The Herts North Branch of the National Childbirth Trust
tel: 0844 24 36 163 email: nct_hertsnorth@hotmail.com
Working Mums - the Big Debate
This is one of the most emotive issues there is in early parenting, and it would be very easy to read the opinions of others as criticisms of one’s own approach to working mums. So I think it is really important to say that what is right for one family would not work for another and that our choices are our own business. The NCT is about supporting parents and I hope that we can all support each other, even if we wouldn’t do things the same way.
When it comes down to it, children need their parents to be as happy and strong as they can be. Achieving this will require different situations for each family and the questions of who works where and who cares for the children are only part of the equation. Parenting is not a competition, it’s a family endurance test and we will all find parts of the course tough. Most readers will have children under ten, if not under five, and we can’t yet imagine the challenges of homework, teenagers and beyond. We’re going to be parents for the rest of our lives and I suspect that getting stressed about the first few years is going to seem trivial a few years down the line.
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I'm sort of half way between the poles on this topic. I do believe that if you make the decision to have children you shouldn't return to the type of work where the child has to go into care for most of their day from an early age - part of the thinking process leading up to the decision to have a child is making sure you have the means to look after them. I think that too many families have both parents working to enable them to maintain their pre-baby lifestyle - foreign holidays, etc - and that this is wrong. Something has to give when your children are small and the most important thing is for you to be there for them whenever you can. It is not important to have the latest expensive makeup or clothes, or to have two weeks of the year in the sun, so it doesn't justify the time the child will have to spend in day-care.
Saying that, once the baby is a bit older (1 yr +) I don't think a little part-time work is harmful, as long as it is a very few hours a week. The stay at home mum gets some mental stimulation (often sadly lacking on a day to day basis!), toddler/pre-schooler gets a chance to mix with other children, and mum gets a little extra money.
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I’m typing this when I’m supposed to be working – this is part of the juggling act that is inevitable as soon as you make the decision that you will be a working mum. I work part-time and am lucky enough to work for myself, so I get a certain degree of flexibility and control over my hours. My usual working week is 2 - 2½ days a week; This provides a good balance for me between being able to spend time with my children, and enjoy activities with them such as swimming, music, playing with their friends or just being together at home, and the benefits that come from working.
For me there are 3 benefits in continuing to work:
I am fortunate, I know, that I can afford to work part-time and that I have a job where this is possible, but full-time work is not something I want to do. I want to spend real time with my children, to be there when they learn new things, to have fun with them and to know them. I think I would feel that we were all missing out enormously if I had to work full-time.
The other key aspect to having a good work/home balance is good childcare - I am absolutely confident in the knowledge that my children have a great time, are well-cared for, stimulated and happy at their day nursery and so I have the peace of mind to be able to work. But childcare is an entirely different Big Debate ….
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I went back to work part-time after each child and have found it a great balance. There was never any discussion about whether I would or not. I enjoyed my work and felt I needed more than staying at home would offer. We chose to send our children to nursery which was always my intention, as they do so much there which I wouldn't do at home and I believe strongly in the social and discipline aspects of nursery too.
After my first child, I returned to work when he was eight months old (just under the nine month timing for separation anxiety to apparently set-in) and this was good. When the laws changed and maternity leave could be extended to one year (plus parental leave and holiday), I decided to take fourteen months with my second child, although he too started nursery at eight months. However, fourteen months was too long. Too much had changed and I felt very much out of 'practice' at being 'professional'. I was also working more with people who didn't have children themselves and having to work a strict 9-5 three-day week made me feel very guilty alongside colleagues who regularly put in 50 or 60 hour weeks. Added to this was the inevitable sickness - both me and the kids, which is always worse the more children you have as bugs get passed around! I'm currently on maternity leave with number three and due to go back after fourteen months again but really not looking forward to it for all the above reasons.
When I go back this time, I face the difficulty of working with school-age children. Nursery is great - 8.00am to 6.00pm every day, 50 weeks of the year! School, however, is a different matter entirely. Aside from the children needing to be in different places, and the 9.00am to 3.00pm, 38 weeks a year, there are also so many more things that involve parents than in pre-school childcare. Managing the fancy dress days, cooking sessions, model making, sponsored events, hot cross bun or Christmas tree parties, etc, etc, which are inevitably last minute notice and parent reliant, make for a very stressed working parent. For me the jury is still out on this.
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We made the decision that I would stay at home and raise our children myself, and as a result, we would be happy to live on a relatively small income. What this meant in practice is that we have had to make a few trivial sacrifices, such as having an old car, second-hand everything, and daily strict budgeting. We feel strongly however that one of us should raise our child at home for the first couple of years, and that we would have made other more dramatic sacrifices if necessary, such as selling our house, so that I could stay at home. I now work one day a week, and my daughter goes to a childminder on that day, but that’s the maximum childcare I’ll use until she’s 2 and a half.
I do realise however, that mothers work for many reasons other than financial, and that every family will arrive at their own fine balancing act, which will not have been decided upon lightly. I appreciate that one major reason women continue to work is because they enjoy their jobs, and I think that babies need happy mothers rather than frustrated mothers. I also feel that unfortunately, it is almost always the mother who agonizes most over this decision, and who in the end is the one who ultimately has to make the choice as to whether to carry on or give up working. Women’s equality has obviously come a long way, however, in career terms it can still be detrimental for a woman to take a couple of years break to raise her babies. This is grossly unfair, but true. So how about the father giving up work to stay at home and raise the children for a couple of years as an alternative? Or maybe both parents working three days each?
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I had always intended to go back to work when my daughter was about 8 months old: 6 months seemed too soon but I couldn’t imagine not working for a whole year. There being no grannies to hand to provide an easy and cheap childcare decision, my daughter was always going to have to go to either a childminder or nursery. I was initially disposed to go for the ‘home from home’ option of a childminder, but having talked about it with friends, I became concerned about possible days ‘off sick’ on the part of the childminder and her holidays: I wanted something that would be there every day, guaranteed.
In terms of work, I have been very lucky in that I have been able to leave my well-paid-but-in-central-London teaching job to work for my husband in his newly set-up criminal law firm in Luton (oh, the glamour) so can pretty much say what I’m going to do and when at the moment. I started on 2 days a week which was fine and then the case I’m managing sort of mushroomed so I’m now on 2.5 days per week and odd bits here and there (it’s 9pm and I’ve just finished catching up on paperwork) – and that extra ½ day means it’s a lot more difficult I find to stay on top of the household stuff. Also, it’s really stressful absolutely having to leave at 5.10 when what I in fact need to do is another ¾ hour’s dictation because I’m not going to be in again until next Tuesday…. this is the unpublicised stressful side of part-time work I suppose.
Even though we are all working hard for the good of the family business etc etc, it is clearly mad and life is rather short on va-va voom. I shall be reverting to 2 days a week as soon as I can and trying to remember to buy the odd lottery ticket!
My conclusion: 2 demanding jobs in one household is not a good idea. However, the quality of life/ finance/ childcare conundrum is a tricky one. I suspect the answer is to have another baby and spend no money ever!
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I guess in some ways the prime motivation for getting a job working from home was the desire to have some form of mental stimulation, aside from working out the economic benefits of one brand of nappies over another in the aisle of the supermarket!
Prior to having my daughter, I had an exciting, London-based job that carried a fair degree of responsibility and involved a lot of international travel and, whilst I realised the practicalities of continuing that job and being a mum were impossible, more importantly I wanted to be mum! Therefore the decision to leave my job was straightforward.
However, about 6 months into motherhood, I began to miss the stimulation and mental exercise a job also brings and I thought that maybe the ideal way to have the best of both worlds was to take a part-time, home-based admin. role that would be do-able, vaguely stimulating and obviously financially beneficial (maybe I could weigh up the comfort of the nappies rather than the cost!)
But, as ever, there were other forces at work here too. I had no local family support, which meant that I would be mum all day and then, shattered, at 19:30 become Miss Friday; and let’s face it, being mum is a full-time job anyway!
In actual fact, the job I took on ended up being full-time, albeit from home, which meant that not only was I sitting down to work after a hard day of being mum, parts of the weekend - prime family time - were also being intruded upon. My husband, because of his erratic working hours was available occasionally to help out during the day and effectively be mum, an experience I know he relished, but ultimately our weekends were always compromised. Additionally, I realised that, at the end of the day, not only was I too tired to do the work but also I was working on my own. Part of the intriguing dynamic of having a ‘normal’ job involves not only the tasks themselves but the relationships and interactions with other colleagues, be it work related or water cooler banter.
I never wanted to be a part-time mum, so nurseries were never an option. The job I was doing would have paid for that and not much else therefore presenting us with some form of energy out/money in – money out/even more energy out equation! No good for anyone except the Inland Revenue.
Once my second pregnancy was underway, I felt that it was no longer realistic to continue and it all amicably came to a close. Ultimately it didn’t fulfil the role I wanted and became an additional strain on what can already be a very stressful time. Yes, the financial benefits were very welcome but to be honest I missed the stimulation an office full of people generates.
Up to now I have just talked about the effects it had on me but it must also have had an effect on my daughter. I’m glad that throughout her first two and a half years I have effectively always been there for her, not just mentally but physically, and I know that my husband also had periods of time that meant he was a full-time Dad, something not all Dads would have had the chance to experience. I believe she has benefited from always having at least one parent around. However, being with her all the time has meant that leaving her for the first time has been quite emotional. Suffice to say, the first few days of pre-school have been fraught with tears, guilt and tantrums, not just my husband’s!
Neither side can really win in this debate, as there are too many individual factors involved that all play a significant part. Ultimately what works for you and your family works for you.
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I worked full time as a surveyor before I had my son, and in a job I really loved. I was fairly sure that I would want to return to work once I had had him, but was open to my views changing once I was a mum and those hormones kicked in.
My views didn’t really change; I decided that if my boss allowed it, as he could have refused, I would go back 3 days a week. I had previously worked from home, just going into the office twice a week, so the fact that I again wanted to work from home, and only go into the office once a month was not too much of a jump for my boss to get used to. However, he did state that I had to go into the office once a fortnight, which I felt I could live with (it’s in Croydon, so it’s not an easy journey!)
As neither my husband nor I have family locally, we knew that we wanted my son to go to nursery, and we had first looked at some when he was just 8 weeks old (to get him in when he was about 8 months). When we finally signed him up to Kindersmill, we had to wait an extra 2 months to get him in, and then it took about 6 months before I could get the actual days I wanted, until then it was a case of take what was available.
Now it works really well. Work have set me up with an office in Hitchin, so I don’t have files all over the house, and I am close to the nursery so it doesn’t take me long to get there.
My son loves nursery, and I feel we have the best of both worlds – he learns to interact with other children and does things that he wouldn’t at home, and when I am not working he is the centre of my attention and we go to places together and meet up with friends. I am much happier as I can continue working, and I feel that I enjoy my time with my son more because I have those days at work.
However, because I only work part time I do find when I am at work that it is very difficult to build up a momentum and deal with everything I have to. I also worry that my hours are now limited mostly to 9-5.30 because of nursery, whereas before I would be able to work extra hours when I wanted. The problem is compounded for me as I have a very male dominated career, and I am sure that men I haven’t dealt with before may not take me as seriously as they should because I am part-time. That may just be my own paranoia – after all, I am sure most men have wives and children of their own!
I constantly feel guilty, but when I speak to my full-time colleagues they remind me that they have the same problems, and it is indicative of the job we do. That makes me feel better, and now instead of worrying about work when I go home, I don’t have a chance as I am running around the house playing chase with a toddler!
My husband and I have talked about him reducing to 4 days and looking after my son for a day so that I could increase my days to 4, but then I think about all those other outings to the farm, or swimming pool that I would miss, and decide against it. Overall, I am really happy with our set-up, and feel very lucky that I have such a flexible employer so that my working hours and location are almost exactly how I want them. Not many people have this choice, and not everybody would want to work in this way, but for me, it works really well. And more importantly, my son is happy.
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For me, there was never any question. As long as we could afford it, I would stay at home and raise our children. As long as there is a roof over our heads and food on the table, my time is better spend in caring for them. If I worked, the money would go on luxuries. Nice but not necessary. Toddlers don’t care if they holiday in Cornwall or Corfu. They don’t care whether their car-seat is in the back of a Ford Fiesta or a brand-new Mercedes. What they do care about is parents and home and I firmly believe that pre-schoolers need to be at home with Mummy (or Daddy).
Why? Because they don’t just need care. They need love. Professional carers may look after children, they may even like them (probably some more than others!) but they don’t LOVE them like a parent does. The greatest pleasure in my life is receiving a cuddle from one of my children and hearing the words ‘I love you, Mummy.’ I love it and I want it full-time, not part-time.
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