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No advice, but commiseration. I worry about this for when I go back to work. It's a small NGO so it's almost expected that everyone will work themselves to the bone in the name of the cause. And if you don't you're not truly committed.

No one else has kids. I'm really hoping by the time my mat leave is up the culture will have changed a bit. Work life balance is important!

Eta: happy birthday!!

first - happy birthday!
second - what a shiiii**y way of spending your first birthday as a mama.
Having worked in NYC (different field though) for the first 14 months of my daughter's life, I saw a good number of parents sacrificed time with their kids for the sake of their careers....AND how many moms just didn't seem to really care about getting home to their kids at night. Dealing with fertility issues at the time, I just couldn't understand how they could have these kids and go days without seeing them. Without getting too judgy, i just used it as a learning experience that this wasn't what I wanted out of my life as a mom and that I would sacrifice advancing in my work and my pay to have a job that was flexible and afforded me balance in my life. Fortunately, DH is in a position to support that as well, but I know that's not always the case.
I don't really have any tips, but all I can say is maybe you can use this experience to shape how you want to move forward in your career and how you balance your work with home.

Happy birthday! And, whether you can get ahead totally depends on your company, and your department, IMO. I was definitely "mommy-tracked" with my old employer, despite never taking time off during pregnancy (even with very bad morning sickness, other issues), and going back and giving 100% after maternity leave (i.e., working more than 40 hours a week, being totally present at my job, etc.). I would NEVER have gotten ahead there, and that shift only happened post-LO. I was pretty golden there before LO, and everything changed post-LO.

At my new employer though, I'm a working mom and recently got a promotion that I didn't even apply for! I still work at least 40 hours a week, but not much more than that - they don't automatically mommy-track. It's seriously like night and day.

So, yes, it's totally possible to get ahead as a working mom, but yes, places will definitely mommy-track you and make it nearly impossible to get ahead because they (wrongly) assume you won't do the work. It doesn't *have* to be like that though. I'm not in finance, but am in law, so in a professional environment. Good luck.

@hotchildinthecity: I am so sorry. I hate when people stay late just to chat. I love my boss because if we are done we get out of there. If we stay late it's because its serious and we've got work to do.

Do you know what these women's lives are like? What is their child care situation? What does their spouses do? Do they come in late? Have less of a commute? Just trying to think of ways you could adjust the situation to work better for everyone.

One thing I have often told my boss is if be happy to take work home and do it after bedtime. Or take a phone call on my drive home from work. Can you try any of those?

Happy Birthday. Sorry it was so lousy

I don't work in finance or NYC, but I concur with others that it is really where you work that makes a difference. My last employer was so much more working mother friendly than my current one (even our HR department admits it!).

You might also want to peruse http://www.workingmother.com. Maybe there is a company in their top 100 that has finance offices in NYC.

I work in the finance industry in nyc and i think it is totally dependent on the firm you work at. At large financial firms, they were and continue to be dominated by men and women therefore often feel tye need to compete. Family took a backseat for many of the senior women i used to work for when i worked at a large bank. That is just the culture of finance. However, i work for a small company now that is super family friendly. All of the partners themselves have children and understand the importance of family. So there are firms out there where you can still make a good living and have a good work life balance in the industry. I say start looking...you can't change the culture of a large firm, but you can change whether you work there or not!

I don't have any advice but I wanted to say happy birthday and I'm sorry you had a crappy day That sounds like an awful situation to be in. I'm sorry

@hotchildinthecity: just trying to get a sense of the office atmosphere expectations: what time does your boss arrive/leave? What time did you arrive/leave before LO and what time do you arrive/leave now (generally)?

He's not a mom, but my husband also works in finance... He typically leaves home around 7:45-8am, and is in the office by 8:30. He usually leaves around 7 pm and is home around 7:30-7:45...occasionally earlier and occasionally later, but usually he is home right in time to do LOs bedtime routine and get her to sleep by 8 pm. So his hours aren't too terrible.

I think the key for any "long hours/high stress" job is either having a spouse/partner who has different/more flexible hours OR a partner that stays home OR you decide to hire the help and you get a nanny. My schedule is earlier than DH's--I leave the house every morning at 6:40am with LO and we get home at 4:15-4:30...so I do the bulk of parenting alone each night. I take her to the park or we play inside, I make dinner, I run errands after work, and I clean out her daycare dishes and repack her lunch and drinks for the next day.

But DH does his part--he does EVERYTHING for LO in the morning while I get ready for work. He wakes the same time as me and while I get myself ready, he wakes up LO, gives her milk, makes her breakfast, gets her dressed, brushes her teeth and hair, even puts her hairbows in--then he packs her backpack and even takes her down to the car for me and buckles her in. I literally just walk myself down to the car with my own work bags.

So he has morning duty and I have night duty. It's a balance.

I have a mommy-friend acquaintance with a super high stress-long hours job on a major TV show in the city--and her husband get off every day by 5 and does daycare pick up, makes the dinner, take care of their LO, etc. And DH's boss has two kids and he and his wife are both Managing Directors at two different financial firms. So I know *some* people do it--I don't know the ins and outs of their day, and how they make it work, though.

Does your husband work the same hours as you?

Sorry you had to work late on your birthday. =( Next year, just make it a vacation day and take the whole day off!

I suggest you look for smaller company with a more flexible culture.

(I work in finance and used to work at a large bank. I now work for a 100-person financial technology company as a project manager and have a lot of flexibility. I usually work from home one day per week, and after maternity leave I worked from home two days per week for three months.)

First off - happy birthday! We're birthday twins as today is my b-day too!

I don't have any experience in your field but it sounds to me like a company culture / company priorities problem. Maybe a different, more family friendly company within your same industry would allow for a better work-life balance. Best of luck figuring something out because that current situation sounds crappy.

@hotchildinthecity: There is a lot of great advice in this thread. Figure out the type of work/life balance you want and target companies that will let you have the flexibility you are looking for.

I was going to suggest the same thing as @Ms. RV: Look at the top companies for working mothers if you are looking to make a move.

Oh and I definiteky think the attitude of the company/bosses is huge. It's what has made dh's job tolerable for sure.

My heart broke when you mentioned not getting to share a cupcake with your son. No advice but lots of love.

@hotchildinthecity: Yep, that's pretty much how it is in finance in the NYC area, it's long hours and it isn't so much what you do or how well you do it, it's the number of hours you put in. Now granted, there have been weeeks where I worked over 70 hours and was at my desk at midnight, but those were during some particularly involved times.

My personal feeling is that the vast majority of the jobs in finance don't really require more than 45 hours a week, if it takes you that long to do your job, then something isn't right. I do tend to think some managers "overcomplicate" their jobs in their managing up, which unfortunately comes down to the worker bees.

If I look around me, there are a lot of moms with young children, but what's interesting about all of us is that we have lots of help, and by lots of help I mean nannies and/or grandparents that help. I am happy to chat off line, if you want, I've got almost 20 years in this industry and I've seen a lot and might be able to offer you some tidbits that could help you out.

This thread is so interesting and insightful. I've struggled with the same thing since having my daughter. I'm a lawyer so it's a similar issue of long hours = good employee. I was always a go-getter and I felt like I was really advancing in my career, and then it just screeched to a halt when I had a kid.

I ended up coming back part time, and my office has been great about it, but understandably I'm no longer one of the 'shining star' employees. I think even if I'd come back full time, I would have been 'mommy tracked' because I leave at 5:00 and don't work on weekends anymore. All the men in my office have stay-at-home wives, so it's hard for them to relate. The women who are successful and seem mentally healthy in my office either don't have kids or scaled back their careers while their kids were small and then ramped them back up when the kids grew up.

I don't know what the solution is, but my current plan is just to accept that my career is going to be pretty slow to advance for now. My main goal is to keep a steady paycheck and keep my foot in the door so if I do want to ramp my career back up, I can.

@hotchildinthecity: My husband and I both have intense careers in NYC. We have a nanny, which allows us more flexibility when we have to stay late to meet deadlines. Would that be a possibility for you?

I definitely feel your pain. I am nowhere near as productive as I was pre-kids. It has hurt my opportunities, but I try to think of my career as having a long trajectory. And this is just a time when it is going to have to take a backseat.

I feel you! I work in fashion and not in the city anymore, but I always feel bad that I'm one of the first to leave?! Even tho there are other moms in the office and they leave early too. I mean, I stay late if I have to but if I don't, I'm outta there. Why is this staying late = you're working harder culture valid!?

I feel like I mommy-tracked myself for now too... DD is almost 5 mos, so this whole parenting thing is still new to me and I find myself lacking focus, either from lack of sleep or just wishing that I'm with DD instead!