Need some advice – returning to work after mat leave

[Gifgaf]

Currently on maternity leave with baby #4. I have a very good job with decent pay, but I’m feeling really worried about the thought of returning.

As much as I love my job and value the independence it gives me, my heart and head are with my children. Ideally, I’d love to be at home raising them until they’re at least ready to start school. However, I don’t think my DH could manage all of our expenses on his own, so realistically, I feel like I need to bring in an income.

I’d also be expected to go into the office, and this is what bothers me the most. My DM would look after the kids for me but the 2 she would need to look after are small and they require a lot of attention and worried she may not be able to cope.

Has anyone else been in a similar position? What solutions did you find that worked for your family?

Also, are there any jobs I could potentially do fully from home that would allow me to earn an income while still having the kids at home? I’d love to hear about any experiences or suggestions.

Another thought I’ve had is social media/UCG (user-generated content). I’m not really sure where to start with this or what’s realistic in terms of earning, so any tips, advice or personal experiences would be really welcome!

There are no employers that will let you work from home while looking after children. It’s requests like this that make it hard to get work at home contracts.

With respect, this is something you should have considered before having a 4th child. You can pay for childcare like everyone else. There are the free hours as well.

It really sucks being in a work-centric capitalist society. I would never ever go back and unhave my children for anything or anyone. Workism at the core!

Well regardless, you do need to pay for your children somehow. 4 is a lot by today’s standards. The world doesn’t owe you a living. 🤷‍♀️

Nursery.

Ok I know it sucks having to work but that hasn’t changed in the last year? Surely you did all the maths on childcare costs and income before having 4 kids? You can’t work from home whilst caring for children. You will need to use paid childcare. And please don’t involve your children in social media, it’s abusive in my opinion.

Agree that it's very unlikely that you will find an employer willing to let you wfh without childcare. And even if you did, I can't see how that would be good for your children as your attention would be constantly divided.

If you are concerned that your mother isn't up to it, then I guess you have a number of options - pay for childcare; look for alternative work that allows you to work in the evenings/weekends or whenever your DH is available for childcare; start your own business; or if your DH is willing to be the sole breadwinner, become a SAHP and cut back on your living costs accordingly.

So it's not that I dont have a job to go back to. My work is very secure and flexible. Its just the wfh days that I am struggling to come to terms with. 1 or 4 the feelings remain the same. I've worked since I was very young but I am at this stage in my life where life just feels too short to spend majority of it working for someone else and losing out on my family. I am certain there are many mums who feels this way. It's likely it's my hormones also playing a big role.

I dont even post my kids let alone use them for content. I mentioned as an option because it's something I had genuine interest FOR ME but I also see the flexibility it gives mums to be with their babies while doing something they enjoy.

Nursery.

I wfh and during covid when my oldest was 1 was hell. And that was with my partner at home.

i still wfh and my youngest goes to nursery. My work don’t allow working whilst having children home and honestly, I wouldn’t want to. It’s not fair on them.

Yes I agree with a lot of this. Ive considered maybe cutting back my hours once I am back which would take some pressure off. It's not just that maternal instinct to raise my kids myself fully before I send them to school, but also a change of heart in myself and the way I feel view things and the work culture. I just don't have that hunger in me at the moment that people have at work and I think it's because of this season of my life.

Nursery is so expensive as it is otherwise that could be an option when they're a bit bigger. Even with the 30 hours it's still a stretch

It's a lot by todays standards because we have been brainwashed to believe we owe our lives to work work work. We were not created to be slaves to coroporate bosses. Even with 4 kids I have worked very hard and given a lot back into society and paying my part so yes essentially I do feel society can allow parents to also enjoy their families in the first couple of years before kids start school. I am not a scrounger. It's diabolical we work 9-5 and kids finish 9-3 soooo much wrong with today and it's a shame people don't stand up to it.

Unfortunately, the cost of living has made it very hard to have a single-income family. Having four children, as wonderful as I'm sure it is, makes it harder. That, though, was a choice you made with all the financial facts in front of you.
Can you reduce your hours so that you finish earlier, for example, 3pm so that you will be able to pick your children up from school when the time comes? Or reduce your days now so that you have some full days with them?

It's a very sad time to live in :(
Yes, reduced hours is what I am likely going to look into once I am back.

I agree with others that you’re not going to find an employer who is okay with you working from home with your kids, but I just wanted to comment on the social media/UGC/digital marketing side of things to say that for the majority of creators, even those with really big followings and who get lots of views don’t make anywhere near as much money as you would imagine from things like Tiktok/Instagram.

It has its benefits in terms of being sent products for free/reduced price to do ads, but in terms of actual income it tends to be really quite low and is so variable you could easily have months where you earn nothing at all. For example on Tiktok the Creator Fund you need 10,000 followers just to be entitled and then there are also rules on qualifying views etc, even a video with say 50,000 views could only pay £10 and typically for small creators the “payment” for doing ads is the product free itself (which is nice but doesn’t pay your bills) or £10-15 maybe. Plus if you start it off looking to earn money, because it is such a saturated market now, you will just look desperate to followers and there is nothing more transparent than new accounts reviewing a new product every video to try and make money.

The people who have made the big money from things like Tiktok are those who have built a following organically and then as a byproduct have been able to start promoting products they genuinely love to followers who already trust them. Nobody trusts the ads of the accounts who are posting a new ad every other day.

No one is saying we have to be slaves to corporate bosses. But at the end of the day you chose to bring 4 children into the world. They will need paying for.

Society does allow for child rearing - Mat leave, nursery hours, etc. It’s just not enough for you. you seem to want your cake and eat it.

You could quit your job and train to be a childminder. Look after your own children plus a few extras?

But I can afford my 4 kids. I never said I can't. I said I'd like to find a way where I can stay and fully look after them at least till they go school or find a job that allows home only which avoids me going hours away a day in the city. Doesn't mean my child will be on my lap all day while I work. Maternity leave is really paid up to 9 months and then what send my under 1 in Nursery, it's really sad and I genuinely feel for any mum who has to do this. It's wrong. It's even worst in the US. There are many countries around the world that allow up until the child goes school. Work culture doesn't genuinely care about families. I know won't apply to everyone but can you imagine the worth ethic and motivation for a mum who got to send her kids to school and raise them young vs one whos basically forced to go back while having her children at the back of her mind. That's my personal take. I guess agree to disagree. We all each share different opinions on things.

I did consider this route wayy before having kids but my DH pressured me into looking "bigger" and as good as it can be it's equally draining. My dream job would actually be in healthcare either in midwifery or nursing but unfortunately the hours are a not good but maybe something for the future. Might aid my motivation.

Yes this is true also. I do have a genuine interest not simply to make money on it but I guess it's not for everyone

To be fair, it would be entirely unrealistic for employers to basically hold a mother’s job for 4 years to enable her to raise her children to school age before returning to work. How would that work in practice? They’d need to hire someone to do the job in the meantime, where does that person then go in 4 years, it would make women of child bearing age a huge risk for employer’s if they could potentially take 4 years off.

Well, given that many families, like the OP, may have multiple children, it's likely that it would often be a lot longer than four years in practice. Not really viable from an employer perspective.

I had four children, (all adults now) and DH and I work in healthcare. While they were little, we worked alternate shifts. I did 3 nights a week, he worked days. It sounds miserable to others but it worked well for us. Plenty of annual leave working in the NHS as well, and we managed to bring up our children without the need for external childcare. We were both in senior nursing roles at the time, so we had a reasonable income - although nothing like the legendary Mumsnet six figures. Still, we had a nice house, lovely holidays, ran two cars etc

Well done on alienating the majority of mums by suggesting it's 'sad' and 'wrong' send a baby to nursery at 1. Not everyone can afford to live off their husband's salary, or wants to do that.

I think there is a distinction between the OP feeling that it's sad for her as an individual that she can't stay at home with her kids and suggesting that it's sad for the children, who will likely be fine either way. And she may feel that it's wrong not to have a choice, rather than it being wrong for parents to go to work.

I will give her the benefit of the doubt on this, though I don't agree with the idea implicit in the OP's post that all women (I think she means all women and not all parents?) have an inherent right to stop work. If being a SAHP is important to people, then I think they need to make appropriate financial provision for this and plan their families accordingly. If they keep their skills up to date, then there will be nothing to stop them from returning to the workplace if/when they are ready to do so, but it isn't reasonable to expect the state to subsidise such choices or to expect employers to hold jobs open indefinitely.