Need advice from moms who work long hours at very demanding jobs

[Anonymous]

I was recently promoted to a senior management (but not c suite) role at my company after being in middle management for years. I have always worked hard (50+ hours per week) but had a pretty good work life balance and a flexible boss who never had an issue when I needed to prioritize kid stuff since he knew I would get my work done and be there when it counted.

It has only been 3 months in my new role but I am feeling pretty miserable and overwhelmed because it feels all consuming and my work/life balance has plummeted. Face time is a requirement in this role so I can’t really work from home more than once per week and I now need to be at the office by 8am for early meetings (vs 9am on my old team) so I am out the door by 7:15 and rarely get home before 7pm. Then I am with my kids for an hour and a half before I get back online for a couple hours before going to bed.

I feel like I am barely spending any time with my kids and so much is falling through the cracks because my job is so intense I often don’t have 5 mins to make a phone call or check my personal email during the day. I forgot to sign one of my kids up for an after school activity in time and the class all her friends are in filled up, I didn’t clearly read the school supply list for my oldest and forgot a ton of things. I am going to miss back to school nights due to work commitments and have zero bandwidth to be involved in the PTA or school like I have been in the past. I can no longer cook dinner for the kids (or eat with them) and feel like we are all not eating as healthy. And I have absolutely zero time to myself since I feel so guilty for being MIA all week I try to spend every second with them on weekends.

I could quit, but the challenge is that I actually enjoy what I do and got a big raise so the money is very helpful with 3 kids. My DH has a pretty big job too and works almost as much as I do, and we have an amazing nanny who handles a ton while the kids are in school (grocery shopping, returns, dry cleaning) as well as a housekeeper who keeps things in order.

Is anyone else in this boat? How do you get over the guilt of not being around enough? And how do you decide if it’s all worth it?

Has anyone left a demanding job - do you wish you did it sooner or feel like it was a mistake?

[Anonymous]

Get a post nuptial agreement asap
Properties and children spilt 50-50.

It’s just to prepare for any possibility

I’ve seen two women get less that 50-50 bc they traveled and worked long hours

[Anonymous]

I left and got a job working part time. I’m a physician, so very different from you, but I left a fellowship and later an academic job that got more and more intense.
My kids are 12, 14, and 16 now, and I think that I might ramp things back up in five years or so. I had my kids a little younger than the typical DCUM, so I will only be 48 when we become empty nesters.
I also really like my job, but I couldn’t do it and raise my kids the way that I wanted to.

I will say that we never needed the money. My husband is also a physician, and we don’t live a lifestyle that requires more than one physician income. We live in a nice neighborhood with a good Catholic school nearby. A lot of our neighbors are teachers or work in IT. We live a MC life on an UMC income.

[Anonymous]

(One was a friend in CA, for what it’s worth. Her spouse was stay-home dad).

[Anonymous]

I had to back down way from my job when DW’s ramped up. Yours is probably quite intense and your kids very small if even a housekeeper and nanny don’t alleviate some of the concerns about healthy meals, etc. It does get easier when kids can stay up a bit later. One thing we did was flex the kids as much as possible if DW couldn’t flex. If they have a conference day, we’d meet at her office to have food truck lunch together. Or she’d take public transit to work but we’d pick her up when traffic was calmer and drive home together and stop for ice cream or something. Even then, it wasn’t a ton of time together and the logging on for hours after bedtime put a lot of pressure on me to cover the second shift.

Also 3 kids is a lot to juggle and no one I know with 3 is spending quality time with them so much as driving them around, picking them up, or moving their possessions around. Finally, don’t worry about PTA meetings. They seem like a big deal when you’re not there but they’re agony when you are. Our school hosts them in the evenings or early mornings in alternate months, so you should ask your school to do the same. It increases the chances we make it to 1-2 of them.

[Anonymous]

The nanny can pull together an online list of school supplies that you then review and purchase.

You need to have a running list each day of things that need to get done and take 10 minutes each day to do it. You make the list at night for the next day/later in the week. You take that 10 minutes every day and treat it as sacred.

Leave your kids notes in lunch boxes - not generic ones but specific to what they have going on so they feel you're connected and aware.

Use your assistant at work - I am a C-suite assistant and do some personal things for the people I support (rsvp to personal events, coordinate with their travel agents, book personal and work reservations, get greeting cards, etc.).

[Anonymous]

There is no easy answer to this OP. Like you I am very ambitious and love my job, chose to prioritize staying in an important role over mommy tracking. The truth is my relationship with my kids (2) suffered, and I’m starting to see the long term impact of that more and more. Yes, I am jealous of friends who mommy tracked and remained more involved and emotionally engaged in their kids lives, at least those I know who did this enjoy closer relationships with their kids even after they went to college. But I also have to be honest with myself, I would have been miserable to mommy track and feel like I could not fulfill my potential in my work.

[Anonymous]

Prioritize what is more important to you. Then you have your answer.

[Anonymous]

You got the promotion and the raise. Now you can go look for a similar job and money elsewhere with better balance. I only have two and working more than 40 hrs a week is a deal breaker for me right now as my jids are early ES. Fwiw I'm middle management at a smaller company with a team of 70 across the country.

[Anonymous]

Not sure if my role counts as very demanding but I'm a director at a tech company and make around $350K at 37. I also have three kids and I don't think I've mommy-tracked but I am able to be present for all three kids and not feel like I'm dropping balls at work. If you want to stay in the role you should get a cleaner, a nanny (or part time childcare) and discuss with your husband what he can do. You also need to make peace with the fact (and should have beforehand) that you can't be as physically and emotionally present for your children and potentially in your marriage. Maybe give yourself 12 months after you staff up to see how it feels. If it feels bad then you should take a step back.

[Anonymous]

When i was working like this but only with one kid I started waking up an hour earlier. I took the time to get myself organized and review personal tasks (kids needs for day/week) and personal emails appointments etc… it looked like being up 5:30-6:30 for personal stuff, 6:30-7:15a for family, out door kid dropped off by 7:40a then in office by 8a. I was also back on the computer around 8p-10/11p. It lasted 3 years and then I took a step back.

A couple things that helped too -
- ordering a pre-cooked meal service for family. This was expensive but very healthy
- I stopped taking a full lunch and ate the same sandwich that took me 2 minutes to make at desk while attending to personal emails etc

[Anonymous]

Not sure when you can do it as it's early days, but as a senior woman start to just normalize flexibility. You are in charge. It sounds like you are very valued and you more than pull your weight.

Start to have more calls. Block off some of your time. Get people used to a cadence where you might leave early and then get back to them in the evening. I think all women and men who value work life balance need to flex this a bit more. They can't fire all of us

[Anonymous]

You should delegate to your nanny more. If your kids are in school, what the heck is she doing all day? She should be handling all of the cooking, activities sign-up, school supply shopping. Take an hour every week to give her a list of tasks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was recently promoted to a senior management (but not c suite) role at my company after being in middle management for years. I have always worked hard (50+ hours per week) but had a pretty good work life balance and a flexible boss who never had an issue when I needed to prioritize kid stuff since he knew I would get my work done and be there when it counted.

It has only been 3 months in my new role but I am feeling pretty miserable and overwhelmed because it feels all consuming and my work/life balance has plummeted. Face time is a requirement in this role so I can’t really work from home more than once per week and I now need to be at the office by 8am for early meetings (vs 9am on my old team) so I am out the door by 7:15 and rarely get home before 7pm. Then I am with my kids for an hour and a half before I get back online for a couple hours before going to bed.

I feel like I am barely spending any time with my kids and so much is falling through the cracks because my job is so intense I often don’t have 5 mins to make a phone call or check my personal email during the day. I forgot to sign one of my kids up for an after school activity in time and the class all her friends are in filled up, I didn’t clearly read the school supply list for my oldest and forgot a ton of things. I am going to miss back to school nights due to work commitments and have zero bandwidth to be involved in the PTA or school like I have been in the past. I can no longer cook dinner for the kids (or eat with them) and feel like we are all not eating as healthy. And I have absolutely zero time to myself since I feel so guilty for being MIA all week I try to spend every second with them on weekends.

I could quit, but the challenge is that I actually enjoy what I do and got a big raise so the money is very helpful with 3 kids. My DH has a pretty big job too and works almost as much as I do, and we have an amazing nanny who handles a ton while the kids are in school (grocery shopping, returns, dry cleaning) as well as a housekeeper who keeps things in order.

Is anyone else in this boat? How do you get over the guilt of not being around enough? And how do you decide if it’s all worth it?

Has anyone left a demanding job - do you wish you did it sooner or feel like it was a mistake?

What is more important to you your children or a job? Obviously, you cannot have both in new job, so choose.

[Anonymous]

You CANNOT have it all. They gave us a list of lies.