For those who have advised me before… I had a good first therapist appointment to help me process my experience parenting a child who fits the Aspergers profile who had a very tumultuous five year stretch during the midst of which I lost my mother to her alcohol addiction. I’ve been walking 3-5 miles daily Mon-Fri and while I don’t see any weight loss, I feel better and stronger.
I’ve been thinking about things like my work trajectory on those long walks. When I was in my early 30s, with a freshly-minted PhD, I began my career, worked my butt off, and quickly rose up the ranks to a just below director level. Then kids came in my mid-30s. My bosses were all in their 40s+. I chose to work 4 days/week for the years I had babies/toddlers and I also chose an “in early/out early” schedule. I am now grappling with the consequences of those choices. My career has plateaued. Now in my 40s, I’m still mid-level (with a good reputation) but there is a different flavor in having bosses that are squarely in my age group. It is somehow only now dawning on me that in a few years, I will be older than the next tier of management. (As a former go-getter/rising star, it does not feel good, I’ll admit. Is that ageist of me?)
Is this a pretty common trajectory for primary caregiving parents? This plateau during parenting years?
There is a twinge of frustration that a lot of my parenting effort is “extra” because I have a special needs child and a partner who is very career-first.
Or is it really inappropriate and self-indulgent to have these feelings of mild dissatisfaction when I CHOOSE to prioritize parenting time?
I have a good job that is well-paid, flexible and I can walk to work. I spend oodles of time with my kids. I need a smack in the head to even dare whine, right?
No smack in the head @Aspieration . A lot of us have gone through something like this.
I was a rising star in the company I worked for when I was in my 30’s. Hard working, smart. moving up. Then I had my second child at a time when the company was downsizing (eventually eliminating the offices I worked in) and I ended up in a part time job for awhile , then staying home. When I returned to work several years later I was prepared to start at the bottom (which I did!), but found that no amount of hard work, skills, smarts could put me back on track.I had missed the window for that.
I realize that I made a choice and I get starting over, but it has really taken a long time to resolve my feelings over this. Last year I made a lateral move to a different position/department in my company. The new job is fine and I like my coworkers but it really isn’t quite what I had planned to do professionally. I have had to accept the fact that the ship has sailed on me getting into management again. The upside is that the new job is less mentally demanding, less stressful and the hours are regular. I have built up more of my life outside of work. I was recently thinking that I no longer really have professional goals, just personal ones.
I get it.
" I need a smack in the head to even dare whine, right? "
Nah. Just whine a bit here. It helps to acknowledge these feelings you are having.
You know you are blessed. And you know you work hard. But it doesn’t mean you always have to feel great about “plateauing” in your career.
If you thought about it a bit more, this is an entirely expected result. You could easily have predicted the consequences of prioritizing your family, in a career that offers more rewards to those who choose (or life chooses them to have) no family life.
You make a wonderful difference in your family’s lives. Your child would not be who he/she is , and their needs would not have been met the same way had you instead chosen to, say, hire a nanny, and focus more on your career. And it is doubtless that your partner would not be nearly as successful without your support of the home front.
Whether or not they acknowledge this often enough is another issue.
Kudos to you.
So many of us went on the mommy track at work and gave up the career one. I did, and don’t regret it, but it was hard seeing people I had trained deciding not to do that. They became low level officers with their own offices, while I was still in a cubicle. That was a hard pill to swallow.
Very helpful testimonials. It is deeply heartening to hear that these are normal feelings.
I remember the adrenaline and intensity of having only work. That is, the freedom to work as much as and as long as I wanted. The freedom to travel anytime, anywhere. The pride in promotions!
It’s so different now.
I’m tired (the walks are helping with general fitness).
My brain is loaded down with kids lives stuff.
A simple busienss trip requires logistical planning on par with a vacation.
There are constant interruptions: a sick kid, a school performance, emergency trips to Michaels Crafts to obtain emergency poster board for some oops due tomorrow project…
It’s like swimming in mud, when once it was crystal clear blue water.
At least the mud is cute and gives hugs.
I am not sure I have much to add since I have not had a high power career, but instead have had what I’ll call an ordinary job my entire life. It did serve it’s purpose in that I was available for the child-rearing years due to the job’s flexibility & lack of demands.
Both of my kids are out of the house. One graduated and on her own, the other still in college but staying down at school this summer and possibly not living at home full time ever again.
Looking back on the last couple years, I’d say I’m surprised by the abrupt change. Although they didn’t need me in high school, in a hands on way they needed me in the younger years, I still felt like I was on call 24/7 and needed to be a potted plant in their lives, if that makes sense. I found middle school through high school to be very, very low reward. Tough parenting years for me. I have two daughters. I don’t know if gender makes a difference.
Now that the kids are largely independent, I am really off the radar. My time is my own again and I’m taking advantage of it. I quit the job I’ve had for 17 years and I’ve hopped on another project. It’s exciting and I’m really looking forward to what this new move brings. It’s the start of a new stage of my life.
The day WILL come when you are mostly you again, and not mostly Mom to Kid X and Kid Y. Even if you are on the Mommy Track, career-wise, I think it’s worth thinking, every once in awhile, about what you will do when the children need you less.
I can understand mourning for what could’ve been, but you are doing good work for your family & for two children. There will be a next stage for you, but you don’t know yet what that is going to look like. But, maybe dream about it!
You may not believe me, but it will be here before you know it. The days are long but the years go by fast.
I was about to write the same post that @Midwest67 just did! Now that the older, mentally ill child is in a good place and his two younger siblings are in college, I have a life. I don’t need an appointment book that’s divided into 15-minute intervals. I use a regular calendar! I’m working more and enjoying it. I’m driving about a tenth of what I did just a few years ago when I was everyone’s chauffeur. I go to to the grocery store only occasionally and buy what I want. I’m going to book club shortly and not worrying about what anyone will have for dinner. I’m going to the gym three times a week and running every day. Life is good!
So hang in there. “The days are long but the years are short” is so true!!
Great comments. Much appreciated.
Here is what I wonder about. If you had told 22yo me that I would mainly be a parent in my mid 30s to early 50s, that I would have a job Mon-Fri while the kids were in school, but my life would be built around the kids… what would I have done differently?
At 22 I worked full time as a research associate at a consulting firm I was hell bent on getting into grad school. I was passionate about my area of interest and read everything I could get my hands on on the subject. I had worked in labs, taken the prerequisite classes and studied like crazy for the GRE. I knew I wanted to get married and have kids, but the mechanics of how that would work out was not something I thought about.
And what I wonder about now is what if I HAD thought about and planned accordingly. You can’t forecast the kid of spouse you will have or the flavor of kid(s) you will get… but I could have better anticipated the sheer inescapable work parenting required. What if I had decided to become a author instead of a scientist for example? Or a therapist? Or an artist?
I feel like I’m living a “B” version of my career. What if I’d built a career plan around anticipating having a 20-year chunk of time in which I needed a lot of time flexibility? I might be living the “A” version of my career plan now. I didn’t do anything remotely like that. I should have!
@Aspieration
Different people parent differently in regards to the amount of time — physically present & mentally present. It may not feel like a choice, but there is definitely some degree of choice in there.
I know I skipped some things requiring a lot of effort on my part that some of my friends felt they had to do. And the opposite. I threw my efforts into some things that my friends could not understand why it was so important to me.
Everyone has to come to terms with what aligns with their values and what is actually possible.
When I was discussing some Big Life Regrets with my therapist, she wisely pointed out that we rarely imagine our Alternative Lives being WORSE than the lives we have. I burst out in laughter, it struck me as so true (at least in my case) and so funny to think of it that way.
When I find my mind wandering to fantasies of that MUCH BETTER alternative life I could have had, I am reminded of what my therapist said. I always makes me feel better and gets me back to making the most of the life I have right now in front of me.
I don’t think you can ever figure out what you could have done differently. My career peaked when my youngest was 2. So I had a 2,5, and 8 year old. It was exhausting and my husband was working. I travelled a lot on top of it. He was such a great H and dad. But when my company wanted me to move to Chicago after a merger I stayed on a bonus type retainer on top of my salary until they found a replacement and stepped down to a lesser job at a different local company with no travel, less direct reports and less pressure.
In my mind I had achieved what I wanted to achieve as far as a career so I could live with the what if scenario. Marcom “chief” of a publically traded company that was a market leader was my goal at 21 and I got there. Check that box.
I have slowly over the last 20 years happily stepped down in exchange for vacations, or bennies and now this last move was for hours. I might get a twinge now and then and heaven knows I missed the money when the kids went off to college but the companies know they got a good deal and I got what I wanted with the exception of a buy-out that I really didn’t want along the line…I did it “my way” on my own terms. I would never have moved my family to Chicago anyway and my H would have never gone so sometimes decisions also get made for you in the moment.
I was kind of a gunner in law school, once I got my first-semester grades, but after working in the kind of clerkship that gunners often aspire to (at a large law firm, the largest one in San Francisco at the time), I realized I didn’t want to continue on that path.
I ended up in a permanent position related to law but not being a lawyer. I’ve been with the same employer on and off since (almost 30 years; yikes!). I worked full time for a few years, during which I had my two children. I went part time. I quit. My husband lost his job. I went back to work part time. I added freelance work. I increased my hours when doing so was possible. A few years ago, shortly after my younger daughter graduated from college, I was asked to work full time.
It turns out that my experience and knowledge were and are valuable to my employer, even though I put in a lot less face time than did some of my coworkers. I have no desire to be a manager and am happy when I’m allowed to do the work I was hired for. I try to help my coworkers as much as possible, especially those with family obligations (children, aging parent in a nursing home, etc.). The job is stressful because of overwork and understaffing, but I like my coworkers for the most part and don’t want to leave if I can manage to stick it out until at least age 60.
I guess the point of this long tale is that it’s good to be aware of how you feel about your job and about parenting but not to assume that either will stay the same for the rest of your life. There will probably be ups and downs.
This is so helpful to air.
I guess what I really struggle with at the core if it is that I don’t feel like I’m driving or in control of my career nor am I adding my unique self to what I do. (And this is particularly true in science where all of the “A” players are literally inventing/dreaming up the future.) I intake information and output information that other people use, and this information is mainly a set of facts. (Way back at the beginning of my career I designed information products for scientists. I felt the high of dreaming something into existence. (My product still exists!)
I’m genuinely wondering if – now that I know what kind of spouse I have and what kinds of kids I have – is it too late to deeply rethink what I do to earn money?
And I think the answer is yes. It is too late. The artist/author fantasy requires years, possibly decades of really working at the craft, learning the industry. Finding a niche. Building a network, a reputation. It’s too late for these paths to bear fruit when I need them (which is now, because kids, especially special needs kids, are expensive).
I like the perspective @FallGirl shared: “I have built up more of my life outside of work. I was recently thinking that I no longer really have professional goals, just personal ones.”
Maybe that’s the “solution.”
I think you are being too hard on yourself. It’s pretty rare, if not impossible, to have a high-powered career if you want 20 years of flexibility to raise kids. That just doesn’t happen easily (if at all) in the corporate or legal world nor does it happen in academia. I think Fall Girl’s position is a good one–look for ways to create personal goals and aspirations.
Grandma Moses started painting at age 76!
I agree on the transition from professional goals to personal goals. Some (young women) end up staying at home and raising kids then go into the workforce so their original goal was to stay at home (a personal goal) and their next life goal is professional (to enter the workforce). For me it was the reverse. My young goal was to head MarComm at a “big player”…then my personal goals kicked in and I wanted time, flexibility and less travel more than I wanted the title and the salary. I think it is absolutely fine for women AND men to flip flop from personal to professional or vice versa.
I worked part-time after I had kids and quit my job to be self-employed when my youngest was six. I slowly built up a practice that is now annoying me because it’s too time consuming. I don’t advertise, but word of mouth is giving me more work than I can handle. I slowly learning to say no to stuff you can tell up front is going to be no fun. I always thought I’d do architecture until I couldn’t any more, but now I’m thinking I’d like to transition to something different.
Something you may not be considering: even women who never got on the mommy track (and the male administrators at the same level) may be plateauing right now. It happens when you’re in your 40s… and when you have highly driven and childless 25 year olds nipping at your heels. In other words, you may NOT be that much – or at all – behind your peers who stayed in the workplace full time, but you’re likely more aware of the dangers. And that’s a good thing. You can look at your skills, and the marketplace, and your peers with a fresher eye. Use that to your advantage.
I had amazing aspirations early in my career. I ended up choosing to stay home with my kids, and I worked only very part-time jobs when I did work over the next almost-20 years. When I decided to go back to a professional position, it was very difficult. It took me 2 years to get a job, and I started at the bottom. That was almost 10 years ago. I worked my way back up, and I have been in a position of great responsibility for almost 6 years now. I am underpaid and overworked. I don’t have the professional network others in similar positions have, because I didn’t rise up the ranks over a number of years the way most in my field did. I love certain things about my job, but I have an intense dislike for other things. One of the things I have found is that I have zero tolerance for b.s. Years of not being in the game have made me completely intolerant of ignorance, and there is a whole lot of that among some of the folks above me at work. I am trying hard to look at my job as simply a way to earn enough money so that I can retire comfortably in a few years.
Life throws stuff at us, and we just need to try to do our best to find ways to deal with what comes our way. It makes no sense to think about what could have been. We made our choices with the best information we had at the time, and we need to realize that we did the right thing for ourselves. We need to be less critical of what we did and more accepting that we did it for the right reasons.
Ditto to what has already been posted. Work was my life until children came along. I sacrificed my career for a life with my kids and am glad I did.
I later found part time flexible job near my home, and was able to work around field trips and other special kid programs. Some parents have figured out how to build a career and have kids and seemingly do it all. I found juggling baby and work too hard, and quit my job to stay at home.
Just tonight my adult child told me she heard a song on the radio, and it brought up fun childhood memories. The looking back times are priceless; you don’t think your kids are paying attention to all that you do for them.
You are making daily deposits now as part of a lifetime investment. It is worth it.