Any fathers out there who transitioned from a tough career (am an MBB partner) to something more conducive to being an equal parent? Every week kills me, but the paycheck also brings a lot of benefit and comfort to the family (and to our needy parents). Would love to hear about how you worked through leaving and where you ended up.

We’ve had our son 2y into my partner tenure, he is now almost 3.

I have reduced my working hours from 70+/week to a solid 35, apply strict prioritization of opportunities, do no longer go to any bullshit-internal networking, travel 3 days a month and otherwise do home office consulting covid style. Have never liked my job more, and my revenue last 12months is 3x what it was before the kid.

—- being an equal parent or in my case primary caregiver was always about priorities, not about money, and it just so happened that setting myself a HARD deadline to get stuff done everyday (which i couldn’t even have imagined doing the prior 15 years) was EXACTLY what i needed also for career success…

I advise everyone to try it out for real :)

Life is a tradeoff. I valued my family’s financial security vs equal workload. Spouse was ok with it. 20 years later, it seems it was a good choice for us. Kids seem fine and we can withstand any financial concern which give us peace of mind and freedom. But we could also have been fine the other way. We will never know.
Bain 1 is right. The most important is to have the discussions so everyone knows what the deal is.
OP: not sure if this is is the type of perspective you were looking for. Redirect as needed.

Left and came back. Took pay cut which was ok, but was genuinely bored at industry role (slow pace, same issues year after year, etc).
WLB was indeed better. But personally wasn’t satisfied with the routine.
This is just one sample.

8 years as Partner (MBB) with 2 kids under 4. Used post-covid lack of travel / wfh to cut back my work time significantly. As several above mentioned, got ruthless about prioritisation and leverage. Built a really strong group of juniors (incl younger Partners) around me.
The pay allowed my wife to not go back to work after the first kid was born, and allows us to have anything we want as a family. Once I figured out how to make the hours sustainable, it's been amazing.

Similar story to a couple others here - MBB partner and I ruthlessly prioritized less travel and less working hours after my second kid (10 months and 3 years). Unfortunately my performance suffered but I have no regrets. Family is most important to me and so I’m now looking elsewhere.

F

Just having these discussions.

Thinking of doing the same in the next 2 years. What’s your age and how many years as a Partner? The first step for my family is my wife is finally quitting her job this summer. And then I’ll plan to transition to something else in 1-2 years. Two kids under 5 at the moment.

This job gave us the flexibility for my spouse to go part time at their job. They love their career and colleagues so they will never not work so part time is the best of both worlds. I draw hard boundaries at work where I do half days on Fridays and if I’m not traveling, my mornings are blocked until 8:30am because I take my children to daycare/school for drop offs. My time off is spent dedicated to my family and children so there’s minimal creep during their awake hours. My personal cell phone is only known to a select few colleagues for true emergencies, not client or work emergencies. I keep my work phone away during my time off.

More importantly, it is all about creating/building the right team around you at work that can handle the day to day tasks so that frees up my time for more client related relationship building and high level tasks.

Father of 3 boys, I hung it up because my wife grew up in an all female household and didn't know enough about raising boys. I went to single shingle consulting which has had its ups and downs. Win for the family but I'm making a lot less now.

At B4, not MBB, so my hours are probably nothing like yours, but my kids are now graduating from college and I have no regrets. There were sacrifices on both ends - I wasn’t at every school event and I didn’t climb the ladder as fast as others, but overall, I have had a good career and provided my family with a good life.

I think there is a big difference between being a partner and having a life outside of work and being a leadership partner and giving it all at the office - big differences in terms of salary and time commitment. Being a B4 partner has been great - I don’t think I would have been willing to do what it took to be a long term MBB partner.

Thanks everyone for the insights. I’m in a similar situation to OP and reading the different perspectives is great.

It really is not that difficult unless you live a lifestyle that stretches your current paycheck. I would guess that even the returns on your savings ought to let you live a comfortable life. Sure - you would need to be watchful but it’s very do-able. If you live a lavish lifestyle - that’s an issue. Hope I don’t sound preachy. I am in fact doing it.

I’m thinking I may step away around 40. Should hit around $6.5-7M NW and maybe take a year off and transition to something lower stress while the kids are young. It’s either that or grind it out to $10M and be completely done, but that’s a big sacrifice of prime kid years.

Mother here, but nearly sole income for our family and I did this after my first.

TBH, I was bored with the lower travel, longer term engagements. It worked for my numbers, but it didn’t work for my interests.

After my second, I exited into a former client’s C-Suite. My husband is a phenomenal parent but I wanted to be and needed to be more involved with our kids.

Took some heat from my Partners for leaving, but absolutely zero regrets.

Good luck!