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LGBT Parenting
ctbride08
member
Working Moms Poll
ctbride08
member
How do you think having children has impacted your career/professional life?
Blogs: Our Growing Family - CT Working Moms
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Working Moms Poll
Honestly I have a job. I mean that sounds terrible but really if I found another one with similar benefits and pay that had better hours or some other appeal then I would do it. I keep working to move forward at my job BUT at the same time it is just a job. I spend most of it being bored and wishing I was home. Last week I was off sick all week (no voice so I could not talk on the phone which is my main responsibility lol) and it was amazing...not the sick part but waking up with DW every morning and getting her off to work. Getting missy moo out of her crib and playing all day and getting all my house cleaning stuff/grocery shopping/etc done so it was not all crammed into one day.
So really I think it has impacted my "career" by making me realize how much it is not a career at all and I could quit at anytime if financially we could afford for me to SAH and I would never even miss it.
hm. I think its kind of early to tell, but I do know I'm losing steam fast. My new job is just fine ,but I'm already thinking about how to look for something with more flexibility in a couple of years.
so...yeah I think I'm going to get at least semi-mommy tracked. Oh well. In 50 yrs, do I want to remember my job, or my babies? That's kind of how I'm looking at it.
As a sidebar, I was talking about this this weekend, and I do like working, but am kind of lazy...
ETA: I do have a career, albeit not a terribly high paying one . I don't want to give that up since I'll need something to do in my 50s when the kids are in college
but I'll probably never go as high as I would (I think) sans kids.
Well I made a lot of early education/school decisions on the desire to be more family orientated than career orientated. Looking back I don't know that that was the best decision. If I'm going to stay in my current field and if I really want to grow career wise then I need to start networking more. Going to mixers, joining boards, etc. I used to do this stuff. Will it be harder to do with a child? Yes. Do I have a strong desire to do it? Nope.
But I'm also looking at starting down an entirely new career path. And if I do that it will be so that family life can be stronger (mainly through increased finances). Should this happen though I don't foresee it being a career that will come before family or suffer because of family.
I am the same and I cannot claim new to the area since I currently live 10 minutes from where I grew up lol.
I think having children has had a significant impact on my career. It seems to ebb and flow, though, so it's not always the same impact/in the same direction.
Prior to having the kids, I was VERY career-oriented. I worked for a couple of years after my BA and before starting grad school, and I enjoyed that experience-- the responsibility, how well-respected I was-- and I knew I wanted to have it again after grad school. Post-grad-school, I poured tons of energy into growing my career. It paid off, and I got several promotions in a short period of time.
Closer to the time we were contemplating starting TTC, it looked like another possible promotion was on the horizon, so we delayed TTC until after that (and until after I'd been in the new job for a year). It wasn't so much putting career before family, but more us being realistic about what was best overall for both my career (and our finances) and our family.
Starting when I was pregnant, my drive to do well and be uber-productive started slowing down. After the kids were born, I took 4 months off. When I came back to work I pushed really hard for a couple of months to "get back in the game" and try to ensure I didn't get discounted by my colleagues and bosses because I was a new mom. After the first couple of months, though, I pretty much lost all desire to work so hard, and went through a period of totally slacking off (with all of the attendant negative consequences). Now things have kind of reached a middle ground: I want to do well, but I'm not going to kill myself to do it.
All that said, I still struggle sometimes finding an appropriate work/life balance. I feel terribly guilty when we send the kids to daycare feeling less than 100%, because I feel it's indicative of me not being willing to sacrifice enough for the kids. Then the times when I stay home with them, I feel like I'm letting people at work down and putting one more strike against me in my boss' eyes (she's not the most compassionate of people). It sucks.
IUI #3 gave us the best 2nd anniv. gift ever: 2 babies! (born 03/09/10)
Peanut and Little Man are getting so big! 2 years old already!
finally blogging again at This Will Be: An Adventure
Pre-kids I was pretty motivated and sure I was going to climb the ladder into management. I had done and was interested in program development, program management, etc.
Post kids - I love my job, but happy that it is a 40 hr work week and can't do any work at home, and I have time during the day to do some personal business (I can't leave work to run errands, but I can schedule appts, pay bills, Bump, etc.) I don't really have the ability to ascend into management where I am now (though per a passing comment last week that might change) and I love the familiarity of where I work (I have been here 8 years and have great working relationships with my co-workers, I can leave at 4:30 to get the kids when needed, I know how to do the work, etc.) I was recently feeling like I was in a rut with work and made a point to present at conferences and do a few extra things that re-ignited my self esteem/passion/etc. It felt good.
ETA: I never wanted to be a SAHM. I think I would be horrible at it. But I would love to do an 8:30-3pm position so the kids wouldn't have to go to aftercare and I could pick them up when school was out. Getting home at 4:30 would DRAMATICALLY improve our evenings. I am hoping that once L finishes her PhD and isn't doing a flex schedule (she works a compressed work week) that she will be able to pick them up earlier most days of the week.
having a job has gotten in the way of my kids... That being said cant have kids with out the JOB ... hmm.. But, We are fortunate to be work at home stay at home moms ... that being said we are both 1099 so if company closes we are screwed so I am looking for a job just for the insurance benefits because we currently pay for ouw own and WOW its a fortune! I am clearly not looking hard enough and then there was the whole post of my cover letter and resume and well - I have not touched it since... eeek...
i think we should be retired when we are in our 30's - 55 and then work from 55 till dead ... because I wanna do lots with the girls and take them places but having a job stops that .. I rather work when they are grown and dont wanna be in volved with MOMS then ... ya know ...
- j
our Blog -http://dosbabies.wordpress.com/
One aspect that's hard for me right now is I don't have a lot of flexibility at this job. I have to charge PTO if I leave early, which really is a new thing for me since I am salaried, and aggravating. So, DW has to do anything early...hopefully her boss situation doesn't change (some teams in her company aren't allowed to WFH/leave early), or we will be SOL. I am hoping if I decide to look to move up in a couple of years that I can find something with a little more flexibility.
That said, I have a decent amount of PTO and work 7:30-4 (albeit 35-45 min from home), so its not too bad. There's a strong no-work-from-home culture here too, below upper management anyway, which while it is limiting (I used to love working from home once in a while at my old job) it also is freeing.
I am also worried that the inevitable sick time the kids will bring (our plan is for C to do emergency pickups et al, and we'll trade off sick time) will be bad for me here, seeing as I have only been here a few months...
This is another reason I hesitate to leave this job. The kids don't get sick too often anymore (knock on wood) but it isn't a huge deal for me to call in/leave early/etc. We don't have to take PTO if we work half a day, which is awesome. And because I have been here awhile I have built a nice egg of PTO (and in DC you get 7 days to use to care for a sick relative. Score.) However if I continue with this line of thinking, I will be here for another 12 years - until the kids go to college.
I could relate to almost all of what you said, but especially this part.
I feel like I'm at a crossroads. Pre-kids I worked my way to a comfortable position. One that I could call a career and could live comfortably in for a long while. Its flexible and convenient and relatively family-friendly. But is this it? Is this all I want?
I'm in a place where I have good potential for breaking into management/upper levels if I wanted to push myself, get an MBA, and start projecting myself as I did pre-kids. Part of me feels too distracted and tired to make the effort and get back the momentum, but on the other hand I'm worried that if I dont step it up soon, I'll be put into that category...the one that moves me from "full of potential" to "fine where she is".
Blogs: Our Growing Family - CT Working Moms
I'm not working now, but am *sort of* job hunting. That's the difference---my heart is just not in this job search. If it were up to me, I'd be home until at least fall (see him through that important first year, having the summer off with L sound indulgently glorious, maybe getting a second one this summer--and having the time to adjust....going back to work 4 days after Pumpkin was exhausting & stressful)
But, I know that in this economy, I don't have the option to state what month I want to go back to work.
I know that I am not willing to make a lot of sacrifices that I was before. I have been offered a restaurant management position--but the hours are too crazy for my family. I understand that on a gut level now that I was a bit judgemental of before.
I'm not a working mom yet, and this debate has been on the table for DW and I since TTC - but especially the last couple of weeks.
I'm not sure how everything will work out, I wish I could guarantee DW's pending promotion/raise, but alas I can't. When I was younger I was ambitious, full of passion to get ahead, I worked for the profit center of a non-profit for a while and did really well, rose into management. Except there was no money in it, so I got a corporate job a few years ago. Slightly better pay, less passion. DW commented recently about how when asked what I do, I briefly talk about my current position before launching into an indepth conversation about a job I had 5 years ago.
Now I'm halfway to an MBA and I can't even really remember why I'm getting an MBA??? It could be pregnancy brain. So much work - but will there be a reward...
DW has more opportunity, and frankly more love for her job, and right now we're talking about having me SAH if we can make it work. CA is expensive, but I think for a fair amount of financial sacrifice we can make it work. Thing is I don't only want to SAH, so ideally I would be able to work on starting my own business (doing something similar to what I did before). We'll see.
I have no idea what the future will look like right now. It's more than a little nerve racking to say the least.
No kids yet, but this is a big topic for us. I am self-employed and currently working toward adding credentials that would allow a new facet and hopefully more income without needing to be on-call as much once we do have a kids. Many others in my professional community have children, but it's not always easy to balance this life (supporting other families) and supporting your own.
C is currently only working part-time and doing freelance on the side. Ideally, she'd get a full-time job/career that's stable, pays enough and that she even enjoys. I've brought up the idea of her going back to school (and perhaps even postponing ttc) so that she could transition to a new field that's more in demand and that I think she'd be good within but she's not sold on the idea.
We have a lot more discussing to do about it all. That being said, we could have a baby any time and make it all work somehow.