Yes. My full time remote position just got downgraded to part time consulting. I’m a mother of 2 and can’t make it work without full time pay to cover their childcare. I never knew stepping into motherhood was stepping into the US society’s abuse of women’s time and energy.
Yes, you’re describing my life. I really wish I could clock into a 9-5 and only have that to worry about. Instead, I’m constantly juggling every aspect of work and family life from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed.
It was the biggest bummer of a bait-and-switch to realize that while I’d been encouraged to “have it all” and “spend time with my kids,” I was permanently crippling myself in terms of financial and career growth. And to realize that it’s taboo to talk about that, as if you’re a shitty mom for worrying about your own financial welfare. Because moms are cherubically sacrificial.
WHY DOES SOCIETY SHIT ON WOMEN AND EXPECT US TO SMILE?
And then wait, after years of part time work and entrepreneurship when you go to retire your social security account will be worth less than half of what your partner who steadily worked full time is entitled to. Ask me how I know :/
Yes, I noted this in the piece. But if you are divorced and don't remarry, you can claim higher social security based on your ex's benefit if you were married for a certain amount of time.
I feel like a big part of the problem is labor laws in the US rather than part time work.
Most of the mums I know in Australia work part time at least until their kids are in school. It’s generally seen as acceptable for most big organisations (in fact my contract guarantees me flexible hours and conditions, on my terms, until my youngest child turns 6). By law every employer must keep a mother’s role open for at least 12 months of maternity leave. The government pays us 26 weeks of maternity pay and large corporations as well as government jobs often have a paid leave element on top of that (anywhere from 12-26 weeks)
Part time workers don’t loose access to healthcare (yay for universal healthcare!) and part time workers have the same legal protections as full time workers. Mums aren’t usually forced to quit their jobs, or take on precarious side hustles to survive.
Theres still the mental load, and the being the primary parent, and the keeper of all knowledge of everything but non working mums seem to get that too.
I say this all the time on the internet, but American moms need to be rioting or something.
I shifted to part time in the nineties, lost out on retirement savings, and had to restart career from pretty much ground 0 when I went back to full time 12 years later. Don’t do it. Not worth it. Play the end game.
This is so so common in my industry - I’m a wedding and family photographer and the industry is FULL of moms who are also full time caregivers to their kids. I had built my business prior to having kids and thought it was just commonplace to be able to juggle it all without childcare help. Thought i could “have it all” - HA NO. So many people say oh well you can just downshift to part time - but honestly businesses are NOT part time. It’s expensive to run a legit business and it’s hard to turn down work when you’re so used to a hustle mindset. Because my job is more flexible and mostly evening/weekend, i still take on more of the household labor and my husband and i just hand off the kids a lot when I’m in my busy season. I’m burned out but don’t want to stop working because I know how much that would hurt me if i were to ever be divorced or widowed.
If we had actual social welfare programs and supported families in this country it’d be better but seems like that won’t be my experience which has caused a lot of grief in my life.
I relate to this so much. My part time work hasn’t bled into full time, but my availability for parenting, activism, etc has led to a far-more-than-full-time schedule (which also involves a ton of context- and location-switching) and I am so exhausted and burned out.
Thank you for bringing up the context switching! Yes, I felt like I was always shifting back and forth, not able to be present with my kids at the park because I'm trying to return an email. I too did a lot of activism for my kid in the early years as well as got corralled to be the board chair at our co-op preschool, which meant we essential paid nothing for childcare but I now had 3 jobs!
This is the path I was on until my husband was offered an expat assignment in China, and we took it. We spent 6 years overseas, and during that time, I became more than the default parent. I became the default for parenting and everything that didn't my husband's physical presence to do. I became more of a contributor to his career because of the social interactions required as expats with other expats (aka: hubby's boss, that guy's boss, etc.). My kids know how to navigate business dinners, vacations with other executives, interactions with world leaders, and more. None of this is remotely helpful back in the States, where mediocrity is cool. And my career is so far in the dust that the dust itself has settled and solidified into a sandstone layer of the earth's crust.
Now I'm trying to figure out how to start something on my own, but none of my education or previous experience trained me for this. I've decided to treat it like I did our expat assignments - as a challenging adventure.
I can't say I regret my choices, because living overseas was an amazing experience and we got to see the world (literally). But I do wish we'd done a better job balancing parenting tasks - because now my kids have poor relationships with their father and the lifelong impacts of that are hard to understate. I wish I had an answer. I don't. The only thing I can offer is support and cheerleading for the women navigating these waters now. You DO have the right to ask for your partner to do more - even if they are working full time and you're not. Hell, I'd argue it's an obligation because now that we're on the other side of it, my husband's guilt and regret is also causing strain on our marriage. The men all come to regret their decisions, but often too late. I'm here for any couple that wants to break the cycle!
Thank you for sharing your experience. I do think when one parent does so much more, it steals a relationship from the other parent. If it is more balanced, they come to lean on you both. It isn't quite as noticeable if you stay married. But if you get divorced and one parent was around more than the other, it is hard for the kids to feel as at home with the other parent no matter what the parenting split is.
This happened to me. I was laid off from my full-time job during the pandemic and my partner kept his job, so I became the default parent. I slowly took on freelancing work but was still mostly available to our 3 kids. Then I got a full time job again, but very few of the chores/childcare responsibilities I took on were shifted back to my partner. I WFH more often than my partner does, which makes it feel more reasonable for me to do more of the household stuff, but...I'm burnt out.
reading this is quite sad as I come from Sub-Saharan Africa. I think somehow in the education here in the U.S. and Europe men and women weren't taught kids were not meant to be raised by single parents. What I recommend is a marriage contract and discussion about what each person wants in the next 15-30 years between men and women and specific expectations. However, one thing that is sure though is that each side is tired of the other side. In this forum is mostly women with regrets. In another forum it's mostly men with regrets. My wife and I had to sacrifice a lot for our two kids. I gave up 40% of my income to be closer to the kids but she also had to sacrifice because she wanted kids. I read these stories and I think now, no one really gets what they want or need and we all thought it must have been terrible before.
So maybe I have just had the opposite experience, but downshifting my career has been an amazing decision for our family. I work “full time” but in a role I’m overqualified for and which I can usually accomplish in 15-20 hours a week.
Because I still have full time pay (albeit it being a bit lower) I can afford childcare (an au pair). I work from home and try to do most of my work before while my child is asleep or out of the home at an activity. I leverage my au pair to take my son to activities, put him down for his nap and do a lot of the housework associate with kids (laundry, dishes, toy pickup et al). This means I still get to spend 7-9 hours of quality time a day with my kid, while still getting my work done. I do work a lot asynchronously - 5-7 AM, 8-10 PM etc. The one downside is that I basically spend all of my time working or parenting and I don’t get much time to do anything else but a lot of that is self inflected as I could have my au pair do more hands on childcare.
In terms of the split - I really feel like my partner is able to maximize his earning potential, he never has to cancel things because of a sick kid or activities. He’s free to do what he needs to support his career. And, on the flip side, my child never has to make sacrifices due to a parent being unavailable - if he’s sick, I can care for him. If there’s a parents day at school - I can go. It feels like this allows for the best outcomes for everyone in our family. And on my end - I get to stay in the workforce without a ton of stress around racing up the promo ladder. I’m less stressed than most of my friends because we have more money (thanks to my husband maximizing his earning potential) and because my juggling is more manageable (less intense work!). Idk - it has worked really well for us. We are from a culture in which divorce isn’t as much of a thing so I’m less concerned about that though, which probably helps!
I think having the au pair protects you from some of the struggles mentioned in this post. But I would also argue that your statement about how you spend all your time working or parenting... at some point that can start to make you lose your mind.
I likely would have written a comment like yours. I had convinced myself it was the best of both worlds. But even your work schedule (5-7AM, 8-10PM) sounds pretty harsh. We are socialized to learn to tolerate a lot as women. In addition, working at a job you are overqualified for means you aren't building your career the way your husband is. Again, just note that that is a sacrifice. Your husband is able to maximize his earning potential due to your sacrifice. Though I know you come from a culture where divorce isn't a much of a thing, I would suggest you think about creating a postnuptial agreement that codifies some of these sacrifices. Because if your spouse comes home one day and wants a divorce, and you are now expected to go out and support yourself, will you be able to do so? Perhaps yes. But again, these are sacrifices that don't seem so painful until you are faced with something unexpected like death or divorce.
you're talking about being a married single mother here. something i relate to quite well, and was my life for the better part of 13 years. i am divorced now and received enough of a settlement that i don't have to work yet, though i am working on what i will be doing though as i have never had a career, i only ever wanted a family and to be able to raise my children.
the grief is intense, because even though i am divorced, i realize i never lived the dream.
it was me and my kids alone the whole time, i couldn't see it because of my own attachments and issues, but i sure can now. i also see the majority of women living in the same experience.
i think we are up against a multi faceted problem and a multi facet approach to solution is needed, as women are crashing out, men are checking out, and kids are lost in the confusion. we have men with major father wounds who can't say no to their work, and who are emotionally checked out and can't show up for the family. women with codependancy and poor boundaries who can't say no to their husbands or kids, and kids who are raised by screens.
i will say as a divorced mom i am much much happier, and my kids are too. i am sad that their dad did not want to be there for them and i don't think i will ever understand that.
something else i feel important here is for women to realize who they are outside of their marriages and parental role. it is too easy to lose ourselves and society celebrates a sacrificial woman, but this leads to so much suffering.
Yes to father wounds and women with codependency. My situation for sure. I didn't identify as being a married single mom. He still showed up in some ways, obviously financially, and would coach their softball teams. Which I think made it harder because it wasn't totally black and white and yet I was dying. It was too much. I don't think I'm alone. I think this is sadly due to the state of our society that prizes work and capitalism above all else, and families are left on their own to try and manage.
Yes. My full time remote position just got downgraded to part time consulting. I’m a mother of 2 and can’t make it work without full time pay to cover their childcare. I never knew stepping into motherhood was stepping into the US society’s abuse of women’s time and energy.
That last sentence. So true. This is why so many women today aren't doing it. They see it and say, no way.
Yes, you’re describing my life. I really wish I could clock into a 9-5 and only have that to worry about. Instead, I’m constantly juggling every aspect of work and family life from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed.
It was the biggest bummer of a bait-and-switch to realize that while I’d been encouraged to “have it all” and “spend time with my kids,” I was permanently crippling myself in terms of financial and career growth. And to realize that it’s taboo to talk about that, as if you’re a shitty mom for worrying about your own financial welfare. Because moms are cherubically sacrificial.
WHY DOES SOCIETY SHIT ON WOMEN AND EXPECT US TO SMILE?
And then wait, after years of part time work and entrepreneurship when you go to retire your social security account will be worth less than half of what your partner who steadily worked full time is entitled to. Ask me how I know :/
Yes, I noted this in the piece. But if you are divorced and don't remarry, you can claim higher social security based on your ex's benefit if you were married for a certain amount of time.
I feel like a big part of the problem is labor laws in the US rather than part time work.
Most of the mums I know in Australia work part time at least until their kids are in school. It’s generally seen as acceptable for most big organisations (in fact my contract guarantees me flexible hours and conditions, on my terms, until my youngest child turns 6). By law every employer must keep a mother’s role open for at least 12 months of maternity leave. The government pays us 26 weeks of maternity pay and large corporations as well as government jobs often have a paid leave element on top of that (anywhere from 12-26 weeks)
Part time workers don’t loose access to healthcare (yay for universal healthcare!) and part time workers have the same legal protections as full time workers. Mums aren’t usually forced to quit their jobs, or take on precarious side hustles to survive.
Theres still the mental load, and the being the primary parent, and the keeper of all knowledge of everything but non working mums seem to get that too.
I say this all the time on the internet, but American moms need to be rioting or something.
Yes, the problem is our lack of support. Absolutely.
I shifted to part time in the nineties, lost out on retirement savings, and had to restart career from pretty much ground 0 when I went back to full time 12 years later. Don’t do it. Not worth it. Play the end game.
This is so so common in my industry - I’m a wedding and family photographer and the industry is FULL of moms who are also full time caregivers to their kids. I had built my business prior to having kids and thought it was just commonplace to be able to juggle it all without childcare help. Thought i could “have it all” - HA NO. So many people say oh well you can just downshift to part time - but honestly businesses are NOT part time. It’s expensive to run a legit business and it’s hard to turn down work when you’re so used to a hustle mindset. Because my job is more flexible and mostly evening/weekend, i still take on more of the household labor and my husband and i just hand off the kids a lot when I’m in my busy season. I’m burned out but don’t want to stop working because I know how much that would hurt me if i were to ever be divorced or widowed.
If we had actual social welfare programs and supported families in this country it’d be better but seems like that won’t be my experience which has caused a lot of grief in my life.
I relate to this so much. My part time work hasn’t bled into full time, but my availability for parenting, activism, etc has led to a far-more-than-full-time schedule (which also involves a ton of context- and location-switching) and I am so exhausted and burned out.
Thank you for bringing up the context switching! Yes, I felt like I was always shifting back and forth, not able to be present with my kids at the park because I'm trying to return an email. I too did a lot of activism for my kid in the early years as well as got corralled to be the board chair at our co-op preschool, which meant we essential paid nothing for childcare but I now had 3 jobs!
This is the path I was on until my husband was offered an expat assignment in China, and we took it. We spent 6 years overseas, and during that time, I became more than the default parent. I became the default for parenting and everything that didn't my husband's physical presence to do. I became more of a contributor to his career because of the social interactions required as expats with other expats (aka: hubby's boss, that guy's boss, etc.). My kids know how to navigate business dinners, vacations with other executives, interactions with world leaders, and more. None of this is remotely helpful back in the States, where mediocrity is cool. And my career is so far in the dust that the dust itself has settled and solidified into a sandstone layer of the earth's crust.
Now I'm trying to figure out how to start something on my own, but none of my education or previous experience trained me for this. I've decided to treat it like I did our expat assignments - as a challenging adventure.
I can't say I regret my choices, because living overseas was an amazing experience and we got to see the world (literally). But I do wish we'd done a better job balancing parenting tasks - because now my kids have poor relationships with their father and the lifelong impacts of that are hard to understate. I wish I had an answer. I don't. The only thing I can offer is support and cheerleading for the women navigating these waters now. You DO have the right to ask for your partner to do more - even if they are working full time and you're not. Hell, I'd argue it's an obligation because now that we're on the other side of it, my husband's guilt and regret is also causing strain on our marriage. The men all come to regret their decisions, but often too late. I'm here for any couple that wants to break the cycle!
Thank you for sharing your experience. I do think when one parent does so much more, it steals a relationship from the other parent. If it is more balanced, they come to lean on you both. It isn't quite as noticeable if you stay married. But if you get divorced and one parent was around more than the other, it is hard for the kids to feel as at home with the other parent no matter what the parenting split is.
This happened to me. I was laid off from my full-time job during the pandemic and my partner kept his job, so I became the default parent. I slowly took on freelancing work but was still mostly available to our 3 kids. Then I got a full time job again, but very few of the chores/childcare responsibilities I took on were shifted back to my partner. I WFH more often than my partner does, which makes it feel more reasonable for me to do more of the household stuff, but...I'm burnt out.
Yep. This
reading this is quite sad as I come from Sub-Saharan Africa. I think somehow in the education here in the U.S. and Europe men and women weren't taught kids were not meant to be raised by single parents. What I recommend is a marriage contract and discussion about what each person wants in the next 15-30 years between men and women and specific expectations. However, one thing that is sure though is that each side is tired of the other side. In this forum is mostly women with regrets. In another forum it's mostly men with regrets. My wife and I had to sacrifice a lot for our two kids. I gave up 40% of my income to be closer to the kids but she also had to sacrifice because she wanted kids. I read these stories and I think now, no one really gets what they want or need and we all thought it must have been terrible before.
So maybe I have just had the opposite experience, but downshifting my career has been an amazing decision for our family. I work “full time” but in a role I’m overqualified for and which I can usually accomplish in 15-20 hours a week.
Because I still have full time pay (albeit it being a bit lower) I can afford childcare (an au pair). I work from home and try to do most of my work before while my child is asleep or out of the home at an activity. I leverage my au pair to take my son to activities, put him down for his nap and do a lot of the housework associate with kids (laundry, dishes, toy pickup et al). This means I still get to spend 7-9 hours of quality time a day with my kid, while still getting my work done. I do work a lot asynchronously - 5-7 AM, 8-10 PM etc. The one downside is that I basically spend all of my time working or parenting and I don’t get much time to do anything else but a lot of that is self inflected as I could have my au pair do more hands on childcare.
In terms of the split - I really feel like my partner is able to maximize his earning potential, he never has to cancel things because of a sick kid or activities. He’s free to do what he needs to support his career. And, on the flip side, my child never has to make sacrifices due to a parent being unavailable - if he’s sick, I can care for him. If there’s a parents day at school - I can go. It feels like this allows for the best outcomes for everyone in our family. And on my end - I get to stay in the workforce without a ton of stress around racing up the promo ladder. I’m less stressed than most of my friends because we have more money (thanks to my husband maximizing his earning potential) and because my juggling is more manageable (less intense work!). Idk - it has worked really well for us. We are from a culture in which divorce isn’t as much of a thing so I’m less concerned about that though, which probably helps!
I think having the au pair protects you from some of the struggles mentioned in this post. But I would also argue that your statement about how you spend all your time working or parenting... at some point that can start to make you lose your mind.
I likely would have written a comment like yours. I had convinced myself it was the best of both worlds. But even your work schedule (5-7AM, 8-10PM) sounds pretty harsh. We are socialized to learn to tolerate a lot as women. In addition, working at a job you are overqualified for means you aren't building your career the way your husband is. Again, just note that that is a sacrifice. Your husband is able to maximize his earning potential due to your sacrifice. Though I know you come from a culture where divorce isn't a much of a thing, I would suggest you think about creating a postnuptial agreement that codifies some of these sacrifices. Because if your spouse comes home one day and wants a divorce, and you are now expected to go out and support yourself, will you be able to do so? Perhaps yes. But again, these are sacrifices that don't seem so painful until you are faced with something unexpected like death or divorce.
you're talking about being a married single mother here. something i relate to quite well, and was my life for the better part of 13 years. i am divorced now and received enough of a settlement that i don't have to work yet, though i am working on what i will be doing though as i have never had a career, i only ever wanted a family and to be able to raise my children.
the grief is intense, because even though i am divorced, i realize i never lived the dream.
it was me and my kids alone the whole time, i couldn't see it because of my own attachments and issues, but i sure can now. i also see the majority of women living in the same experience.
i think we are up against a multi faceted problem and a multi facet approach to solution is needed, as women are crashing out, men are checking out, and kids are lost in the confusion. we have men with major father wounds who can't say no to their work, and who are emotionally checked out and can't show up for the family. women with codependancy and poor boundaries who can't say no to their husbands or kids, and kids who are raised by screens.
i will say as a divorced mom i am much much happier, and my kids are too. i am sad that their dad did not want to be there for them and i don't think i will ever understand that.
something else i feel important here is for women to realize who they are outside of their marriages and parental role. it is too easy to lose ourselves and society celebrates a sacrificial woman, but this leads to so much suffering.
this was a great read, thanks for writing it.
Yes to father wounds and women with codependency. My situation for sure. I didn't identify as being a married single mom. He still showed up in some ways, obviously financially, and would coach their softball teams. Which I think made it harder because it wasn't totally black and white and yet I was dying. It was too much. I don't think I'm alone. I think this is sadly due to the state of our society that prizes work and capitalism above all else, and families are left on their own to try and manage.
I feel this. I work full-time but only go in twice a week, which makes it “appear” as if I work part-time.