What's stopping you from having a family AND a career?
The choice between kids or a career is one that catches up with most of us at some point in our lives. Most of us don’t worry about one or the other and just assume we can make both work. it’s only when the time comes round to seriously considering children that we’re faced with it: the decision between career success or a family.
For a lucky few of us, raising a family and progressing up the career ladder is totally possible thanks to our support network. This might come in the form of family or friends, or even our spouse taking on a full-time stay at home role (however, this may mean them missing out on the career progression). It seems for a large part of us though, we fall into the “either or” way of thinking when it comes to work and home life.
According to a recent ITV poll, 60% of mothers think that it’s impossible to be a good mum while also having a good career. While that covers a relatively small demographic of women from the UK, this is actually a trend being felt across other parts of the globe.
Since 2001, Germany’s birth-rate has been on the decline. This drop in numbers is partly attributed to the fact that child care isn’t as regularly available as it is in other parts of Europe. Harder to access childcare, especially in the child’s early years, means that mothers tend to take longer to return to work. Mothers, or more specifically potential mothers, don’t want to take the risk of missing out on their career and seem to be willing to miss out on having children to achieve that.
While this is by no means just a German problem, low birth rates aren’t the case everywhere. In France and various Scandinavian countries child care is much more readily available, promoting not only a healthy birth rate but it allowing women to return to work much sooner.
When it comes to us here in the UK, child care can be quite costly. For those of us that don’t have family members who can take over day to day care, childminders can cost anywhere from £200 to over £600 a week! It’s no wonder so many women see this as an “either or” situation as the cost alone rules many of us out.
For those fortunate enough to find an affordable childcare arrangement, there’s a chance that after falling pregnant initially you might not have a job to go back to. The Equality and Human Rights Commission statistics show that over 11% of women are dismissed, made redundant or forced to leave after becoming pregnant. That represents about 54,000 women, roughly 80% higher than statistics from 10 years ago.
When it comes down to kids vs career, for a lot of us it really is a choice of one or the other. A fortunate few of us can “have it all” but for the most part it can be very trying to balance your home life with your career.
Of course, no matter what situation you find yourself in, there’s steps you can take to help you get the best of both worlds, the easiest being job sharing. Job sharing not only gives you more time to spend with your family, but also means you don’t have to cut your career short. If you want to find out more about job sharing, you can do so here.
Hopefully, we’ll see some changes to the services available to new mothers and families that helps progress our careers, not ones that make us fearful we may miss out on one to pursue the other.
