police and parenting

I am not a police officer but have known a few that are also parents (2 male and 1 female) and I think that it depends on what police role you have.

My Uncle was quite high up at the Police College and he worked long hours, sometimes on the weekend and I don't think he saw his kids too much

A collegue from work is married to a Police Officer and as he is a 'beat cop' he does shift work and I imagine at times he doesn't see his little girl much and other times he has whole days with her - I think he is on something like 4 days on/4 days off and works a mix of day and night shift

A Mum at playcentre is a police officer but she has more of a desk job type role I think and works fixed days and hours and only 4 days. So for her I would imagine that hours wise it would be like any other job, and she would see her daughter as much as any working parent.

Not sure if this is a help

My father is a police officer and went to train when i was 10 so I wasn't a baby but still young. He had to go to the police college for 6 months only coming home at weekends which was pretty hard on us as Mum worked a lot as well but as we were a little older we could fend for ourselves and I had older siblings to help me out.

Being on shift work was pretty hard for him I think as some days he couldn't be there to pick us up from school, or he'd be sleeping during the day etc but again cos we were older it wasnt as bigger deal as if we were really little.

My grandfather was a cop when my mum was a baby/little he did shift work like mentioned above and so he found he would do a shift say 10-6am and if he arrested any one that could drag the shift on for another few hours depending. But his shifts were rotating too so sometimes he'd have nights, sometimes day and that included weekends. My gran also worked but they lived with his mum so she did most of the raising of my mum. Hth.

I know a few cops and one (male) lost his wife and kids due to the shift work (althou I believe there is more to the story). She hated the shift work and their boy didn't see much of his dad.

There was someone on here that was looking into it at one stage. Personally myself I wouldn't do it with a young child. I was offered a posting to Afghanistain in 2008 and turned it down because of the boys.

DH is looking into joining. He was in the police before we moved to NZ and he works shifts in his current job so thats not a biggie. My issue is the time away at training college. I work long hours and we have no family support so dont know how I'd swing single parenthood for 6 months.

It's not something I'd do with a very young family. As mentioned the fitness requirements and recruitment process is intense - not to mention the training away from home, then the shift work. Would you consider non-sworn work with the police at all? I found it a huge eye opener - if you have any questions about it (and the recruitment process) feel free to PM me (have BTDT to an extent).

My sister's ex-husband is a cop. It changed him a lot - he loves it but it didn't do their relationship any good. On the positive side with the whole 4 days on 4 days off he was actually able to spend that time with the kids and with all the time in lieu he got he took a big chunk of time off at point to fix up their house.

Hi, My DH is a police officer. Her went to college when DS was 7months old, I was only working the odd weekend at this stage so it was easy to deal with him on that side of things. I'm glad he went when he did, sure I missed him heaps (only got to see him 3x when he was away AND managed to conceive DD on one of those visits!) and he found it really hard to be away from us. But he was really busy while he was down there as the workload is massive so he was able to just crack on and get it done.

He has been in 4 years now and its only been over the last year or so that we have started to find the shift work quite hard esp with me working 2 days a week as well. We are lucky in that my Mum will take the children on my work days so childcare is not an issue, but it is hard not seeing him. But you manage. He loves his job and the there are big perks too like being able to take 7 weeks off at the moment to be at home with us while we have a new baby.

I think it is a very personal choice and would very much depend on what your support would be like for you around your wee one. Most of the Mums that I know at DH's station had kids after they had been in for a while so they were able to come back on flexible employment options which means basically the same shift each week. PM if you want anymore help.