go on walks which I do on lunch breaks). But overall it works and we get a lot of time with DD whilst still getting 2 FT wages. With two children I don’t think we’d manage.

This!
I dropped to sahm for 2 years then back ft for 2 but couldn't do it so pt now, much better!

You have to buy in a lot of help for it to really work. So nanny, cleaner, cook style meals.

You have to push back at work about hours/availability.

You have to have a decent husband.

You have to carve out time slots with your kids where you are 100% with them and not on your phone.

No, you can't. Something needs to give.

Yes and no. It depends what having it all means to you.

No, you can’t have it all.

Its a choice of spending lots of time with your children in the week, or working.

I suppose part time is the only option that allows for equal time between your children and your work so that may be considered as “having it all.”

I was full time when I returned to work after my first baby and I missed him terribly. It felt like I hardly saw him except a rushed hour in the morning and a rushed hour before bedtime.

When I had my second son I cut my hours
down to 25 which worked much better for me. Admittedly I missed out on about 3 opportunities for a promotion but I was ok with that.

When my youngest started school that’s when I started focusing on my career again.

I’m now not working for health reasons and although I miss my job, being able to spend so much more time with my children is really lovey.

I work more than full time in a stressful demanding job, also a male dominated industry. Also have trips away, sometimes for most of the week. Have two kids 8 and 5. My husband also works full time.

How it mostly works:
He's almost always WFH.
He does at least half of everything.
Kids are in after school club 3/4 days a week.
School is walking distance from the house.
I WFH around 2 days a week.
I stop from 5-8.30pm and then often work again.
We have a cleaner twice a week who also tidies up and sorts laundry etc
Grandparents pick up from school one day a week.
I do mostly control my diary which obviously helps a lot.
The house is fairly chaotic and we are crap at general life admin. We do not do very well at remembering which is reading day at school or whatever. The kids aren't doing lots of regular organised activities.

However, I have a very good well paid career and the kids seem totally fine and we have brilliant relationships with them. I often don't see them for lots of hours in the week but we do plenty at weekends.

I'm not saying things are easy but I personally would not have wanted to take a step back in my career to spend more time doing the school pick ups.

My mum also worked long hours, I was brought up with my dad doing just as much childcare so it was always my expectation.

I used to stress myself about my career and my income when my son was little, I'm pregnant with my second now.
Every time I stress myself and worry about it I remind myself no one will ever appreciate and love me like my babies and no one needs me more. The years of working will last forever the years with the babies are short and go by so fast.

I have a lower income now and just work from home on evenings when their dad is home and I don't regret it, don't get me wrong sometimes I'm envious of my parter when he's getting promoted, going out with work friends etc.. but I know in the future I will get it back, I'll never regret spending too much time with my little ones.

I totally disagree. Something has to give. When you say 'balance both', do you mean 'make compromises'?

I don't really feel that I had to make compromises, no. Maybe for a couple of years when I stayed a bit longer in a job than I would have done because the flexibility really worked for me, but it wasn't a big deal and it didn't hold me back in the end.

It probably helps that I only have one dc (secondary infertility rather than a compromise, though knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have it any other way). And it definitely helps that I chose roles which enabled me to be extremely flexible and that I had the skills/seniority to be able to negotiate what I needed. I don't take any of that for granted. I also had a husband who was willing to do his fair share. And I had lovely parents who were happy to help if needed, though we could have managed pretty easily without that.

We only used paid childcare in the pre-school years, when we had a wonderful nanny for 3 years who looked after dd for 4 hours a day. DH and I shared the rest of dd's care between us, both working FT but very flexibly - I worked in the mornings when the nanny was there and did the rest in the evenings when dd was asleep and DH was with her. I never saw the nanny as a compromise - quite the contrary, in fact, as she enriched dd's life in so many ways and she continues to be an important presence in her life 15 years since we ended the arrangement, despite us moving away from the area. DD started at school after we moved, and from that point onwards, it was easy enough for us to juggle the pick ups and drop offs between us. We did use the odd paid holiday club during school holidays, but tbh, we'd have ended up paying for that kind of thing anyway even if one of us was at home, because dd always loved to be busy and around new people.

I genuinely don't feel that I missed out on anything with dd. We are extremely close. I was there whenever she needed me, went to every school event, knew all of her friends, looked after her if she was poorly etc. We always had plenty of time together. She has a better relationship with me and her dad than many of her friends have with their parents and she is positively thriving as a young adult.

I don't really feel like I compromised on my career either. Yes, like I said, there were a couple of years when I stuck out one job that was probably past its sell-by-date because it worked for me at the time, but I am now at the top of my field in a job that I love and which I consider worthwhile.

I do appreciate that not everyone will have jobs that were as flexible as mine were - that's partly down to the choices that you make, though, and I was always mindful of the fact that I wanted a career that would be flexible. Also made choices to avoid a long commute etc.

I also appreciate that not everyone has the skills or the seniority that give them leverage to negotiate what they need. Again, that's partly down to the hard work that you put in before having dc which makes you valuable enough to your employer for them to want to accommodate you. I accept that natural ability etc will also play a part, but as an employer now, I know that I will bend over backwards to retain a really positive, hardworking can-do employee, and I will be far more accommodating to them than I would to a middle of the road employee who adds less value.

And of course, I appreciate that not everyone has a partner that pulls their weight. Some of that is down to choices and some of it is luck.

There are lots of other variables too. I'm not saying that everyone can balance both without making compromises. I completely recognise that circumstances might get in the way sometimes. People might end up as single parents. They might have dc with disabilities that make it hard for both parents to work. They might be stuck in low paid jobs that don't offer them any flexibility and/or don't pay enough for them to afford childcare etc. I understand that everyone's situation is different. However, that doesn't change the fact that many, many women are able to balance successful and rewarding careers with being fully involved hands-on parents to their dc. Personally, I am very happy that I have been able to model that balance for my own dc so that she doesn't feel that she is going to have to make sacrifices in the future.

Depends what you mean by "support".

It's certainly true that you can't do everything singlehandedly, but most children have 2 parents so that shouldn't be necessary in most cases.

It's also likely (though not inevitable) that you will need to use some paid childcare.

It is very helpful if you have supportive parents or other family members. My parents were great as it happens, but we could have comfortably managed without them (and did for the first 5 years until they moved to be near us).

And it's helpful if you can develop a supportive network of other working parents who will have your back if you get stuck.

No. Men shouldn't have it all either. We both went part time to look after kiddo. Careers get pushed back, but that's fine.