Common in Germany, too, and I’m that 0.5. I don’t see how we’d manage if I had only the choice of working full time or leaving the more interesting parts of IT.

Common in Germany, too, and I’m that 0.5. I don’t see how we’d manage if I had only the choice of working full time or leaving the more interesting parts of IT. My in laws are over 80 and on the other side of the country, and my family is on the other side of the world. What really, really helps is that my employer was obliged to let me come back for anywhere from 15-30 hours/week during the two years after my year out for parental leave. Same hourly rate, same general tasks, and they cannot fire me in that time for anything short of actual malice or criminal actvity, so they can’t do something squirrelly like put me in a position I’m not qualified for to try to get rid of me. After these two years, I have a decision to make: switch back to my previous full time schedule, or to a permanent part time contract. My employer can choose to let me be more flexible, but they are not required to. My female friends back in the USA have been bimodal: either they drop out of their serious careers entirely after they have kids (and often end up trying to sell me MLM stuff), or they cludge things together to go back full time after at most 4-6 months of maternity leave, often spending more than they net on childcare and housekeeping for at least a year or two in order to keep their places that they’ve worked really hard for.