I gave up my full-time job in 2018. Partly to start my Masters studies (I had to suspend studies last year as my husband was ill with Long-Covid and I was homeschooling and working) and partly to focus on my son, as his care at nursery was so poor it led to a joint SS and Police investigation [privacy edit]. It took me a year to successful gain part-time work ([privacy edit] I'm pretty educated and have a lot of employment experience, but part-time work is hard to come by and the interviews are very competitive).
I started [two jobs] in October 2019. Then the pandemic hit. I had to homeschool my son, care for husband who caught Covid in March 2020 and was ill for months (he's a teacher), while working and trying to complete my masters. Needless to say, both my masters and homeschool bit the dust and I concentrated on [one] job from home while I stringently distanced from my retail job due to health conditions. I did what I could with homeschool, suspended my studies until Feb 2021 and went back to my retail job in July 2020.
The pandemic meant work ramped up [in my clerical job]. Its been a really steep learning curve (I'm responsible for the budget [privacy edit], so there are alot of financial documents to deal with and important decisions to be made by our members). The job is 6 hours a week, £250 monthly salary, but expectations are high...my boss / mentor [privacy edit] contacts me regularly, even coming to my home or ringing my husband if she can't reach me and I have been forced into a great deal of overtime in the last year that I don't really have time for, but I need the money and find it hard to refuse as its difficult to set boundaries with someone so pushy.
I left my retail job in December for a quieter life (our manager was awful and sacked around October 2020) as my shifts were Friday 3-10pm and Sunday 10am-3pm. I found I was working on 6 days a week and my jobs totalled 18 hours a week so it was just too much; my son is going through referral for an autism assessment at the moment too, so I just can't commit to constantly doing overtime or being at a supervisors beck and call. I just want to turn up, do my job for proper pay and go home to my family life. My parents suggested leaving the retail job to focus on job applications but for my preferred choices, the applications take forever and I just don't have time until the expectations at my [clerical] job reduce. I have recently started to 'get back on the horse', but it feels a long road to better paid work with perks like term-time only hours or a combination of office based and WFH days. Luckily my parents are helping financially in the meantime...but there's a caveat you know and its hard. My confidence has been so badly knocked by what happened to our son at nursery and regular workplace bullying the last 5 years or so that I'm just not sure I want to be an "employee" again, I feel like the payoff of higher salary and better status in society as a professional working mum isn't worth selling out my personality, home life, etc. again. If I find the job searching rat race this hard, with all the qualification, experience and insider Careers Adviser knowledge tools I have, imagine how hard it is for other mums. It feels like the system (full-time hours, office based, etc.) is stacked against us when we have schoolruns and health appts at places that don't open evenings or weekends to worry about too.
The worst part? Every mum I speak to is in the same boat...they've either given up a career to be a full-time mum or work in Tescos for less stress, or they have a part-time professional job with high expectations of overtime, dealing with work emails/phone calls/meetings in personal time and supervisors who don't understand when they need time away due to a family commitment. I wanted part-time, flexible work around caring for my child and revamping my career after the 2008 financial crash so I can earn what I'm worth and fit around my husband's Education sector job...it doesn't exist, trust me...its a pipe-dream.
