A Question for Parents: Balancing work and family

Parent Cafe
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<p>As a very recent [female] college grad, I find myself constantly confronted with the discussion of balancing family and work obligations. When Princeton’s Anne-Marie Slaughter (then State Department) published her well-known article in the Atlantic this summer, “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All,” many female young professionals had their world turned upside down, in both good and bad ways. I’m getting married this summer and I’ve always dreamed of motherhood…but I also have tall ambitions. I’ve worked a series of competitive internships and having had a nice taste of my industry (government, politics, diplomacy, public service), I don’t want to stop here. Not to mention, I’ve faced a lot of pressure both at my college and at my first jobs to put work first, family second, ESPECIALLY because I’m a young woman.</p>

<p>So, I’m hoping for some anecdotes and advice from parents (moms and dads!) who have faced this dilemma before…what kinds of sacrifices did you have to make? Is it better to have kids when you’re younger? Have you found your employers to be accommodating to your needs as parents? How about your co-workers?</p>

<p>I’m not sure if this kind of post is typical of this forum, but here’s something to think about: if your kids in college haven’t considered these issues yet, they will soon!</p>

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<p>You can have it all. You just can not have it all at the same time. You must prioritize, be willing to make changes when necessary and be kind to yourself. Only you can set your priorities and it is important that you set the boundaries that support your priorities and communicate that to your loved ones. I wish I had learned that earlier in my parenting life because it would have saved me much grief. There is a poster here who is a master of boundary setting, such that she should give lessons.</p>

3

<p>You can’t have it all. But you can have most of it, especially if you’re (a) willing to forego some of the fast track at work, (b) willing to miss some of your child’s life events (get a good daycare provider who will be kind enough NOT to tell you the kid took his first steps when with her), and (c) you have a good support network (partner, family, friends) who can help you bridge the gaps.</p>

4

<p>Echo what Strad and Zooser said. Your choice of partner is extremely important; choosing to live near family (if they’re helpful and engaged) or near close friends is extremely important; prioritizing how you spend your time and money is extremely important.</p>

<p>I have friends with the trophy houses- I am thrilled for them if that’s what they want… but you can’t work an 80 hour week and come home to a monster piece of real estate and spend the weekend crawling on the floor with toddlers. (unless you are uber wealthy and have tons of help.) Big lawn; big property; big maintenance. Even hiring and firing “the help” is time consuming.</p>

<p>I have friends with big and important jobs whose husbands still expect them to shop for the secretary’s Xmas gift and his mother’s birthday and send cards to all his nieces and nephews-- good luck with that unless you have your own assistant (or hire someone by the hour) to delegate that to. One friend is a partner at a law firm and her husband thinks she’s the only one who can drop off his shirts at the laundry. But if it makes her happy to have one more stupid thing on her to-do list and to be too frazzled and rushed to enjoy her kids- hey, I’m not a marriage counselor.</p>

<p>So make sure you and your partner are on the same page. If the job and the kids are the most important thing in your lives right now, then maybe you aren’t going to host elegant dinner parties. (right now.) Maybe you’ll be the ones at the family holiday party passing out $20 bills in envelopes to the nieces and nephews (trust me, they’ll love you) instead of the elaborately wrapped gifts especially chosen for them. Maybe your closets will be a mess. Maybe your kids will forgo ballet and travel soccer so that you don’t kill every weekend shlepping to classes and lessons.</p>

<p>You’ll figure it out.</p>

5

<p>I am a working mom professional, and had planned on being so my whole life. I know many other working women professionals who planned on becoming working mom, but who changed their minds as soon as they saw their little babies. These were hard core, committed lawyers, middle managers, etc. So my first observation is that some plans to continue to work can get upended once mom actually holds baby in her arms.</p>

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<p>Don’t skimp on child care. You want your kids in a good environment with trustworthy caregivers. It’s not always ideal, but you’ll find there are unexpected advantages for the kids along the way too. </p>

<p>It is ok to miss a few kid events. They won’t remember whether you were at most of them vs all of them. But they WILL notice if you were never there.</p>

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<p>I work and have kids- fortunate enough to have flexibility and a career that pretty much caters to working moms. I put my kids first at the expense of moving forward in my career- my choice. I also ignore my messy house. For me it would have been impossible to be there for my kids, have a full time powerful career, and the perfect house. This is the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life.</p>

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<p>These are all very good points. Career field definitely comes to play, number of children, their age intervals, extended family support are all factors. Both my spouse and I are Registered Nurses and it can often be chaotic. I agree with you, twogirls, I decided to postpone Master’s Level pursuit until a later time.</p>

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<p>I actually did the masters before marriage and kids. Once I had kids I continued to work, but did not " move up the ladder."</p>

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<p>I chose to work part time when the kids were small and then opened my own practice when my youngest entered school. (Which was actually precipitated by day care issues.) Having my own business has meant I could make my own hours, my particular business (mostly residential architecture) often involves meeting people in the evenings or weekends when dh was available. For year I had a messy house, in fact one of the nicest things my Mom did was give me a housecleaner for a year.</p>

<p>My Dad missed my high school graduation. He knew a year ahead of time it was likely, so he took me to the graduation of the class ahead of mine so he could imagine it ahead of time. It was all right, really!</p>

11

<p>I never felt that I would be able to balance work and family. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for the past 20 years.</p>

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<p>I don’t actually think it’s possible to “have it all,” but you can be happy if you decide what is most important to you and let the other things go. Every choice in life has tradeoffs, and people will judge you no matter what you decide. </p>

<p>I also think that if you want a super-high-powered career, it helps to marry a man who is somewhat less ambitious than you. You will not be able to happily raise children and work long hours in a competitive setting unless your husband is supportive, and is able to put your career before his own on a frequent basis. Many high-achieving men have real trouble doing this, and it leads to conflict. Some solve the problem by hiring live-in help, but there are times when only a parent will do. Who is it going to be? Don’t make assumptions without a discussion of this issue with your fiance.</p>

13

<p>You can’t have it all, no one can, but you can have most of it. But alot depends on your partner. I love to work. I don’t “love” being a mommy 24/7. I married the right guy who had a cut and dried 8-5 job while mine was more 8 to whenever. He also loved being “daddy.” I also found an exceptional day care situation with a woman who basically became a second grandma to my kids and was the third wheel in raising our children until they were into middle school at which point my H decreased his hours and came home so he was home when they got home from school. We were unusual in that for almost a decade we made virtually the same salary so that played into the conversation to some degree. It can be different if one partner earns considerably more than the other. </p>

<p>I traveled alot when the kids were young and when it worked with my schedule did the doctor appointments, the sick kid days, the school mommy and me teas, snow days and all that. But, my husband also did his share of school events, snow days, doctor’s appointments, sick days and carting and hauling.</p>

<p>Another factor to understand is that it is expensive to raise children in a two working parent home. Day care is not inexpensive and generally there will be times where you have to have hired help with even basics like cleaning the house to make it all work. Not to mention socking away for the college education. Most of the women I know that managed with both parents working and kids had their children when their careers were in full stride which doesn’t generally happen until very late 20s into the 30s. It took a decade between getting married and no longer having kids and it was difficult and at times a more stagnant period of my career, and it’s a difficult time to switch companies.</p>

<p>Finally it never stops until they leave for college. In many respects babies are easier than teens. We, as parents, did not want teenagers running loose after school and before we got home. I did not want to give up my job. My husband did… so quit his job and became a stay at home dad when our oldest got his driver’s license at 16 (the summer between sophomore and junior year).</p>

<p>Some women do change their mind. I’ve worked with women who swore they were going to stay home only to show up a couple months later and say staying at home taking care of kids was not for them. And to be honest with you most men, if you stay at home, will expect you to take care of the house AND the kids. There are a few rare jewels out there who still load the dishwasher, do laundry, mow the lawn and help clean the house, but that in my experience in “women talks” is rare. I’ve also sat in my office with women bawling their eyes out because they don’t want to be at work. So the poster who said you don’t know until you are ‘there’ is absolutely correct. </p>

<p>Most people these days in an office setting “get” that family comes first. I have never encountered a situation where I heard through the grapevine that someone was “upset” with me. Typically the shunned are those that appear to do the parenting 100% of the time or seem to constantly have to leave in the middle of the morning for a family emergency and frankly sometimes people, men and women, will wonder what the spouse is doing. So again division of labor is important when it comes to two career marriages and balancing work/life.</p>

<p>You can only cross your bridges when you get to them and it is a good thing that you are thinking about these things.</p>

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<p>I was a full-time working professional for 20 years. Big time law work. Flying all over the country. Big cases. I had my kids at 38 and quit permanently at 44. Now I can look back on it with the perspective of 20 years of working and 20 years of having/raising kids. </p>

<p>The people I worked with for many, many years and who I was very close to at the time are completely out of my life. And they don’t really matter to me either. Only my kids matter. They will never be out of my life.</p>

<p>The cases could have gone on without me. I wasn’t indispensible to them. I was indispensible to my kids.</p>

<p>The years I worked when the kids were small, I can never get back and I deeply regret the moments missed. Fortunately the kids don’t remember those years. They don’t remember the nanny. Kids really only remember childhood from about age 4 or 5. Thankfully, they remember those years with me. I was able to take them to parks, zoos, the beach, exploring, all sorts of things. I was able to do school activities with them. Be with them at the pediatricians’ office, the dentist, the orthodontist. </p>

<p>I don’t know how the kids would have turned out if they had been raised by a series of nannies. They had a wonderful nanny for the first few years. We are still friends. </p>

<p>No one answer is right for everyone. You’ll figure it out as you go.</p>

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<p>The thing is that if you do your best, you can not torture yourself for the times you aren’t perfect. No one is ever perfect and your best is absolutely good enough.</p>

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<p>I recently came across letters I’d written to my boyfriend, now husband written when we were dating, 36 years ago. I wrote that “I didn’t think I’d ever want to have children. I wanted a career”, and he’d just have to deal with that if we were going to be married. </p>

<p>What a fool I was back then. </p>

<p>Having children has been the greatest joy and love of my life. I nearly missed out waiting as long as I did. And I thank my lucky stars that I have my twins, my babies.</p>

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<p>I took care of getting my masters and worked for several years before having kids. This helped me get established, which was key to getting some flexibility when I needed it later. I always worked full time, but my H had a more flexible job when the kids were young. He was full time, but had tons of leave time to take when kids were sick, etc. </p>

<p>We also paid for top quality day care – it was worth it for the peace of mind (an aside tip here… if you have a pre-tax daycare account, take the checks you get from that when they finally pay you and sock 'em into college accounts – you will be WAY ahead of the game on savings if you do that!).</p>

<p>Once I had a second kid, I stepped back from the high powered/big company, and started doing independent consulting in my field. For the most part this has been much better. Although I have to keep my clients happy, I can take more days off during the year, leave early if I need to, etc. However… without all the years in the “big corporate” environment, I would not have the skills I needed to run my consulting business today. So some serious grinding during those years in my 20s were crucial to later flexibility.</p>

<p>Agree with TatinG that having kids has been the greatest joy of my life, by the way. And I was not someone who babysat, did not have younger siblings, and I really wasn’t sure I was cut out to be a mom. But it turns out that I was. :)</p>

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<p>Amen. You should never play the woulda, coulda, shoulda game. The one thing that I know with certainty is that my boys know I love them unconditionally and if they really need me I will drop everything in a heartbeat. They grew up watching my husband and I balance their needs, our joint needs and our individual needs. They will be good fathers and better husbands despite my husband and I and because of my husband and I.</p>

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<p>I worked part time, if we didn’t need the money I would not have worked at all. But I really loved being home with my kids. Not all women feel that way and that doesn’t make them bad mothers.
If I were advising my own daughters and they were in similar circumstances of having a working spouse, I would tell them to bank their salary as much as possible. Don’t get used to having that money, so that if you do want to jump off the career track, it’s possible. It’s also something to consider before committing to a big mortgage.
Another consideration is how near you are to family. It’s nice to have grandparents if you get along well. Imagine the days you can’t take your mildly sick toddler to daycare, or your first grader really needs to see a family member in the audience at a school program, grandparents are really good to have around.</p>

20

<p>Marry well and prioritize. By marry well, I mean find someone who is willing to be a partner in everything - earning money, child care, housework, free time. Not necessarily an equal partner because sometimes you will have to pick up the slack and other times he will have to pick up the slack - and do it without keeping score. My husband and I both pursued advanced degrees. I worked while he finished his PhD, then he worked while I did another Masters degree. He worked from home while I was able to work long and erratic hours. Now, he travels more and I cut back to part-time. It seems to change every couple of years. </p>

<p>By prioritize, I mean decide what is most important to you and your spouse. For us, priority was our relationship as a couple, and raising happy, healthy kids. We never pursued the big house, the fancy cars or other outward symbols of success. Instead we focused on family time and experiences. </p>

<p>We played a lot of this by ear. We had some major surprises (taking in 3 foster kids for a while) and learned to just go with the flow. But after 29 years, I wouldn’t trade it. </p>

<p>No one can really tell you how to balance work and family. You’ll just have to figure out what works for you.</p>