Mum’s the word – part four: a guide to returning to work

Nothing speeds the passage of time as rapidly as a growing child. Although each stage can feel like an endless Groundhog Day of feeding, sleeping, cleaning (bottoms and clothes, and occasionally the house), they pass with alarming regularity – and once they have, they’re gone.

For most, sleep comes in fits and starts, and consequently, this period of life is marred by the fog of subdued mental function. People will ask how old baby is, and you find yourself rapidly switching from talking about age in days to weeks to months, and all of a sudden you’re into years.

Work-life balance takes on new meaning when “life” encompasses your young family. We want to be there, yet we need to work.

We have to decide on childcare provision, logistics and financial implications (often in a sleep-deprived state), then renegotiate our contract (see panel). We are legally entitled to the same, equivalent or better terms than our pre-maternity contracts. However, many parents – myself included – wish to negotiate a part-time contract.

Here’s where the finances get tricky, as childcare costs eat a big chunk out of earnings. Make sure you apply for childcare vouchers through your practice, so you can at least pay tax free (see panel). If I worked two days a week, I made enough money to justify working. An extra day meant I would take home approximately £20 after costs for a full shift, which is somewhat grating, to say the least.

Back to work

Then, one day, you’re not sure how it happened, but quick as a flash you’re back at work. You’re in a parental mental fog, having to switch back into vet mode as a competent professional when your head has barely adjusted to parenthood.

For those mums with good sleepers and a supportive working environment, this transition can be relatively painless. It can be hugely satisfying to get back to adult conversation, using our skill set and knowledge, and actually getting to enjoy a hot cup of tea.

I happily took nine months off after my first child, but by the time my second was six weeks old, I was missing work. I started my keep in touch days every other month from then until she was six months old, and found that, despite being exhausted, I also came away feeling refreshed and reconnected with an important part of my identity.

Issues

For most, a variety of issues will arise, including logistics (childcare), professional hurdles (refreshing skills and knowledge), and personal image and confidence.

We may perceive a skills gap compared to our colleagues who have been working continually, new drugs on the shelf throw us and part-time work makes case management difficult. We may fear we’ve lost our surgical skills after a break, but more often than not, it’s like riding a bike and we’re soon back up to speed. There will often be new faces at work, new equipment and new ways of doing things.

We may miss out on the social aspect, too, having been the life and soul of the practice pub trip every Friday, to now having to rush home to the family. This can leave us feeling less connected or involved with practice life. It’s a different life stage, and often our socialising is restricted to mum and baby groups for a season.

Juggling act

Juggling the pickups, drop-offs and so on is difficult, as few childcare providers offer veterinary working hours. Here’s where the demands of working life can create problems.

Vets and nurses commonly work later than their contracted hours. Having to leave on time, religiously, to make pickup in time can often leave us feeling bad, judged and even resented for always leaving other colleagues to pick up the inevitable extras and stay late.

Yet, when we get home, our second job starts; looking after young children means home life is often more draining than the day job. It’s easy to feel we’re doing both things badly. Often, this leads to feelings of guilt and/or inadequacy, which are the most unhelpful, unproductive emotions to be saddled with. You simply have to be kind to you to survive.

Give yourself a break – even a pat on the back – and be sure to book some “me time”, or you simply won’t get any for years. Diarise it and don’t feel guilty – self-care enables you to continue to care for others without burning out. It may just be a night out drinking with the girls, or a massage on an afternoon off; for me it’s a run or cycle ride, but it’s vitally important to give yourself time and space away from work and family to recharge your batteries for both.

Time and space

For those still breastfeeding, your employers are required by law to provide appropriate time and space for you to express milk or breastfeed your child (I have a colleague whose husband would pop over with the baby in her tea break).

Personally, this manifested as locking myself in the shower room sat on a tiny wooden bench underneath the coat rack, hunched forward, pumping in a small space while attempting to eat my lunch, without spilling the milk, which I then had to store in the communal fridge. Not ideal. Milk let-down was somewhat hampered, until I discovered Michael McIntyre parenting clips on YouTube and would watch these while I giggled away, snorting my lunch and pumping merrily. Goodness only knows what it sounded like to my colleagues in the tea room on the other side of the door (mercifully, second time around I was offered a comfortable lockable office).

Positive for profession

Thankfully, the challenges presented by this physical and emotional upheaval are increasingly recognised, and mechanisms of support are being developed. The veterinary industry is following the lead of big businesses, recognising the value of age and experience over youth and presenteeism¹. We’re starting to see the development of returnships and courses geared towards helping parents make the transition back after a break.

As a feminising sector with much noise around a staff retention crisis, supporting skilled mothers in the workforce should be a priority for practices. Indeed, the skills of mothering are highly transferable to the veterinary workplace; patience, multitasking, prioritisation, negotiation, perspective, teaching and role modelling². If we can learn to encourage and support mums in their career, it can only be positive for both the individual and the profession.

---

In part five, Liz looks at the challenges of working around school-age children, the different demands that places on us and what happens to our careers. Is it possible to have it all?