The Balance - career/children

          The government has attracted consternation by ruling that nursery workers must have at least grade C in Maths and English GCSE and that there need be less adults required to look after the children in the nursery. Each nursery worker will be able to look after 4 babies (under age two) where before it was 3.  The idea being to raise standards and make childcare cheaper - CRAZY!
         It made me think. Did I get the balance right between career and children? Mothers everywhere struggle with this issue and all end up feeling guilty and feeling a failure, either over their career or  over their children or both. Perhaps it was easier when there was no choice.
       Looking back -  I could have had a career as a part time GP alongside my children. I would have had much more money and I would have had a pension now.
What happened was not planned. At my interview for medical school I was asked
       "What will you do about having children"
I replied with complete conviction, that I would get a Nanny and carry on working.
       Then we moved to Canada, where I worked as a full time GP partner for 2 years . If I had got pregnant there, I would have taken maternity leave and later returned to part time GP work. But we came back to the UK, I quickly became pregnant and found that the system had changed. In order to work as a GP partner, I would have had to do a long training -about 3 years- rotating in different hospital jobs, with terrible hours, plus a year as a GP trainee. Not a nice prospect for a Mum with a new born baby.
        So - I decided to let my career go and to be a full time Mum.
        I did eventually retrain and return to very part time work, when all 3 children where happily in school, but it was what many doctors would consider - very menial - working as a school doctor.  It brought in almost less money than I had paid to retrain and no pension. Later I started a very small private clinic, working in 2 areas in which I had an interest. However I paid more in room  rental, than I earned in fees from patients
But
It was all very interesting and it did enable me to fulfill my original reason for doing medicine which was -
       "To help other people".
It also meant that, at a time when most doctors where burnt out and fed up with it all, I was still keen, interested and enthusiastic.
        So - having recently retired and looking back, would I have been happier and more fulfilled, if I had spent much less time with my children and worked all my life as a GP ?
 Living with  a husband who has just done that, I would say - NO
       The path that life put down for me, enabled me to 'do it all' - to be a proper Mum and to have a bit of an interesting career. How very very lucky I have been
      I am so glad that I am old and no longer have to worry and agonise over those choices. My heart goes out to all those women who do.