Is working full time harming my kids?

[Jraven]

Ok as if I don't feel guilty enough for working, there's a study out today published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which says that working full time while your kids are pre-school increases their chances of psychological stress, unemployment and doing less well at A level. What should we do - all pack it in? Where are these mythical part-time, flexi-hour jobs that we have be promised so long? Is the government's policy of getting mothers back to work all wrong?

Hi Alison222, Pamina and Sassy, at the risk of boring all the non bean counters out there, here is a brief overview of how I went about it. I am a CIMA qualified accountant so don't have an audit certificate or anything else so mainly work doing management accounts and Treasury work. I set up with my husband (he's in the IT industry) and we have a Limited Company which we invoices clients out of. (Need multiple clients to avoid the dreaded IR35 tax). I was really lucky with my main client he advertised in the local paper for a part time accountant to support his growing business. Initially he wanted to take me on as an employee but agreed to me invoicing him instead. I then get other mainly bookeeping work passed on to me from by the Chartered Accountant we used to set up our company for us as he often gets asked by his clients for someone to do a bit of bookeeping. Ideal as this can often be done from home. We also have other growth plans and ideas. If you want to chat more please do post a message or contact me direct at [email protected].
Look forward to hearing from you.

The message that Jasper wrote about the problems of being a working mum with a stay at home dad really hit home. I am now doing three days a week as a Chartered Surveyor and my husband is doing a course (only one day a week - but still something). I felt resentful he was at home with the baby and I was at work. I wanted to be at home and looking after the baby. That isn't very right-on I know. But it did put considerable strain on us - three days a week is a happy medium for me.

Hi Pamina, I can't say a regret a minute of what I am doing now, its not so stimulating as when I was working full time as a Fianace Manager but great fun and interesting, its amazing what businesses there are in area. I do offer some advice but steer clear of tax planning definately not my area of expertise. One of the key things that seems needed is cash forecasting and help with banking / loan arrangements etc. Also VAT. I also offer PAYE / Payroll services. Having also worked in the software industry I find my most lucrative work comes from clients wanting help with their financial software, training, reporting/KPI's etc. Must say though that they money is not what you could earn if you stayed on the career ladder.
Would your current employer say use your services say xx number of days a week/month to give you some security while you look for other sources of income? This is what my dh does, he has a xx days a month retainer agreement with them that they pay whether they use him or not.

Lors I am relieved I am not the only one. I felt like a right old cow for the resentment I felt to my husband. There was noone I knew in a similar situation. It did not help that every single day at work someone would ask me " Who watches the baby when you are at work" and when I told them my husband stayed home full time the y would invariably say" Oh you are SO lucky!" presumeably they meant in comparison to those who had to pay for childcare, but to my mind I would have felt a lot "luckier" if my dh had a decent job! As you say, not very right on but that is how i felt!
4 days a wekk is so much better. I was really begining to hate him!

I haven't read the full thread so apologies to everyone, but I thought of this thread this morning as I drove in to work and passed a lady walking on the path with a little toddler sitting on one of those pushbikes with the long handle so you can give them help when they get tired. The woman was of a certain age, very well groomed (appropriately for the job in hand, just as she would be in the office) and looking longingly at all the cars going passed with people going to work in them. I just KNEW she loved her child, but her face said she really really wanted to be at work. The guilt can work the other way too, I thought.

Good for you Pamina, it may just have been the luck of the draw that it worked out that way but well done for making a stand for not at home mums! I wonder if they are secretly a little jealous that they are stuck at home 24-7 but don't want to admit it !!

Pamina, I have a lot of sympathy for you. If I hear from one more person (and my friends have children at school now) who says they are so very busy I will scream!

Sorry Pamina but I'm afraid it was the luck of the draw, not the nursery, that made your dd such a dream that day. And if you think that SAHM's would genuinely be 'gravely disappointed' that your child behaved well despite you working, you are developing a case of working mum's paranoia!

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Pamina . Perhaps your baby was more placid and not clambering for attention like the other babies because she is simply not used to attention and is used to being left alone for long periods and generally ignored. I suspect that rather than envying you for having such a quiet little one they were probably glad their own little ones were so active and inqisitive.

active and inqisitive.

oops double post!

Robin,we are talking about babies here I do not think discipline comes into it. Thats like saying all our babies would be better of in nurseries from a young age so they would receive more discipline?? What about love and attention?

Iam not against day nurseries but I dont think them ideal. The bottom line is the staff do not love them and must leave them alone quite a lot thus giving them less attention.

My twins going to be looked after jointly between my mother and stepmother when they are nine mths old. I realise Iam lucky and if the situation doesnt work out I will have to look at alternatives.

Oh God, I think some people are taking Pamina's throwaway line a little seriously here. She was simply a bit pissed off at some SAHM's making some apparently smug comments. (Yes, I know not all SAHM's are like that, at all!). If I was out with friends I would definitely prefer a placid child! For many mothers, staying at home is just not an option. Plus, just staying at home does not necessarily equate with receiving more attention. You may just be present more - whether that is "better" than other childcare or not, I don't know.

Why were the SAHM being rude? Its sounds to me like they were just discussing the usual subjects of antenatal groups ie: The pros and cons of going back to work ,etc.
In fact they paid you 2 compliments Paminna. 1: they obviously think you are very effecient and organised Whereas they feel they are not. 2: They all congratulated you on your daughter being an angel. To which you hautily replied "Thats what comes fom going to a nursery"

That must have made them feel even more incompetant and was uncalled for IMO. Remember these women are going through a very stressfull and tiring time in life. (Yourself included) and these postnatal groups are an invaluable way to support each other.

it's sad that ante/post natal groups, instead of acting as a support network sometimes just seem to become hotbeds of competitiveness and defensiveness. shame this thread appears to be going that way too.

Hey, hey, hey! A flame war methinks. And feelings running high already. I like. Fight fight fight!

Hey, to spice it up a bit let me rehearse the arguments for you.

1)SAHM are baby bores with NO life. Their babies suffer from over-protective mummies who smother them with attention. They go out with their friends and talk about posset and Gina Ford.

2)Working Mums are uncaring corporate cowpats who put their interests and finances BEFORE their precious babies. They are unnatural and, frankly, evil.

Rinse and repeat.

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scummymummy

your post has hit the nail on the head...

...apart from one thing SURELY it is the WORKING mothers - being uncaring and evil - who talk about Gina Ford, the living embodiment of ALL that is SO WRONG with today's SELFISH women?

SAHM v. working mum
Childminder v. nursery
Gina Ford v. everyone else

can there really be anything more to say on these subjects?? how do i do the really big cheesy grin face??

Perhaps the other mothers were just saying that it would seem stressful and difficult leaving their children as they (the mums) aren't used to it. I imagine all working mothers also found it stressful leaving their kids at first.

Look, we all know the difficulties inherent in this argument. I just found it sad that Pamina clearly feels so alienated by what was supposed to be a support group. And looking at it from the SAHMs point of view, I would be devastated if I thought that one of my friends had sat and jiggled my baby on her knee while thinking how smug and out-of-touch I was.

I have had many conversations with friends who work full-time where I truly wonder what the benefits of staying at home with my child are. However, I have never considered that nurseries may do a better job of disciplining my child than I and my partner would. That's an utterly spurious argument. Discipline, or lack of, would have nothing to do with whether a baby was happy, self-contained and cheerful. That is down to individual personality and the baby's mood that day! I would have thought that babies possibly get more attention at nursery than at home anyway as the carers are there purely for the babies benefit rather than having to run their own lives as well. Speaking personally, my own dd is very self-contained and is well used to entertaining herself while I do one of the millions of things that go on around our home.

Remember that a lot of SAHM's are simply making the best of a situation where they may not be able to get a job, or having a job may not be financially viable after childcare is paid for. And even if that wasn't the case with Pamina's friends, I still maintain she is being rather paranoid to assume that they are just waiting for her to fall on her face with childcare.

Oh and Scummymummy, you forgot that SAHMS also don't bother getting dressed in the morning, and settle down to Trisha and Richard and Judy while their babies scuttle around in a walker. And don't all working mothers actually want to be men and are trying to deny their natural mothering instinct??

Pamina, I'm SURE you weren't having a dig at all SAHMs when you posted.

My shackles used to rise when I was in similar situations - you have my total sympathy. I still know SAHMS with children in junior school and above, who continue to say they are too busy to consider working .....

No one, SAHM or not, should be so unthinkingly tactless about how their friend is bringing up her baby.

IMO I think anti natal groups are often hotbeds of insecurities. After one encounter, I avoided them like the plague.

If you are one of a group of first time mothers, it is so easy to fall into the trap of comparing your babies and assuming that the good things you baby does are down to your wonderful parenting skills, and the bad things you friend's baby does are down to her awful parenting skills. IMO it is so not true!!

Pamina, do what I did! Seek out your most fun and un-child orientated friends. Think Graham Norton etc. They will say you and your baby are wonderful creatures, whatever you do.

I agree Tigermoth, I am so glad that I have never been part of an ante-natal crowd with all those comparisons.