r/workingmumsau

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Hi Mums,

My husband has been handling the cooking but he will now be working late so I now have to cook, which is fine but I'd like to make it as easy as possible after work. I have two young kids.
Does anyone find any particular appliance helpful in making dinner times less stressful? Air fryer? Multi cooker? Pressure cooker?

I came back to work on 1 July after an 11 month maternity leave with my firstborn. The situation was not great when I returned - my mat leave cover had been promoted and taken over all my files with no plan to return any work I handed over. I kept asking for some work to do or some plan for what my next 6 months could look like or some progression plan (the role my cover was promoted to was my dream role that I’d worked towards for 3 years but I had been told there was no budget…). There were a bunch of other changes but in summary, I felt unwelcome.

I was then contacted by a recruiter in late August about a role that is a 5 minute drive from my house (with free parking) and a significant pay rise. It would give me that upward progression I want plus more time back in my week because I currently commute an hour to work. I told the recruiter immediately in that initial phone chat that I had just returned from maternity leave, he just said congratulations and made some small talk about my baby.

After my first interview, I spoke to a different recruiter at the same agency (the first one went on leave) and I reiterated again that I just came back from 11 months maternity leave. She was much more curt and just said congratulations, we mostly talked about my feedback after the interview and she said the company was very excited about having me.

I then met with executive management at this company and received a job offer the following week. Obviously my personal life and child never came up during the interviews because that’s illegal to ask, nor did they fish for any info. The recruitment agency was the intermediary for the whole recruitment process and they had full knowledge of my circumstances.

So why do I feel so guilty? I feel like I can’t mention that I have a kid when I start the job, or they’ll ask how old he is and start doing the math. But I don’t want to hide a huge (and happy!) part of my life just so they don’t feel like I scammed them. Anyone been in a similar situation?