Why I’m telling my daughter to pick her A-levels based on what sort of mother she’d like to be

The head of the Girls' Schools Association has warned parents in high-flying jobs to pay more attention to their children amid evidence that they aren’t seeing enough of them. Here mother Angela Epstein argues that it is every mother’s duty to help her daughter plan for motherhood as early as A-level subject selection, so she can pursue a career that will be compatible with parenthood.

Sitting down to dinner with my 15 year-old daughter, Sophie, I ask if she has decided which subjects she’d like to study for A-level.

With GCSEs looming this summer, it's a question preoccupying many youngsters at this time of year: it's around now that schools often begin vox-popping their pupils about sixth form choices in order to organise classes and arrange time tables.

Of course, out of interest, I want to know what Sophie might have in mind. But, if I'm being honest, the question is tactically timed, too. You see, my daughter and I have just dined à deux. Her father is still at the office which, as a chartered accountant running his own practice, he rarely leaves until the job is done.

I, on the other hand, am here at home, as cook, companion, comforter and sounding board.

And since A-level selection is often linked with future career ambitions, I'm hoping that discussing the subject over homemade shepherd's pie will act as semaphore for work/home-life compatibility.

Indeed, ever since Sophie began talking to me about what she might want to do with her life, I've tried to make her understand that not every career is well-paired with domestic life. And I believe this should be a factor to consider if she hopes one day to have a family of her own.

Can a high-powered career and motherhood be compatible?

Certainly the current state of political flux has offered ample opportunity to field my views about realistic careers for women who want to settle down and have children.

For example, I’ve wondered out loud how often Jo Swinson, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, sees her children (aged six and 18 months).

Sure, she may have been the first MP to take her baby into a debate in the House of Commons. But, I ask Sophie rhetorically, how can someone who signs herself up to public life be able to see her children as often as she might like?  (It can be no accident that a central plank of the Lib Dem manifesto is granting working parents 35 hours a week of free childcare from the day their baby turns nine months old. This seems, to me, rather young.)

In August, Ruth Davidson quit as leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, 10 months after having a baby. In her resignation letter, she wrote that her personal priorities had changed and the prospect of spending hundreds of hours away from her son and partner during a possible election campaign filled her with "dread".

This is a conundrum which does not, of course, affect only political high flyers. Tennis superstar Serena Williams, determined to reclaim her career after having daughter Alexis Olympia, tweeted of her little girl: “She took her first steps... I was training and missed it. I cried.”

Am I criminalising female ambition? Quite the opposite

My alma mater, Manchester High School for Girls — which includes the suffragettes Sylvia and Emmeline Pankhurst among its alumnae — inculcated a spirit of can-do ambition amongst all of its pupils, including me.

Today Sophie is surrounded by examples of high achieving women: the head of the Supreme Court in this country is female; we've had two women serve as prime minister; and all the plum media jobs (anchoring Newsnight, Question Time, even the Radio 2 breakfast show) belong to women.

And if this is the nature of Sophie's ambition, then she shouldn't be shackled from pursuing such high-octane goals.

But it would be a dereliction of my role as a mother not to inject some realism into the conversation if she wants to be the kind of mother who will be around to help with homework or eat dinner with her children.

I'm not trying to influence her. Instead, I am trying to lay the information on the table so that as she ponders her career choices – beginning now with her choice of A-levels –  she will also take into account which jobs will allow her flexibility to balance work and home life.

Which A-levels will work well with being a mother?

This may mean, for example, being drawn towards medical careers, such as physiotherapy or dentistry where the work is appointment and patient-led, so hours are clearly outlined. In this case, at least one or two science A-levels should be included in the mix.

Perhaps her ambition lies with teaching, with its largely term-time working days. Many of my friends have admitted that they were drawn to the profession not only because of the promise of a fulfilling career but because it would bypass problems of finding cover for school holidays, the bane of so many parents' working lives.

In this situation, A-level choice is wide open for primary school teachers. For secondary, she’ll want to focus on a specialist discipline.

Then there is the kaleidoscopic digital world, where careers in IT, graphic design or social media might offer opportunities to work remotely.

In short, my argument is that there’s no point in pursuing a career as an astronaut if you want to get to school concerts or be home before bedtime. Space travel, alas, currently doesn't work like that.

As one friend, who is a pharmacist, told me: “When I leave the shop – not my shop, thankfully – and go home, I forget work until the following day. Working shop hours means that when we say we're closing, we're closing. So I can be there for the children”

It's vital to me also that Sophie also understands that part-time isn't a dirty word.  Plenty – though admittedly not enough – of women across a range of sectors work this way and have forged successful careers by doing so.

Time wise, a part time-only jobs site for professional workers, publishes an annual Power 50 award list of 50 people in top jobs who achieve everything they do working part-time or flexible hours.

This year's winners include Emma Jeffries, who works three days a week leading the Broadband Portfolio in BT Enterprise’s Customer Solutions, as well as Frances Oram and Sophie Langdale, who job share three days a week at the Department of Health and social care as directors of Mental Health, Dementia and Disabilities.

But what of the men, you may ask?

Why isn't Sophie's father having this conversation with her? Why isn't he the model for career compromise?

The answer, in my mind, is simple: biology doesn’t make us unequal, it simply makes us different.

It's why I'm having conversations with Sophie which I never felt the need to pursue with her three older brothers. For them, the message was: study A-levels and then a degree offers the best chance of pursuing a career which will offer fulfilment but also solvency: since, it's possible, as their own father discovered, you may end up being the one earning the lion's share of the household wage.

After I became a mother, my ambitions shifted

Sure, I was once ambitious. But when I had babies, my disloyal body and disquieting mind – flavoured with a rush of postnatal hormones and a flood of unconditional love – shrieked that I wanted to be around for my children. My priorities underwent a seismic change. And so I quit my job as a staff reporter, junked ideas of filing stories from the world's troubled spots, and became a freelance writer. The trajectory of their father's career continued unabated.

Indeed, scenarios like mine may also partly explain research which suggests roughly only a third of eligible new fathers used paternity leave in the last year.

There are, of course, women who can still have a full-throttle career and large families – but usually because others have assumed the traditional mother role.  Perhaps most famously Helena Morrissey, the 52 -year-old head of personal investing at Legal & General, and mother of nine, has achieved this seemingly astonishing feat thanks both to a nanny and her stay-at-home husband, Richard.

But if Sophie one day hopes to be blessed with a family that she can spend time with, then the least I can do is make her understand that it's best to choose a career which will make financial, logistical and emotional sense.

Meanwhile she has yet to make her A-level choices. But she seemed to enjoy the shepherd's pie we had together. Perhaps that in itself will give her food for thought.