{"id":277,"date":"2021-12-16T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-16T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.67bricks.com\/?p=277"},"modified":"2022-01-05T09:31:05","modified_gmt":"2022-01-05T09:31:05","slug":"the-trials-and-tribulations-of-a-working-parent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.67bricks.com\/?p=277","title":{"rendered":"The Trials and Tribulations of a Working Parent"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve worked in the science and technology sector for my whole career, starting off by completing a PhD in Physics, then migrating into computer modelling, and then into software development.\u00a0 I had my son during the final year of my PhD (oh how na\u00efve I was about how easy that would be) and then immediately hit the dilemma of \u201chow are we going to pay for this?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Students are not entitled to any kind of maternity leave or pay – when I made enquiries about this I was advised to quit my studies, which would have made me eligible for various benefits.\u00a0 My department was much more accommodating and gave me four months paid maternity leave – something they were under no obligation to do.\u00a0 I also managed to claim Maternity Allowance \u00a0(https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/maternity-allowance\/how-to-claim<\/a>), because I had done some part-time maths lecturing which made me eligible.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I made my first forays into real paid employment, I had to tackle the thorny issue of childcare.\u00a0 Childminder or nursery?\u00a0 Enlisting the grand-parents wasn\u2019t an option, and neither was either myself or my husband becoming a stay-at-home parent.\u00a0 We initially picked a nursery at my husband\u2019s work-place, and then found one closer to home.\u00a0 The fees were astronomical – larger than the mortgage – but we scraped by.\u00a0 I had some comments (addressed to me, never to my husband) along the lines of \u201cwhy bother having kids if you\u2019re never going to see them?\u201d which I shrugged off.<\/span><\/p>\n

We timed having our second child so that we would not have two children in nursery at the same time for long – if nursery fees for one child were astronomical then double nursery fees were on a whole other level.\u00a0 My employer at the time (not 67 Bricks, I should add) only offered the barest minimum maternity package, and so I could only afford to take four months\u2019 maternity leave (my take-home pay went down to around \u00a3120 a week after the first 6-weeks of leave).\u00a0 This was before the change in the law that would have allowed my husband to take some extended leave himself – when he requested to do so his employer said something along the lines of \u201cyou can do that when men start giving birth to babies\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the deficiencies in that company\u2019s maternity policy, my immediate line manager was wonderfully accommodating.\u00a0 He allowed me to have an arrangement where I worked in the office for about 5 hours a day and then completed the rest of my hours at home.\u00a0 This enabled me to reduce the nursery hours from 9-4 rather than 8-6, and save money while spending more time with the kids.\u00a0 He also gave me considerable flexibility around school holidays, and working from home on days when I had various child-related errands such as school plays, parent appointments etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of school, nobody ever tells you that having a school-age child is actually harder to fit a job around than having a nursery age child.\u00a0 The school day ends at 3pm – and who is ready to finish work at 3pm???\u00a0 Also, there are 13 weeks a year of school holidays to somehow cover.\u00a0 At the time, the school did not have an after-school club (they started one up in later years) and so I had to find a child-minder who could do after-school pickups.\u00a0 There was a holiday club at a school in the next village which I used – it was heavily sports-related, which my son in particular did not like, but I told him there was no choice and he had to go.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the next decade I went through various child-care arrangements, including nursery, childminders, after-school clubs, holiday clubs, and various forms of flexible working arrangement for both myself and my husband.\u00a0 Our days were organised with military precision.\u00a0 Drop the kids at school at 8:40.\u00a0 Drive like a maniac to work, never being able to arrive earlier than 9:30.\u00a0 And then having to leave at 5pm on the dot so that I could once more drive like a maniac to pick the kids up by 6pm or risk being fined (typically an immediate fine of \u00a315 and then \u00a310 for every extra 15 minutes you were late).\u00a0 And the stress of sitting in a traffic jam on the motorway, watching the clock tick, wondering exactly how late I would be.\u00a0 I changed jobs and my new line manager was equally wonderful – I was never quite able to complete my full hours during office-time, but he was perfectly fine with me making up time in the evenings.\u00a0 And he never once quibbled when I said that I could not get in any earlier than 9:30, or stay any later than 5pm.<\/span><\/p>\n

My kids are now in secondary school and make their own way to and from school, and are old enough to be left alone during school holidays.\u00a0 Therefore I finally no longer have to worry about pick-ups, or astronomical childcare fees, and I don\u2019t have to rush around like a loon trying to pick them up by a specific time.<\/span><\/p>\n

The key takeaways from all this are:<\/span><\/p>\n