My Journey Back to Work

Well, here we are… Four episodes of interweaving stories so far: but what is it like putting it all together? What are your thoughts on the series so far? And where would you like it to go next? Today’s episode follows a slightly different format: we hear a bit more from each parent at a time. Can you start to hear themes bubbling up between them? We’ll have some of your feedback and a peek behind...

Our first day back is here. It’s time to make our first morning commute as a parent and we find ourselves back at work. Or maybe we don’t. Maybe our circumstances have changed. Maybe we make a different choice. Whatever decisions we make, all the layers of experiences of the last however-many-months - visible and not - are coming with us. Is this part of the reason why many parents say ‘I wish we...

New parenthood brings the start of a new chapter and we begin to adapt to a different normal. Does parenthood shift our perspective on if, when and how we decide to go back to work after parental leave? As we start to find our feet in this parallel world, what happens when work re-enters the picture? Is our outlook the same? Do the decisions we made before look the same, ...or different now? QUOTE...

Picking up where we left off in episode one - work is in full swing and it’s hard to see how life could ever be any different. But is something about to change? Starting a family is no longer a future possibility. It becomes our current reality. From working life to birth, how do we navigate the questions we meet along the way? As we approach making plans for parental leave, what do we expect our...

When we care deeply about our working lives, what happens when something comes along to change it? When does starting a family come to be part of the conversation? And what do we notice about ourselves when it does? As we take our first steps towards parenthood, the layers of invisible experiences that might be bubbling away inside our heads could shed some light. But first we need a way in. Can a...

What happens when we go back to work after parental leave? At least 100,000s UK parents return to work after parental leave each year. That’s a lot of first days back isn’t it? How was yours? "Before I had my daughter, work was everything..." "I knew I wanted to take a year off… but with that comes… ? " "There was a real tidal wave of excitement about the industry..." "Where you still have to adap...