What if I love my job?
Recently, I shared a story about how a mentor discouraged me from leaving my career to become a stay-at-home-mom back in 2005 and why I did it anyway. It was a painful memory, but I'm glad I shared that post. I wanted to encourage moms who dream of staying home with their babies that they should absolutely go for that dream. It's still my dream.
But I think most people missed a big part of that story:
I've been a working mom every single day since I decided to stay at home, and plenty of those workdays I was away from my kids.
When I gave up my teaching dreams to stay home with my first baby, I became a nanny and a homeschool teacher for a friend. Then, we moved to Australia and I became a nanny again. Then, we moved back to the States and I started a career in social change that has morphed from in-person work to remote employment to a hybrid situation and now to a freelance position to allow time for my writing.
And I actually love my job.
I've never been able to focus on my kids 100% of the time on any given day. I haven't hiked or read or played with them nearly as much as I wanted to. None of my days look like those idyllic stay-at-home-mom days I dreamed about 15 years ago. But I love the family togetherness we have. At the same time, I love the work I do, and I dare say, I love my job.
That stay-at-home-mom life is still my dream, but I love my job, too.
(especially now that my job includes so much writing for other moms)
Not every mom wants to stay at home with their kids full-time, and I think that's fine. Sometimes I even envy those moms. But I do want to stay home with my kids. I don't know why I have that desire, but I do. I also love my job, but I don't talk about loving my job a whole lot because it seems like the world expects us mothers to choose.
What if we don't have to choose? What if we can redefine instead?
What if we can love our jobs AND go after big family togetherness?
What if we can do meaningful work (paid or not, inside the home or outside) AND be there for our kids?
What if we can work outside the home AND still have the biggest and best family adventures and family togetherness of our lives?
I say we can.
If you're a mom who needs to work (or wants to), I don't believe this disqualifies you from going after big family togetherness. Not in the least. Not even if you work full-time outside of the home. Not even if you do work that your kids see you doing or if you do work they will never understand. Not even if you don't get paid for your work just yet.
I do believe, however, there are two sides to this coin.
Like nearly everything in life, I think it's easy to go too far sometimes, but that's nothing a little intentionality can't fix.
HEADS: Work that enhances.
As parents, we can have personal goals that enhance our families. We can do work (paid or not, inside the home or outside) that makes us better moms, better wives, better sisters, better humans. We can have our family cake and eat it, too. (Don't trust anyone who tells you otherwise.)
How do I know? Because I see so many working mamas doing this every single day.
Like my friend Tiffany who changes the lives of college students at her day job and then comes home and gives all of herself to her two little ones (while also getting up early and staying up late to finish her PhD, too).
Like my work friends Sunny, Sherry, Lisa, Gabby, ReKasa, and Toni who are changing entire communities for child well-being by day and then investing so much time, energy, resource, love, and strength into their children and grandchildren every moment they have with them.
Like so many parents who are passionate teachers, photographers, artists, business owners, salespeople, and rockstar employees by day and then come home for the second shift every night. (And so many who are doing both shifts at home right now thanks to COVID.)
Like so many of us who steal away to an empty park or coffee shop to answer emails or write or take phone calls throughout the day and still find time to play board games with our kids, do school with them, make three meals a day with/for them, and keep our homes clean enough to live in.
Like so many of us who read, write, watch, and do things that make us better for our families, better for this world, better for ourselves.
Like so many of us whose work enhances our families because it enhances us and makes us come alive. Eleanor Roosevelt said it best:
A woman cannot meet adequately the needs of those who are nearest to her if she has no interests, no friends, no occupations of her own. Without them, she is in danger of becoming so dependent on her children for these things that she is apt to be equally dependent when they have left home. She may give them the uncomfortable feeling that she is languishing without their companionship and so make the time they can spend together an uneasy duty and not the pleasant occasion it should be . . . The development of interests while you are bringing up your children is important to them, too. The wider their range of experience, the greater the variety of people they encounter in their home life, the farther their horizons will extend and the more hospitable to new ideas they will be as they go out into the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living
Certainly, there is a way that our work and personal passion enhances our family life.
But then, there's the other way.
TAILS: Work that destroys.
Twice this week I've found myself talking to another mama about a writer and influencer who I believe is encouraging all the wrong things these days. When something like this comes up for me and won't leave my mind, I know I need to deal with what it's trying to teach me. I won't tell you who it is exactly because I want her to have the freedom to redeem her work, but I will tell you this:
If anyone tells you that you shouldn't let your family get in the way of your work, if anyone says you should forego and outsource your time with your kids to meet your fullest professional potential, run from them like you've never run before.
As I said to my friends this week, "Telling parents that their families are getting in the way of their business success is exactly what's breaking our world these days. Telling business owners that they can't be great parents AND wildly successful professionals is a huge problem."
As my friends said back to me, "Who cares if I have a business and life I love if my kids end up hating me?"
and
"We don't want to lose ourselves in our families, but we also don't want to lose our families. It's not an all-or-nothing game."
I get that we're all different, and I actually like that. I get that not every family needs or wants to put all of their eggs in the basket of family adventure right now. I get that not every parent feels comfortable forgoing future ease for present experiences.
What I don't think is healthy is when we find ourselves wishing away time with our kids and making them feel like they're a nuisance keeping us from more important work. What I don't like is when we forego family togetherness for feeling loved, wanted, needed, and celebrated at work. (When I catch myself feeling like this, I know I've gone too far. It happens to all of us. That doesn't mean we have to stay there.)
But I know every family can find their way - the way that's right for them.
I know we can do it the healthy way.
We can keep tweaking, keep thinking, keep growing, and keep knowing that the goals we have in sight won't be out of reach forever.
We can keep working jobs we love AND going all-in for family togetherness, too.
For some of us, that means putting it all out there and investing every single penny we have into family adventures right now before our kids leave home. Leaving careers and opportunities behind. Putting off retirement savings. Putting it all out there and investing heaps of time, talent, attention, and money into our family life right now.
For others, it means leaning into family life at home while scaling back in some areas to prioritize family, saving, and investing our pennies so that we can go after some big family adventures and huge togetherness wins a little later.
Whatever it means for you,
We can redefine things until we land on what's right for our families - even if we love our jobs, too.
I'll leave you with one more quote from that same Eleanor Roosevelt book (my favorite ER quote of all time):
Each of us has, as my husband's rather grim-faced ancestress pointed out, all the time there is. Those years, weeks, hours, are the sands in the glass running swiftly away. To let them drift through our fingers is a tragic waste. To use them to the hilt, making them count for something, is the beginning of wisdom.
Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn By Living
Let's make them count together.
What about you?