Feel like the choice is binary re: whether to work or not after baby is born

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious, you think you're entitled to same pay/position aftet leaving the work force and then re-entering 2+ yrs later ?? Sorry, FMLA doesn't last that long.

Time stops for no one. You step out, someone will fill in.

OP is not asking her current employer to hold her job for 2 years. She just wants to return to the workforce (with any employer!) in a similar position with a similar salary to that of what she’s leaving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IT is one of the few positions where you might be able to convert to part time during your child's younger years and still stay current enough to resume at the same level. You need to talk to your employer and your HR. I work in government contracting in IT and we've had a number of people, mostly women, but a few men, who have cut back to part-time for 1-3 years and then returned to the workforce full-time with no issues. The only issue is that part-timers get lower annual increases because they are hourly rather than salaried. But I've seen people who have moved to part-time for children, elder care, personal health reasons and so on. They work 2-5 days (one person worked 2 days a week, another worked every afternoon and had a sitter for 4-5 hours each afternoon, another went to part-time telework from another state) and converted from salaried to hourly. But the ones that returned to work full-time, essentially returned to where they were when they left. The key was to keep working.

Yes, if you actually leave the work-force for several years, it can be difficult to return to the level you were at on your return.

This is me. I’m a software developer in government contracting. Took a few months of maternity leave (unpaid), then returned to work 4x/week. Management had no problems with me wanting to go part-time. I was always paid hourly so there wasn’t much for them to deal with benefits-wise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You’ll never get those years with your babies back.

I hate this. Nobody gets any years back. That's how time works. You still have a baby if they go to daycare.

[Anonymous]

My experience is that when you are well established in your career, have good working relationships, and especially if you have some specialized expertise, it's not hard to re-enter the workforce after a year or two off. I wound up being headhunted back into work after taking a couple years off, because some former colleagues had started a new firm and wanted someone with my skill set. And then I was in the opposite situation -- I didn't HAVE to go back to work, and was planning on it eventually, but had to make a decision fairly quickly about whether I was ready to put my DD in childcare and go back. I wound up negotiating a part-time situation for a few years until she started school and then went to a 30 hr/wk schedule (it's built into my contract and I still get benefits). It basically couldn't have worked out more perfectly.

I had my baby at 37 and was grateful for the flexibility. My standard recommendation to women who are having kids later with established careers is that if you want to take time off, do it. You are a skilled professional. Two years out of the workforce is not the stigma it once was, and there are more women in positions of authority, and more men who understand the value and importance of family time, so in most industries you will get far less criticism for doing this. You may still get criticism (I had a couple friends/colleagues who literally gasped when I told them I was quitting my job to stay home, and my [female, but childless] boss was actually incredibly mean about it), but you will not torpedo your career.

Almost everyone I work with now is a mom, and I feel super supported in my career decisions. There are other firms within my industry at which this would not be true, but I don't think I'd want to work there as a person with kids anyway. So in many ways, taking those years off and prioritizing family as I re-entered the workforce ensured good work-life balance for me. Whereas toughing it out at my former company would have made miserable anyway.

Obviously this is just one person's experience, but hopefully it is helpful to you.

[Anonymous]

The choice to leave entirely or stay working full time is binary, yes, but there's also quite a range of employment options. These include freelancing, contracting, part-time, working full time but somewhere with generous leave and flexibility, etc... I think you'll find a lot between 0-50 hours/week of paid work. Sometimes it's job market circumstances that makes re-entry particularly hard, but sometimes it's also life choices (partner used to doing less at home, kids in different schools in opposite directions, certain extracurricular activities for the kids) that come into a family's routine b/c of a SAHM and are near impossible to unwind. I stayed in the workforce full time but went to a flexible, less intense, non-profit leadership role, and I'm so glad I did, I have also hired someone who has been out of the workforce a long time and she's amazing but def coming in at a lower salary/title than what she would command if she stayed in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’ll never get those years with your babies back.

I hate this. Nobody gets any years back. That's how time works. You still have a baby if they go to daycare.

DP and I disagree. There are very few career opportunities that you couldn't replace or re-acquire after two years out of the workforce. But you can't replace the experience of being home with a baby. The experience of spending all your time with your baby is different than the experience of taking your child to childcare and then going to work. It just is. That doesn't mean it's wrong.

I have a better job now than I did before I quit to stay home with my baby. My career has taken zero hits and in some ways, being willing to walk away so I could do something important to me has helped me learn to expect more and to understand my own value, which has benefitted me professionally.

[Anonymous]

I wish there were more well paid part time positions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The choice to leave entirely or stay working full time is binary, yes, but there's also quite a range of employment options. These include freelancing, contracting, part-time, working full time but somewhere with generous leave and flexibility, etc... I think you'll find a lot between 0-50 hours/week of paid work. Sometimes it's job market circumstances that makes re-entry particularly hard, but sometimes it's also life choices (partner used to doing less at home, kids in different schools in opposite directions, certain extracurricular activities for the kids) that come into a family's routine b/c of a SAHM and are near impossible to unwind. I stayed in the workforce full time but went to a flexible, less intense, non-profit leadership role, and I'm so glad I did, I have also hired someone who has been out of the workforce a long time and she's amazing but def coming in at a lower salary/title than what she would command if she stayed in.

I don't disagree with any of this but I also think the examples you give of life choices that are hard to unwind are just things to keep in mind if your plan is to re-enter the workforce. We always knew I was going back to work in some capacity after taking time off. So, for instance, we would never have committed to sending kids to schools in opposite directions, and my DH understood from the start that me staying home did not mean me becoming the maid or the person solely responsible for childcare (and we consciously assigned a couple categories of childcare that we knew would become bigger as our child got older to him to keep us from falling into this trap).

I think the key no matter what choice you make is to be intentional in your choice. If your plan is to take a couple years off and then go back because work is important to you, than make choices that enable that plan, both in how you leave the workforce and also how you set up family life after the baby arrives. This is the whole problem with the SAHM/WOHM binary -- it assumes that these are two different kinds of women leading two very different kinds of lives, but the truth is you can pick and choose to some degree and there are very few choices (except the choice to have a child at all) that can't be changed down the road. Just as you can choose to work part time or freelance, you can also choose to not work but keep your partner involved and set yourself up to work in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish there were more well paid part time positions.

+1, there are so many women I know who would happily halve their income to work part-time for the first few years of their child's life while still maintaining their career. And if there were more viable part-time positions, you'd also see more viable part-time childcare options -- even if you can work out a part-time position (I did), finding reliable part-time care can be very hard until your child is in school. The average length of our childcare arrangements when my child was 1-4 years old was about 4 months, because nannies who want long term positions want/need to be full time (totally understandable) and daycares prefer full time students as well because it is administratively easier and cheaper for them. I think the best solutions are either family (not an option for us), both partners part-time (also not an option for us, nor for most people, because there aren't enough part time jobs with benefits to do this), or an au pair who is in school (we didn't have the room).

But if more people were able to work part-time, I think there would be more options like half-day daycare or preschool and more nanny services that could locate/provide part-time nannies. Right now these options don't really exist, especially in markets where childcare is already expensive and hard to find.

We'll also probably never have many part-time options unless the US moves to single payer healthcare or an independent market for healthcare. As long as healthcare benefits are linked to employment, it does not benefit employers to offer part time work because so much of their costs of employment are in benefits/overhead.

[Anonymous]

We hired an educated, skilled nanny with a degree in Early Childhood Development. It made me feel better about going back to work knowing that nanny was giving my son something different and better than I could.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’ll never get those years with your babies back.

I hate this. Nobody gets any years back. That's how time works. You still have a baby if they go to daycare.

DP and I disagree. There are very few career opportunities that you couldn't replace or re-acquire after two years out of the workforce. But you can't replace the experience of being home with a baby. The experience of spending all your time with your baby is different than the experience of taking your child to childcare and then going to work. It just is. That doesn't mean it's wrong.

I have a better job now than I did before I quit to stay home with my baby. My career has taken zero hits and in some ways, being willing to walk away so I could do something important to me has helped me learn to expect more and to understand my own value, which has benefitted me professionally.

This is demonstrably untrue. Women with two year gaps in their resumes do not wind up in the same position as their peers who don’t and it’s been well studied. I think OP should take as much time as she wants and reasonably can but she should do so with awareness of the reality of her profession.

I went back at five months but didn’t return full-time until about 18M. Staying in the game got me promoted because my network was still very current and my work product was a known quantity. OP if you have part time choices can you explore them?

[Anonymous]

I re-entered the workforce after a 2-year gap. It was stressful but doable. Maintain your skills and your network if you choose that path. Ideally, I would say go back after maxing out your paid leave but stay part-time for a while if you can, then work your way back to full-time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’ll never get those years with your babies back.

I hate this. Nobody gets any years back. That's how time works. You still have a baby if they go to daycare.

+1. I hate it too. I don't want those years back! I struggled with the infant stage. My baby was better off having a village of support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’ll never get those years with your babies back.

I hate this. Nobody gets any years back. That's how time works. You still have a baby if they go to daycare.

DP and I disagree. There are very few career opportunities that you couldn't replace or re-acquire after two years out of the workforce. But you can't replace the experience of being home with a baby. The experience of spending all your time with your baby is different than the experience of taking your child to childcare and then going to work. It just is. That doesn't mean it's wrong.

I have a better job now than I did before I quit to stay home with my baby. My career has taken zero hits and in some ways, being willing to walk away so I could do something important to me has helped me learn to expect more and to understand my own value, which has benefitted me professionally.

This is demonstrably untrue. Women with two year gaps in their resumes do not wind up in the same position as their peers who don’t and it’s been well studied. I think OP should take as much time as she wants and reasonably can but she should do so with awareness of the reality of her profession.

I went back at five months but didn’t return full-time until about 18M. Staying in the game got me promoted because my network was still very current and my work product was a known quantity. OP if you have part time choices can you explore them?

Provide the studies that say this, and they need to be within the last 10-15 years. A 5+ year gap? Yes, that will really hurt you. Two years? Not a big deal, especially if your career is already established.

It really is not all or nothing, and people need to stop thinking if it this way. People on DCUM always act like stepping out if the workforce with a baby means you’re never getting back on track. Yet most mothers I know took off 1-2 years and all came back, many into positions they liked more. And like OP, they were all older mom (33 I think was the youngest) and had established careers and good credentials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’ll never get those years with your babies back.

I hate this. Nobody gets any years back. That's how time works. You still have a baby if they go to daycare.

+1. I hate it too. I don't want those years back! I struggled with the infant stage. My baby was better off having a village of support.

Well that’s you. Many of us feel the opposite. My SIL took an 8 mo leave with her first and only 3 mo with her second, and she still feels that short leave impacted their relationship, 10 years later. For many women, being home fir a while with their baby is essential to bonding with their kid.

For me it was essential for my mental health. I tried going back at 4 months but had PPD and what I needed was more time with my child.

Any woman who wants to go back more quickly has my support. But many women want/need longer and that’s treated like some kind of moral failure. It’s not. It’s standard on most parts of the world outside the US. For many, many women, that’s a critical time that they cannot, in fact, get back.