Part-time hours: the first year verdict

I started a new job in September 2020 and requested to drop down to 4 days per week, so I could spend Fridays with Ted. This blogpost is about what I’ve learned in the past year of working part-time, broken into personal and professional reflections.

Personal

I don’t work Fridays – I spend the day with Ted, who’s currently two and a half.

Fridays can be lonely days for me. I’ve only ever been doing this during a pandemic and although things were opening up more by autumn 2020, none of this has been “normal” since I began my 4 day weeks. Your support network is key as a parent, but for much of the first half of the year I was wandering around parks with Ted on my own, unable to meet up with friends and their kids for pandemic reasons, or unable to visit normal parent-and-toddler things (classes, coffee shops etc) because they weren’t open (or safe). Sometimes my only interactions with adults in the whole day would be mildly awkward chats with fellow parents around the swings at the park while they push their kid.

I also don’t know many other dads doing this – that’s not to say that I can only hang out with other men, but it can sometimes feel isolating when you’re the only man in a park full of women with their kids. I’ve been at toddler events where an organiser—standing next to me—shouted “come and sit down, mums!”. As a man I can’t really complain, but I definitely wish more of my dad mates were doing this so we could catch up too – doing things with the kids is the only way I see most of my friends these days.

It’s also challenging emotionally: some Fridays (usually after a 5am wake-up call from Ted) I sincerely wish I was going to work that day for a “break”. Looking after small children is exhausting physically and mentally – being able to think through something at your own pace or complete a task without interruption is rare and precious. Some days my head just isn’t in the game and I really don’t want to be chasing a toddler round a supermarket, or fighting with him to put his socks on for 30 minutes.

This can sometimes make weekends drag because by the time Sunday rolls around I’ve already spent two full days looking after Ted and I’m starting to flag. In retrospect, it might’ve been better to have my non-working day midweek (say, Wednesday) and spread out my time with Ted, but who knows.

One thing that helped, though, was Ted completely dropping his naps. I think at the start of my 4 day weeks he was still sleeping at midday for a couple of hours. This gave our days some structure, but also imposed limitations: there were certain things we couldn’t do (swimming, for example) because the timings clashed with his sleep, or I had to cut short hangouts with friends with differently-aged kids so Ted could go home to nap.

When he started to skip the naps we were devastated at the loss of our “half-time break” and fought—unsuccessfully—to convince him he wanted to sleep. Eventually we worked it out and stopped trying, and it was better: we’d moved from denial to acceptance. Now, I can organise whole-day activities and not worry about breaking them up for naptime. It was painful getting there but has opened the door for more interesting Fridays.

Maddy challenged me a few months ago to do more with my Fridays, pointing out that the financial cost to myself (eg. the salary I’m sacrificing) meant I was spending thousands of pounds to wander around the same local parks or read the same Julia Donaldson books. She suggested a bunch of places (museums, attractions, local landmarks etc) that we could go to, and I’ve been trying to live up to her request and have found myself enjoying my days off more when I think of them as “holiday” or “treat days” – both for Ted and for me. This does make a difference: we’ve recently been taking up swimming again, going on railway journeys and canal walks, visiting the Sea Life Centre and more.

Professional

From a work point of view, things have been a lot more straightforward. I have never felt like I’ve been less effective at my job while doing 4 days per week – if anything I feel like I’m more efficient, because I know I don’t have that “buffer” zone and therefore need to wrap things up on Thursdays and make sure the team I manage have enough to do (and know where to find support) when I’m not around.

I spend a little time on Monday mornings catching up with what I missed on the previous Friday, and occasionally there’ll be company-wide meetings/announcements that I miss, but in general it doesn’t impact my day-to-day work. I switch off notifications on my phone so I’m not pinged by work-related things on my non-working day, and I don’t think about what I’m missing unless I’m bored at a soft play centre and decide to check my emails.

There are some logistical challenges, and you’ll sometimes feel a guilty twinge having to force a bunch of other people to rearrange their diaries because “oh yeah, Matt doesn’t work Fridays”. But this isn’t a massive deal and most people won’t give it a second thought. I also think we should normalise this flexible working generally, and part of that is not apologising for wanting to work fewer hours and/or spend more time with your loved ones.

I’ve only had to play the “parent card” once, in a situation where I was asked to skip a newly-scheduled recurring Friday meeting because making it work for everyone’s calendar was challenging. I initially went along with this but later pushed back and pointed out that unless my fellow managers were also optional for this meeting, then we should find a way to accommodate me and my working pattern – which ended up being the outcome.

What have I learned

If you’re considering doing this then you’re probably contemplating two options: dropping your hours (and therefore your salary), or doing “compressed hours” where you work 38 hours across 4 days (or similar). I can only speak for my own experience but the latter option was a non-starter: if I had to work early and stay late for 4 days of the week, I’d feel like this cancelled out the benefits of spending the 5th day with Ted – eg. I’d barely see him at all in the mornings/evenings, and would find myself more tired after finishing a longer work day and still having to do all the usual household chores and life admin before bed (and maybe have some room for a life too?!).

I’m extremely lucky to be able to take the hit and work fewer hours for less money. It’s not the most financially savvy move in the world, but neither is having kids in general. In six months, Ted turns 3, and we start getting some childcare allowance from the state which will go some way towards his £800/month nursery fees. I think I’ll continue my 4 day weeks even after this, and it’ll soften the blow of my 20% salary cut a little, which is nice.

My relationship with Ted has blossomed and developed in the time I’ve been doing this, and now he’s taking his first steps on the way to reading (well, he can recognise a few letters) and making music (bashing a ukulele), I can see how our Fridays together can become even more rewarding and interesting – for both of us.

It’s still tempting to go back to 5 days again, particularly when I start doing the maths and imagine having the extra cash in my pocket. But it feels mercenary to put a price on the value of watching my son grow up and sharing the process with him. Even looking back at old photos from the start of this period, I’m staggered by how young he looks compared to today – just a year ago. “They grow up so fast” is a cliche, sure, but it’s also true. I could take the extra cash, work the extra day, and look round and he’ll be almost starting school.

I’ll never get this chance again and there are some things that are more important than money and an uninterrupted lunch break. I’m very lucky to be able to figure out what they are.