Baby before career?

cojodo83 · May 2014

Hi ladies! I'm new here and looking for some advice.

My husband and I will be married one year in July (but together almost 8 years) and we are starting to think about when we want to take the next step into parenthood. My husband is 25 and I'll soon be 24. I have completed all of the school I ever want to complete (bachelor's and master's degrees in politics) and I know I want to have a career eventually, but I'm not the type of woman who wants a life consuming big time career. Just a 9-5 that makes me happy and pays the bills. Right now I'm leaning toward having a baby and focusing on being a mom for a few years before starting a career. I'm recieving my substitute teaching certification in September because I would like to persue a career in the education field. I'd love to hear some input from moms who decided to have kids younger and start a career later.

Some background info: my husband and I have a great relationship, we are financially stable, and both want children. I was a nanny for over 2 years so I am very familiar with caring for infants.

Thanks!

cecilyandgautam · May 2014

Hi, welcome! While I was a little over a year into my career out of grad school before having my first, I feel like I can give some pointers since our degrees are similar and I also had my first in my mid-20s.

If you're hoping to work in policy, government, research/think tanks, I'd encourage you to keep an eye on part-time or contract work with local government offices or universities instead of having a substitute teacher gig as your source of supplemental income. All the universities I've bothered searching on have half time positions, often it's support staff work but if you can get a part time gig in an on-campus policy center or one of the research departments, that will be relevant for when you do want to apply for more full time positions in a few years. Also, there are part time positions within government agencies - you can set up a search alert as new ones open up. I'd also prioritize working for a local gov office half time over sub teaching if you want to stay in your field.

But if you ultimately want to be a teacher, then go for it. I'm just not sure that would translate well if in a few years you'll want a policy career.

jf198400 · May 2014

I don't want to be discouraging, b/c I also want to be a SAH mom so I understand where you are coming from. But it seems like if you get your degree and then don't use it for several years, it becomes sort of irrelevant. Substitute teaching will get you into the teaching workforce, but it could be difficult to branch into a different field later on, unless you are happy to stay in teaching, then it doesn't matter. I also think substitute teaching would be really difficult with childcare. You may end up paying for FT daycare and only using it on days when they need you to work. This doesn't seem very cost effective, especially knowing how poorly subs are paid.
If I were you, I'd try to find a "career type" job that you think you will like. You'll get a year of experience before you have a baby and can see how you like it. Maybe you'll find a great job with great work life balance and will decide to continue working. Maybe you hate it and decide not to return from ML. At least you'll have some real experience under your belt. Don't opt out of the workforce without even giving it a try.

cojodo83 · May 2014

Thank you for your advice! I should have clarified regarding my career goals. I received my degrees in politics, but my goal is to use them in an education setting. After working for 2 elected officials, I would prefer not to persue a career in government. My goal is to work at a university or private school.

skibunny59 · May 2014

jf198400 said:

I don't want to be discouraging, b/c I also want to be a SAH mom so I understand where you are coming from. But it seems like if you get your degree and then don't use it for several years, it becomes sort of irrelevant. Substitute teaching will get you into the teaching workforce, but it could be difficult to branch into a different field later on, unless you are happy to stay in teaching, then it doesn't matter. I also think substitute teaching would be really difficult with childcare. You may end up paying for FT daycare and only using it on days when they need you to work. This doesn't seem very cost effective, especially knowing how poorly subs are paid. If I were you, I'd try to find a "career type" job that you think you will like. You'll get a year of experience before you have a baby and can see how you like it. Maybe you'll find a great job with great work life balance and will decide to continue working. Maybe you hate it and decide not to return from ML. At least you'll have some real experience under your belt. Don't opt out of the workforce without even giving it a try.

I agree with all of this. Also, the substitute teachers in my school district actually get called in A LOT. It is a full day of school in most cases. Most of the substitute teachers have school age children. I think it would be hard to find childcare if you're working some days and not working other days and you don't have a definite schedule.

I understand your desire to SAH. I would love to be a SAHM. But you are not even pregnant yet. I would find a job that you like in your field and then worry about what you are going to do when you actually get pregnant. You don't have to come back from maternity leave if you don't want to.

skibunny59 · May 2014

cojodo83 said:

Thank you for your advice! I should have clarified regarding my career goals. I received my degrees in politics, but my goal is to use them in an education setting. After working for 2 elected officials, I would prefer not to persue a career in government. My goal is to work at a university or private school.

Than find a job at a university or private school. I would use substitute teaching as a back up only if you can't find a job.

emberlee3 · May 2014

I would look for a job that seems interesting. And work on starting a family. And then, when you have a job and/or a baby, decide how you want to balance those things.

djm31012 · May 2014

emberlee3 said:

I would look for a job that seems interesting. And work on starting a family. And then, when you have a job and/or a baby, decide how you want to balance those things.

Agree with this. You dont know what the future holds. You may find a job you love that has great work/life balance and decide you want to work while your child is young. On the flip side..you may try to get pregnant and find that its taking you longer than you anticipate and then you are caught in a weird in btwn. I would look for a job, start...let nature take you where it may..and then once you have a child, get through maternity leave and decide if you want to leave or come back.

Tink112011 · May 2014

I think that solid work experience prior to being a SAHM lends to more financial/career security in the long-run.

Like PP said, its easy for your degrees to become irrelevant quickly. Degrees are the most relevant straight out of college when employers are OK with hiring you with little to no experience. Once you're many years removed from the career assistance provided by your alma mater, and you have no connections from prior employment, it could get a whole lot harder to get a job offer.

You don't know now if being a SAHM is truly for you. I could never be a happy SAHM, but I didn't know that until I had DS. Like you, I'm very content with my 9-5 job and don't yearn for anything high profile, but I am the best mom I can be because of my career.

laurakaz13 · May 2014

Well, I do have a high profile career. I'm a high ranking military officer in the medical field. I've done a lot of work with Human Resources in the my industry and agree that you should start looking for a job or career that interests you now.

You can always scale back or quit if you do end up getting pregnant. As the other girls have said, you don't know how quickly you will get pregnant. It could take a while or it could happen quickly. You just don't know. It's not worth waiting and delaying potentially valuable experience in the work force if you aren't even pregnant yet.

Also, I am one of the women who could never be a SAHM. I would be miserable. You may think that's what you want, but until you have a child you just won't know for sure.

groovygrl · May 2014

Everyone is different. I personally think if you have options, are ok with waiting if need be, etc, considering financial stability is extremely important prior to starting a family and can decrease some of the stresses that go with marriages, kids & families. Only you can judge what that means for you, but as someone who waited to have kids until my mid-30s, while our age probably did affect our fertility (we had to use IVF but who knows what would have happened years earlier, we never tried), we have felt that both of us having established our careers/professions and also saved/paid off debt & gotten to a level where we were very financially comfortable before having kids was very useful. Just my .02 since you're still pretty young. Also we really enjoyed the first several years of marriage, traveling, doing things that would be a lot harder when we had kids, etc, so there is that too. But like I said, everyone is different & wants different things! GL!

Maybride2 · May 2014

I'll be blunt - I don't understand your schooling choices given your career goals (are you one of those who went to college simply to have something to do?), and I don't understand the rush to be a SAHM at 24. As others have said - a college degree with no relevant job experience becomes about as valuable as a high school diploma the farther along you go, meaning it will be pretty worthless on a resume for a professional job. Unless you have tons of childcare options available, substitute teaching would be a miserable and frustrating work choice, since you'd never have a set schedule. It's entirely possible to have a career that you enjoy that isn't all consuming. You'd be shooting yourself in the foot by not even giving yourself the opportunity to try.

Maybride2 · May 2014

You're right - at 18 I had no clue what my career path looked like. But by my junior year I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do and what major I needed to accomplish it. When I went back for grad school, it was with a pretty concrete goal. I guess I never considered that simply having a degree was all I needed - I needed to be a bit more focused about what my end goal was. Kudos to you if your career doesn't require a certain degree.

Maybride2 · May 2014

But regardless - it would seem (to me) that political science would be one of those careers (like technology) where being out of the workforce for too long would make you obsolete in a hurry. Whether you were working in education or government - wouldn't you need to stay "in it" to be taken seriously?

cojodo83 · May 2014

Maybride2 said:

I'll be blunt - I don't understand your schooling choices given your career goals (are you one of those who went to college simply to have something to do?), and I don't understand the rush to be a SAHM at 24. As others have said - a college degree with no relevant job experience becomes about as valuable as a high school diploma the farther along you go, meaning it will be pretty worthless on a resume for a professional job. Unless you have tons of childcare options available, substitute teaching would be a miserable and frustrating work choice, since you'd never have a set schedule. It's entirely possible to have a career that you enjoy that isn't all consuming. You'd be shooting yourself in the foot by not even giving yourself the opportunity to try.

I certainly didn't move three hours away from my family and my then boyfriend to pursue an expensive graduate education just for "something to do." I did it to better myself and learn more about what I wanted to do with my life. Through this process I learned what my interests were and was greatly interested in education. As Amy052006 said, a bachelor's into education isn't the only ticket into the field. My master's curriculum covered a wide range of topics. I worked my way through college and graduate school (in my field) and am currently employed, but most of my work has been part time so I don't consider myself a "career woman" yet.

Maybride2 · May 2014

Ok, so I apologize for questioning your choice of degree and career goal. I was wrong. I hope you've been able to read and consider the rest of what I (and every single other person who has responded thus far) have said. Starting a career with young children is 100 times harder than maintaining a career after having children. If you think that there's a possibility that someday you might like a professional career, do yourself a favor and spend some more time cultivating that before jumping into SAHMdom.

cecilyandgautam · May 2014

I think OP's degree is completely appropriate to teach certain topics at the high school level in a private school. If she had an MEd, I'm not sure what she'd teach at a private HS - I went to private school, my siblings went to various private schools across town and our teachers had advanced degrees in the subjects they taught, not an MEd.

And at a private school, she's more likely to find a part time gig teaching just 2 courses - like AP Gov + US history - which is along the lines of what she's looking for. When she feels ready down the line, she can look into a more full time teacher position. My fav HS teacher was hired to teach just one specialty course, he proved he was excellent, and then progressively was offered more and more classes and quickly was part of the core faculty. I actually think her plan sounds fine - I'd start out trying to get 1-2 courses now at a private school, starting in the fall, and take future decisions as they come.

ss265 · May 2014

PP have made great points but I just wanted to add that if you have kids before starting your career, I think it's unlikely that you will ever go back to the work force. At that point, working full time will be the unknown since you would never have done it before and staying home would be what is familiar to you.

Not to mention that finding a job will be especially difficult because you will be competing with fresh college grads who employers might prefer because their education/degrees are more recent. Plus you won't have a professional network to help you get your foot in the door (every job I have ever gotten was through a contact I made, either through networking at college events or through former co-workers).

If you do decide to have a baby before starting a career, I would sit down and plan for your financial future with your DH including having adequate life insurance for him just in case (God forbid) something happened to him and you needed to generate income for your family and aren't able to get a job.

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