I’m curious about how women handle motherhood and professional success and financial stability. Did you take a career break? Why? Why not? What were some of the ups and downs of the side you chose?
I’m curious about how women handle motherhood and professional success and financial stability. Did you take a career break? Why? Why not? What were some of the ups and downs of the side you chose?
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I’m not sure if this reply is welcome since I’m not a mother yet. But I’m educated and professionally/financially successful, and I don’t plan to take a career break when we have a kid/kids. For me, it’s not worth what I would lose in retirement contributions/compounding interest and not worth losing my stability with a very good employer.
Edit to add: I’m in the US, and a “career break” to me would involve actually quitting my job. So it wouldn’t be guaranteed when I’m ready to return. I would definitely take a maternity leave though, which would be about 4 months.
I don’t have a child yet but I’m not planning to. I’d lose out a lot on my earning potential and career progression. I also earn a good salary and have a flexible wfh job. My husband also has a great job with flexible work life balance. Our main goal is early retirement so me taking a break will also slow that down.
By raise a child, what duration do you speak of? Like until they reach kindergarten? Or grade 7 or graduate from grade 12?
I’m in Canada, where we have extended mat leave rights. I took 1 year with my first, and 10 months off with my second. I did not want to take more time off and in fact went back a bit earlier than planned with my second.
I am not suited to being a stay at home mom. I am pretty career driven and am good at my job. I love my kids, and have no regrets, but I need to have balance and my career in order to feel happy and fulfilled. My husband is very involved dad, more in to parenting and kid stuff than me. With a different kind of husband, I don’t think it would have worked as well as it has.
Downsides? I guess I’ve felt pretty stretched a lot of the time. The world also judges you more than they will judge men for being very career oriented. Overall, I have no regrets. This is who I am, and I feel like my husband and I have patented very well, and the kids are all thriving.
No. I prioritized both my career and raising children at the same time. I’m stubborn like that I guess. It helped that I married a man who is a very involved father and pulled his weight at home. He even did a few years as a SAHD. That allowed me to be fully focused on work at work and be fully present while at home with my kids.
Yes. I took 18 months off. Would not do a thing different.
I’m actively on one right now. I am frankly not entirely sure how the hell dual working tech couples are making it work. my husband likes his work a lot more then I did mine and I was a lot more driven to stay home with the kids. We were within 10k of one another salary wise so it was a bit of a toss up on who stayed home and I was also breastfeeding. I’ll probably stay home until my eldest is 5 and then I am gonna see about returning to work.
I can’t. I don’t want to, but even if I did I can’t. It’d derail my career and I would be unlikely to reach this level again. I actually really enjoy my job, too.
I’m also the breadwinner in the family.
I have the luxury of being able to work my highly paid job from home. My husband is a stay at home dad for now and we have a part time nanny as well. We will shift to a full time nanny when my husband decides to reenter the workforce.
My solution has been to outsource as much as I possibly can. I don’t cook. I only lightly clean. I hire cleaners and the nanny does light chores like trash and recycling and folding my laundry when my daughter sleeps. We get nearly everything delivered.
It frees me up to spend the time I’m not working with my daughter.
Also, quite honestly, a break from taking care of her throughout the week helps keep it fresh when I do. Being the primary caregiver 24/7 is relentless and now that I’m a mom I think being a SAHM is so incredibly hard. If I didn’t have breaks where my husband was the primary caregiver or the nanny, I think I’d get burnt out.
This is an extremely personal question that no one can answer until they are holding their baby in their arms. I know extremely successful doctors and lawyers who quit for a few years to be home.
I also know some who hired a full-time nanny and just kept plowing through.
For some people, you could have the most important job in the world, but you look at your baby and you think nothing is more important than this. You just cannot fathom hiring somebody else to get to spend those precious early years with. The whole fucking point of everything is getting to spend that time with your young child(ren).
Frankly, I would not listen to anyone who does not have a child of their own. You cannot imagine what it’s like until you experience it.
I did. And I would again. I’ll work for the majority of my adult life (and I like to. Id go bananas at home), but my babies were only babies for a year. They’re still little I prioritize them over work.
For my, raising my own kids as their primary care giver was a priority.
I’m also Canadian and it’s culturally normal to take 6-18 months for each baby. Lower end of that time for doctors and lawyers etc is typical but a full year is also considered normal.
I have my masters in occupational therapy but only earned up to 70k a year unfortunately. But due to my frugal nature I was able to save/pay off loans, pay my bills just fine.
I was burnt out from my profession.. it’s physically, mentally and emotionally grueling. I often was writing reports at home at night because we had a 85% productivity standard which left little time to do it in the office.
My husband earns over 200k and works from home. It was a no brainer for us for me to stay home with my daughter. She’s 18 months now and I always wanted to open a home bakery. I’m taking pastry classes in the fall and then as she gets older will have her in daycare part time while I try to start a cottage business.
It worked out for us. But that’s also because I was not happy in my career.
Nope I just waited pretty long to have kids.
I did not. I had my daughter while I was in the middle of getting my Master’s (my 3rd) degree. I was taking her to my classes with her strapped on my chest in a baby carrier. I’m currently a single mom and in the middle of getting a PhD.
Kids are never a reason to stop your pursuits in life. You may have to adjust – the first year of the child’s life is tough. But outside of that – nothing should be cut off completely. Most jobs and school can all be cut down to part time, pursuits can happen on weekends, and you can always have passionate hobbies. The “shut down your whole life for a baby” is rhetoric from men (and a few pick-mes) who want to control women’s lives.
In the UK, with both of mine I took the year maternity leave and then my annual leave. After my first I was only back 4 months and signed off with pregnancy related sickness, so will baby number two I had a bit longer off. I finished work December 2022, back for 4 months in 2024 and don’t return to work until January 2026 when baby is 16 months old.
So not a career break as such but nearly 33 months off. And now working 3 days a week. They are only little once and I love both roles, part time is great for that. I work in a very female dominated industry and I know it won’t harm my progression, as I’ve seen others in a similar situation.
I have a master’s in IT which I completed when my son was a baby. I currently work for a college as an instructional designer. I consider this to be a financially and professionally successful career. I landed my current role when my son was two.
When I had my child (one and only) I was working for the same institution but in a clerical job. It was easier than my current role, but positioned me to get to the role I am in now.
I did not take a career break to have my kid. I got the standard 8 weeks of maternity leave that is given where I live and took an unpaid day off per week for a few months after returning to work just to catch my breath and get a bit more time with my kid.
My son went to fulltime daycare at three months old. We didn’t have anyone who could watch him at home and we both needed to work. That said, it wasn’t all bad. Here are some of the pros and cons of me continuing to work as a new mom:
PROS:
continued income and income growth
continued career growth
sense of fulfillment outside of motherhood
sense of community in the workplace
my son loved daycare and got to socialize there
CONS:
illnesses were a logistical nightmare (my son was born during Covid; every sniffle was hours waiting to be tested by a doc and praying we’d be allowed back at daycare within a few days if not COVID)
I didn’t get much time at home with my baby
I was tired, even with a good sleeper
No I just took maternity leave for both. I did have to work a less demanding job for a couple years then was able to ramp back up
I took a 5 year backtrack to move countries, study again, and readjust. I’d say equivalent to the loss of having a single child.
Not worth it.