EXPERIENCE
10 years ago, when I qualified as a teacher, I was single and had no children. I stayed at work until after 6pm almost every night. I would then go home and my mum would have made dinner for me. Life was all about work and I loved it. Fast forward to the present: I’m married, have two children and live in my own home. Things have become, let’s say, challenging. To try to balance work and life, I decided to go part-time after my second child, but I’m not sure it’s the answer. After my first child was born, my passion for the job did not change, but I knew that I had other responsibilities which needed to be seen to. I returned to work full-time, and in the role I was doing, I had enough hours while I was at work to get most things done and bring home minimal work.
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with the global pandemic. I had spent almost the whole year with my two boys, and realised how much I enjoyed watching them grow, and how much I wanted to be around them and be there for them. I also struggled to think how I would manage work and life. I was in the fortunate position that my husband could support us even if I went part-time and the logical answer was to reduce my hours. However, having worked full-time all my life, it worried me. This is very common, and according to Understanding Society, “Fewer than one-in-five of all new mothers, and 29 per cent of first-time mothers, return to full-time work in the first three years after maternity leave.” 1 Mothers all over the country are having to compromise their jobs in order to have a better worklife balance.
The study then goes on to say that “Mothers who leave employment It meant that my son was at nursery and completely are three times more likely I would leave either when the school day to return to a lower-paid or lowerfinished, or straight after any meetings or responsibility role than those who do not take a break.”2 This is probably why scheduled events. Anything not done by then, would wait until the following day, most women would choose to go parttime as opposed to leaving altogether, knowing I’d be back in school. I would as it would mean that their experience, still have the time to do it. expertise and value would all come to nothing. As if having children meant My second maternity leave coincided
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they were automatically not any good at their job. Seeing these figures and statements, it added to my worry about going parttime, but with my husband being the main earner (again, typical, according to Understanding Society: “the man was the main earner in 54 percent of couples. This increases to 69 per cent three years after birth” 3), it was either up to me to stay full-time and struggle with pick ups/ drop offs/managing workload; go part time; or leave altogether and risk being demoted or finding a job later at a lower salary. After umm-ing and ahh-ing for so long, I applied for flexible working, and it was approved. My current contract is to work 4 days a week, where my teaching hours are compressed into 3 days in school. In principle, this sounds great. I go into school every other day, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and am at home the other two days. But is it as great as it sounds? Firstly, a year into my new contract, and I am still trying to adjust. In a job like teaching, it’s hard to switch off on the weekend, let alone in the middle of the week. Mentally, I’m always at
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