I am a 19 year old who is pursuing a BSN. One of the aspects of Nursing that I find most appealing in the fact that there is great job flexibility. Where I am from, a Nurse can work 80 hrs one week and have a free week the next. Or they could work just the weekends. The salary is also decent enough to point where a nurse can work part time as well and still get by.
HOWEVER, I have heard that Nurses are oftentimes required to work some holidays and weekends, but usually they are compensated with not having to work the next holiday and weekend.
I have no kids yet, but I would like to have several children if possible. So my questions to nurses who are moms:
1. Do you consider Nursing a family-friendly field? Why or why not?
2. Has your job severely impacted your family life in a negative way? If so, how?
3. If you are a single mother to 3-5 children, has your Nursing job afforded you to take care of your kids financially as well as save for retirement?
4. Finally, if you had to do Nursing all over again, would you? If not, what other field would you choose?
Please also state which field of Nursing you are in. Thanks!
Specializes in family practice and school nursing.
I have 3 daughters who are teenagers and in their 20's now.I don't think hospital nursing is very mom compatible, but with nursing you have other options. I worked 15 years in a doctor's office close to home. The doctors was a very involved dad, himself, so he understood when I needed time off for the kids. For the last 10 years I have been a school nurse. It is great work and the schedule is wonderful. Granted the money isn't great but there are very few of my children's activities that I have not attended. All 3 kids were/are high honor students and multi-sport athletes. 2 are in college now, doing great. So, yes, nursing can be mom compatible, but not without some sacrifices (in my case financial.) It is all a matter of priorities and in my case my kids always come first.
Wow, HollyHobby, your workplace sounds awful. I can't imagine my workplace not allowing me off for any of those things. I just went through a miscarriage at 12 weeks, and I took my week's shifts off and was offered more time off if I needed it. And I wouldn't work with explosive diarrhea! I could be giving gastroenteritis to my Onc patients. Not all workplaces are as heartless and inflexible as that. My coworkers have gotten time off for grandparents' deaths where they had to travel back to their home country and were off a month. Oh, and I'm a hospital floor nurse.
As for the original question, I work night weekend shifts. In this way, my partner and I have kept daycare needs down to one day for my 2 year old. It is a sacrifice(like not much free time with a partner), but I take care of my son all week. I think if you find a good workplace, it can be family-friendly.
Family-friendly? I work on-call and make my own schedule, alternating with my husband so that we pay less for childcare. I absolutely CANNOT take a permanent position because it would it would not afford me the flexibility.
Finances? It may depend on where you live. Another reason that I'm working on-call is that I get a 20% pay increase for every shift I work. My husband takes care of the benefits in our household. This means that I do not have vacation, but this is also the only way that I can do it with a mortgage, private school for the child (we live in an urban area), bills, household expenses, minimal daycare, insurance for home, car, medical, etc, property taxes (which are higher here) and food (which has inflated significantly in the last couple of years), misc medical bills, emergency trips for the pets, car expenses, gasoline (I work very close by and my husband takes the bus, so this is smaller than average and is the reason I live in the city and pay higher housing costs), and emergency savings. We make plenty of money on paper- it's not about EARNING money, it's about KEEPING it. And no, I don't feel that nursing is lucrative. Again, it may depend on where you live.
Would I do it again? I did it (honestly) because my former career required me to work forever at the same job, waiting for someone else to retire to move around. I was already in healthcare, watching nurses work all the time and thought, "Oh, I can do that." I feel the same about it now. I'd never do this if you didn't know what you were getting into. It's sh**y work! And I've started having back pain which I'VE NEVER HAD before. Thank god my husband has sweet medical benefits with paid massage. I'll keep doing it because it's just what I have.
I think nursing can work, you just need to manage your career not the other way around. I raised four children just 6 years apart formt he oldest to youngest and worked full time the whole time.
A support network is essential (would be any way with 4 kids in my mind), a good list of childcare options (12 names at one point and I never missed work because of needing a caregiver) and lots of patience because when you come in the door they all want you. LOL
Check out the variety of nursing positions - school nurse, hospital with varied shifts available, legal nuse consultant, home care, nursing home, etc.... Then also check out the employer to see who has policies you can live with as a working mom.
I'm the mother of 3. My children were in elementary, middle and High school when I started nursing school. My first job was 730am to 5:00pm in a clinic. I did work most holidays but no weekends. My next job was home health, I worked weekdays 8-5, had call and worked holidays. The job hours were 8-5 but I wound up working an additional 5-10 hours a week on documentation. It was high stress. I left that and went into another area of nursing that didn't involve clinical/patient care..It is more policy and QI. I work 8-430pm, M-F, no holidays and no weekends. Nursing can be family friendly if you find the right area and the right employer.:)
So it sounds like a lot of it is picking the right job, and the right hours. From what I gather from posts, hospitals pay more but are less flexible with shifts/time off, while doctors offices are more flexible but less pay. Is that correct for the most part?
I have been intending to go to nursing school for about 3 years now and finally have finished my prereqs and applied....just in time to get pregnant (surprise). I'm due in June and school starts in August, if I'm accepted. (Am I crazy?)
This will be my first child and obviously I'm worried about 1) nursing school + caring for an infant and 2) finding a job after nursing school that will offer decent hours to allow me to also be a mom.
My husband has a good job and is supportive but he can't just up and leave work all the time either. We don't have any retired family members who live here. I'm worried about what we'll do if the baby is sick and has to be taken home from daycare and I can't leave school and he can't leave work.
For us, it seems, the problem will be less with making ends meet financially and more with those unexpected kid-is-sick days.
I'd love to hear more from nurses who have gone through school with infants.
I'm not a nurse yet, however I did finish my first semester of nursing school in New Orleans after having left the military. The military life probably closest models that of nursing, with the unfriendly family hours and work demands. So I figured I could handle nursing just fine. The two fields are almost identical in terms of environment and expectations concerning parents.
I'm a single mother of a 5 year old son, and at the time I entered school, I was in a relationship. I realized that a parent MUST have a support system to get through school, and obviously once licensed. I mention New Orleans specifically because it is a location with very few good resources. There is a lot of childcare available during all hours of the night but not so much reputable child care. When my relationship ended, greatly in part to the time commitment to my son and school, I knew that attempting to get through school with no support system was going to be overwhelmingly difficult. Mind you, I would have succeeded without the guy, but I guess you could say he was back up. So I imagine that having a supportive partner can give a student or nurse the confidence to stick with the nursing field. I do most of my studying at night, but find that my son seems to need more attention, the more studying I need to do. So the balance it tough. An infant may not notice so much as long as there is someone providing love and stimulation. I can only guess that older children are able to entertain one another.
I moved to Texas last summer in order to get closer to family members and friends for support, and to where I knew resources would better serve my son's needs. I will start an online BSN program in the summer. I haven't given up on my goal of becoming a nurse because I know that there are many options for type of work and schedules.
I know that without a doubt, hospital duty will not work for us. I've looked for CNA work and the 12 hour shifts would easily make me a neglectful parent. You really have to consider your life situation. I have no parents or grandparents living, and the bulk of my family is in California. i have only my sister who I am not really emotionally connected with(found that out recently), an elderly step-mother who works, and friends who are spread out over the area. So still not really a support network much more than if something major happens to me or my son. If you have family and friends who are willing to be caregivers, then by all means you can succeed in this. After reading this board, I was on the brink of completely reconsidering, but I know that nursing is my passion and you don't let what appear to be mountains stop you. You find pathways that you can navigate, and nursing offers that. And you learn to create support systems as you go with other parents.
Success in this I think is basically about being realistic about circumstances. If you have 4 children, no partner, no local support, and limited resources, nursing is most likely not the best choice until your circumstances provide the opportunity. But by all means, with no children? The sky is the limit. And I offer the advice that every book geared to nursing students I read shared, don't enter a new relationship before school. And try to hold on to your relationship whilst in school. Although successful in my first semester attempt, I would have loved to put all of my energy into my studies and clinicals.
You can only know if this will work for you by getting started, but also assessing if a support network, and back ups to your back ups are available. Good luck!
The great thing about nursing is that you have flexibility as to work life. I have always been able to find jobs that work around my family needs. It is never perfect, but neither is 9-5 Mon. through Fri. with no flexibility. Many jobs offer no time off during the week so forget about school events. When my son was little I worked every weekend and holidays on 12 hour shifts and made as much as I could have working full-time. My husband was off on weekends so we never had to use daycare. All week I was stay-at home mommy and we had a blast!
Once he went to school I started working a little during the week- subbing as a school nurse. No big commitment, and only during the school year. I kept my weekend shifts but did not work as many holidays. I was active in the school programs such as PTA.
After he got old enough I went more into home health- many weekends and holidays off. I had flexible hours and could drive him to school. His dad switched his hours to be there when my son went home. No latchkey or after school programs! We took turns calling off if we had to when he was sick. It worked out well.
Once he got to high school I started doing some other things and went back to school myself. Now I work in a school and have a second job also. Once he graduates I will probably look for something that pays better.
So nursing has given me the flexibility to change my hours around to raise my son without daycare, and to be there much more than I would have otherwise. You can work different shifts, part-time, weekends, whatever it takes, and you can still earn enough for the most part without that 45 hour a week commitment of many jobs. We struggled to get by, but I do not regret it. You only get one chance in life to raise your child. I work to live, I do not live to work.
I really want to work a weekend shift... how common are these? are you more likely to find them if you contact a HR department and tell them you want to work weekends??
YES!!! Most place will willingly take weekend people because covering weekends is the hardest thing to do. No one wants to work weekends unless you have little ones. Look around- long term care, home health, hospitlas, MR and MH places, some will give you 12 hour shifts and if you really need it sometimes you can get two 12s and a weekday 8 to get the full-time status.
When reality slapped me clean in the face I thought "Hey I will just work in a Dr's office, for public health or be a school nurse". Not so easy!!!! The school nurse positions around here require a BSN so I would need to go back to school. There is also only one school nurse per school, and many stay 30 years so they don't have a lot of turnover.
Dr's offices are now mainly hiring LVN's, medical assistants etc because they can get more for less. Depending on the size of the office they may have one or two actual RN's, but again there's not a lot of turnover.
In addition, both of these positions want you to have a least a few years experience on the floor. Their rationale is in a hospital you have tons of other nurses around to help you learn, help you if you get stuck etc. When your the ONLY nurse in the school or one of a couple in an office, and an emergency happens there is no one to run to.
The same holds true for public health they want you to have at least a few years experience on the floor. With the economy jobs are hard to come by for new grads anyway. If you look on the boards many grads are going a year without being able to get a floor job. That being said you have to land that floor internship, do your time as a intern, then a newbie (taking the crap shifts, holidays etc), then a couple of years solid work. Then you can apply for one of those cushy jobs at the school etc. That's a long time span in a kiddos life.
The first hospital I worked at did full week rotating schedules Sun-Sat. They did not have just weekend work on my floor period. You also have NO say so in your schedule. You could be scheduled Tue/Thur/Fri/Sun/Wed/Thur/Sun and who knows. You never knew when you were working when you would be off. Time takes on a weirdness when you work 2 off one, work 1 off 1, work 1, off 2 kind of thing. It feels like there are no weeks or weekends. The newbies also worked whatever shifts needed picking up. So you might work one day shift, one evening shift, and one night shift all in one week.
The hospital I am at now has weekend shifts. People sign up to work just weekends. Two 12 hour shifts (Sat/Sun), but they get benefits like full time, but less pay since they are only working two shifts.
I have friends who do this. Their biggest complaints were that their husbands worked all week, and then when he got off then they had to go to work. It made it hard. He went with friends without her on the weekend and she saw here friends etc during the week, and it was like living separate lives. Also when your children start school and are in school all day. You might be able to pick them up from school at 3pm during the week, but when they are home during the weekend, and ready to do stuff your gone.
I really think its the 12 hour shift that blows. If you work nights 7p-7a you have to be at your working area by 6:45. I have to park, make my way through the hospital, go to my locker, etc, and go to the main unit to pick up my assignments for the night. This takes at least 15 minutes. So I pull in the parking garage at 6:30pm. Its an hour in traffic to work so I have to leave by 5:30pm if there are no wrecks, or accidents I will make it on time. I usually leave around 5:15p to leave a buffer. I get up at 4pm to drink so coffee, eat, shower.
At 7am your officially off, but have to stay at least 30 minutes to give report, and answer any questions so 7:30am. You end up staying at least until 8:30 or 9am to get everything done. Then its another 30 minutes to your locker, through the hospital, to your car, out of the garage, an hour home. I get home at 10 am to 10:30 am. By the time I get home I have been gone for 15 + hours. By the time I get to bed an hour around 11am I have been up 19 hours. I get to sleep for 5 hours, and start again.
When I get up my son is just getting home from school. I ask if he has homework, and tell him to do it. I don't get to help with it or check it. I ask him how his days was, and he has about 10 minutes to get it out. If he has problems he needs to discuss he will often need to wait 3 days. If he suddenly needs school supplies, or something for school he will need to wait until my next day off. Often teachers will send a note home please send xxx or yyy tomorrow or tuesday etc. I tell him to let them know I am a nurse who works 12 hour shifts, and he can bring it on Thursday. If I worked m/t/w, I can get it for him Thursday afternoon when he gets home from school, and he can take it on Friday. That's a long time to wait from something requested on Monday. If its major important I can stop on the way home and only get 4 hours sleep, and he can take it on Wednesday.
Those nights I don't make dinner, eat with him, make sure he eats, tuck him in, help him get his stuff together for the next day.
When I get home he has already been at school for 2 hours. I am not there in the morning to decide if he is too sick to go to school, or in the middle of the night if something happens.
This year his meet the teacher, and orchestra concert, and science fair were on nights I worked so I didn't get to go. I feel like the worse parent in the world (I used to be very involved in school). And I do have to admit his grades have dropped, and I feel its a bit my fault.
If you work days reverse that. I would get up around 4am, leave around 5:15 am, and get home around 10p at night. I would leave before he went to school, and get home after he went to bed. I would see him 10 minutes less.
I know this post is from years ago, but curious how everything worked out for you? I'm in a very similar situation with the cushy clinic job but three kids in day care now and can't afford to stay at clinic. Scared to death to go back to hospital.
bell1962
345 Posts
I have 3 daughters who are teenagers and in their 20's now.I don't think hospital nursing is very mom compatible, but with nursing you have other options. I worked 15 years in a doctor's office close to home. The doctors was a very involved dad, himself, so he understood when I needed time off for the kids. For the last 10 years I have been a school nurse. It is great work and the schedule is wonderful. Granted the money isn't great but there are very few of my children's activities that I have not attended. All 3 kids were/are high honor students and multi-sport athletes. 2 are in college now, doing great. So, yes, nursing can be mom compatible, but not without some sacrifices (in my case financial.) It is all a matter of priorities and in my case my kids always come first.