Young parents 'being pushed to breaking point' says survey

A new survey paints a worrying picture of the pressures on young parents.

According to the Modern Families Index, many are "overwhelmed", "burnt out" and risk damaging their careers.

Of the 2,700 mums and dads who took part in the study published by the charity Working Families, nearly one in five said they had deliberately stalled their careers and more than one in 10 said they had had to rejected a promotion to try to regain some balance in the home.

The charity's chief executive, Sarah Jackson, says the findings show how becoming a parent "looks like a bad career move".

"I think what we're seeing is the beginnings of a very perverse form of equality, that young men and young women may equally seem to be a bad investment for an employer because the employer doesn't know who is going to be the primary carer at home."

Employers often like to brag about their flexible working policies but in reality, according the findings, it isn't making much of a difference.

Fewer than half - 44% - felt that flexible working was a genuine option in their place of work. Of those who were working flexibly, nearly one third (31%) said they had restrictions from their employer about where they had to work and one fifth said they had no control over their start and finish times.

Richard Cahill, a dad of two, gets a little frustrated by the term.

"My personal experience has been that employers talk a good talk, but unfortunately when push comes to shove they're not as flexible as they'd like to be."

He found out for himself when he tried to switch jobs. Although he wanted to work less hours to fit around school pick-up times, he found employers struggled to grasp why a man would want to work part-time.

"Ultimately when it came to having our second child we realised that something had to change. We sat down and worked out what would be best for our family and that would be for me to get part-time work.

"I've certainly experienced discrimination, I've been asked at numerous interviews why is my wife not collecting the children, why is it down to me?"

On a daily basis, James Tugendhat - managing director of Bright Horizons nurseries that helped with the study - says his staff see how our long hours culture is taking its toll on families.

"The balance between work and life is just getting really hard and, with the financial squeeze that a lot of families are under now, life is becoming a real misery for some parents."