As lovely as kids are, being a parent can also be a right pain. It makes me smile when people like Ranulph Fiennes are championed for their endurance, extreme adventures and sawing off their own fingers. And yet, I bet even Fiennes would cower at the thought of bringing up a baby.

There’s a book called How to Get a Job in Television by Elsa Sharp where she sums up what many of us already feel “…sometimes your ideals, families and friends can go out of the window in pursuit of a challenging career in television… TV is a young person’s game, someone with boundless energy and enthusiasm”. For us parents, energy and enthusiasm are often soaked up in nappies, childcare arrangements and problems at school.

It gets worse. There was a report from Skillset last year that revealed nearly 6,000 people left television in 2009; many leaving because of the impossibility of raising a family and working in production.

Having discussed the parenting issue with numerous colleagues I can’t think of any quick fix. Let’s just say, being childless in this industry is certainly no hindrance. But there is a common line of thought that just maybe useful.

Once children appear in your life the responsibility is so immense you begin to re-programme all your previous behaviour patterns. (Well some do. There are some who retain the air of the 1960s parenting for whom I have nothing but total envy). For those of us who shoulder the weight of 21st Century modernism, the first thing we do is re-address the work/life balance. And this is where we parents have just a slight advantage over non-parents in the TV marketplace. Adjustments that are made out of necessity than desire, and the sort of adjustments which might suit the future TV production model.

Let’s say you have to leave at 5pm everyday to pick up from a nursery, as seems to be the most common requirement, then it’s essential to make this clear at the outset without offering to take a pay cut in your daily rate. Offer instead that you can work three days out of the week and not five. Any production manager with a supersized calculator will quickly work out this is a saving. Then suggest that if something comes up on day 4 or 5, when you’re not being paid to be there, you’ll happily deal with it on the phone/laptop/whatever. This could be appealing enough to allow you to possibly increase your hourly rate, for working fewer hours. The indie is still making a big saving.

If you can get a role with another indie for the other two days – again an appealing and attractive offer for a small indie feeling the pinch – on a similar deal, you might end up earning more per week than you did before. You may know people who are already doing this. It’s even got a catchy name, ‘building a portfolio’. Others who do it prefer to call it survival. This solution may not suit some, such as directors, but it will work with most other production staff from co-ordinators, researchers, production managers and development. And who of us will mind doing the odd hour or so in the evening once the kids are in bed?

It’s worth embracing this sooner than later. Operating multiple roles with multiple companies. Creative industries have a high turnover of people as new people will always come in at cheaper rates with boundless enthusiasm. But there’s nothing better than working with someone with experience and nous. And that comes with age. Give it a go and see if it works. And so you have a head start… don’t tell those who don’t have kids.

Paul Compton is a freelance Executive Producer