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| Image: Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash |
This morning I had yet one more dental visit. This was the last filling that needed replacing. It lasted a very, very long time, and I'm grateful for that. At the beginning of the appointment my dentist and I had a couple of minutes to chat. In different life circumstances, I think we'd be friends. She and I share the same faith background, we both garden, we're both mothers, and she's down to earth (as I like to think of myself). Her mother was a stay-at-home mother like my own. I think there were some similarities in our upbringings.
But she chose a different path in life. She's about 10 years younger than I am, and maybe that has something to do with it. She chose, by all accounts, a stressful career. There is a lot of burnout in dentistry. And it's no wonder, with patients like me who deal with anxiety, I'd soon lose my enthusiasm for the field. But she is so good at what she does, I'm glad she chose this path.
Her "rewards" for pursuing a career include intellectual identity, financial autonomy and security, demonstrating how to balance career and family for her daughter, and of course, the physical things and luxuries that this second income affords. Also, she appears to have a good relationship with her children and husband. So I don't think her career compromised her personal relationships.
For myself, growing up I never wanted a career. My sister did. But I wanted to be with and serve my children and husband. That sounds so old fashioned. I get it. But I see serving as an honor and not a duty. I wanted to imprint my husband's and my values onto our children. I wanted to experience all of the milestones first hand. I actually felt bad that my husband had to hear after the fact about all of the "firsts." I wanted to be the one who sat on the floor playing cars with my young son. I wanted to teach my children to read, and listen to them as they tried reading themselves for the first time. I wanted to play Barbies, build forts, chase butterflies, and experience the joy I could see in my children's eyes as they met each challenge. I wanted to take care of home details so my husband could put his focus on his career. I wanted to be fresh when my husband came home at the end of his day. I wanted to take care of a family.
As our children grew up, I still wanted to focus my energy on caring for our family. My kids and husband still need my care, but in different ways.
I knowingly traded a higher family income and intellectual identity to have all of what I have had.
A couple of weeks ago, when I discussed needing to work in small ways well into retirement years in order to afford travel or have a greater financial cushion, I didn't view our situation as a failure. I hope you understand that. This was something we'd known we would have in later years, and we accepted that as the trade-off to have me work at home.
I invested in the people in my life. The return can't be tracked in a bank account. I don't dread needing to do a few things to supplement our income. I see my husband's and my situation as a life timeline that is simply unfolding on a different, deeply meaningful track than a two-career household. No regrets. I am a satisfied customer of life choices.
My husband and I have made sacrifices along the way. We have lived a simple life often dictated by our bank account. We haven't traveled much, we have far fewer toys, we cut our own hair, shop for our clothes second-hand, and don't pay for expensive experiences. I don't say that as a moral victory. I fully know that we make these choices so that we can have the life of our choosing. But I do try to reframe how we view our simpler life. When a flower in the yard blooms, it's an event in our family. "Did you see the tulips?" "Did you see the roses?" "Did you see the begonias?" It isn't just me who urges the family to see what we do have. All of us here do this.
I don't ask others to pay for my choices. And I think this is important. If I were choosing to stay at home but asking someone else to provide food or heat for me, in my mind that would be wrong.
Do I ever complain about our hardships? Of course I do. Career women complain about their difficulties, too.
Today I wanted to write about my life choice because I feel it isn't always well-represented. There is an audience of women actively searching for the perspective and validation my experience offers. Whether young women at a career vs. family crossroads, homemakers facing "empty nest" or aging anxiety, or those also entering "soft retirement," there is value in presenting a realistic picture of this life choice. It validates the experiences of women who made similar choices. It offers balance when making that big decision. And it presents a reframe of the need for work after retirement as a second act.
That's all.
I had these thoughts this afternoon and wanted to share them with you all. And to think, this morning when I was getting dressed I was actually working out the details of a post on favorite kitchen tools. But you got my thoughts instead.
Thank you for your post. I know I might be one of those that unknowingly may have forced you to defend your decision to stay at home. If so, my apologies. With that said, my story is similar and yet very different. Hubby had ulcerative colitis as a child and when we married the doctor said the cells were changing and looked like cancer so they took out his large intestine leaving him with an ileostomy and testing of the cells were negative for cancer. He had that internalized about a year and a half later for a better quality of life. Strike one. Then he was a career police officer that each day his life was put in danger. Strike two. During this time, I worked FT (no kids yet) and then we had 3 kids and I mostly stayed home and worked part time for 10 years enjoying all the Firsts the kids did. With two strikes, I knew I needed to enter the work force as soon as I was able just in case cancer or career took him from us. Thankfully he is heathy (and retired!) but I now have a very stressful and unhappy job situation (early in my job, it was wonderful, just in the last two years it has become stressful and unhappy). Thankfully I am close to retirement that I could do so at any time. I'm also thankful for God's provision over all of these years in so many ways. Sorry if I made you feel your need to defend, it wasn't meant to have you need to do that.
ReplyDeleteHi Alice,
DeleteOh, no! My thoughts were not intended to be a defense of my choices at all. More of an explanation for how I came to have my life, and how different a choice it was compared to my dentist. Do you know, most of my in-person friends are or were professionals. I sometimes feel like the token homemaker when we get together, like they must think my life is somehow novel.
Thank you for sharing about your own life. I'm glad your husband is doing well and now no longer in a dangerous job. I'm sorry your job has become so stressful. That must be so difficult to get yourself to go there and try to put on a happy face, hoping the day will be different each time. But it's almost Friday as I type, so you have a whole weekend of no work. I hope you have a chance to relax and recharge.
Lili, I admire how you had a clear vision of what you wanted your life to look like and made that happen. You have done your chosen job very well. You should be proud.
ReplyDeleteI have been in the workforce and been a stay-at-home mom, and I was never totally comfortable in either place. I felt the pressures of society that told women that each place was the wrong place to be. However, I think I was in the right places at the right times for me and my family. My parents came from unstable backgrounds, and being prepared for contingencies was important to them. We were never told we had to go to college. But we were told that we better have enough education to support a family because you never know what will happen. Even when we had two good incomes coming in, we always lived on one salary. The words of my parents of being prepared for the unknown were a strong message.
Hi Live and Learn,
DeleteMy parents insisted we all go to university. We didn't really have a choice. But I don't see that as wasted time spent earning a degree I never really used. I would go back and earn a graduate degree if I thought I had time to do the coursework. I loved school, especially university work. And while I didn't need to use my degree for financial support, I did learn a lot about topics I wouldn't choose to pursue on my own. Because my husband and I have always lived so extremely frugally, even without career time in my field of study, I believe I could support us through whatever work I could get. I frequently game-plan how we could manage on even less if we had to.
It sounds like you made the right choices for yourself and family. That's what ultimately matters. At this point in life, I could care less what society thinks of my choices.
Thanks for sharing.
I feel like I've gotten to know you all better from today's post. I resonate with segments of what everyone has written. My mom pushed all four of us kids to get a college education. My parents were children during the Depression, and saw the struggles that their parents went through. My mom felt that getting a college education would make us more likely to not be in want financially during our adult lives, and would also give us more choices, especially for us girls (3 girls, 1 boy). I am forever grateful for her wisdom in this. I was single until I was almost 36, and had to support myself. When we married, I told my husband that if we had children, the most I would consider working would be part-time, as I wanted to be able to be there, hands-on, with my children (he was in full agreement). I was always fairly frugal, as was he, and we were in a situation where we could consider that. If I had gotten married and started a family while in my 20s, that may not have been a choice we could have made. When I got pregnant, we met with my financial advisor, who recommended that we live on one income while both still working, to see if we could manage doing that. We also purchased a home that we could afford to pay off with one income. That was a very wise recommendation from our advisor, and we found that yes, we could manage on my husband's earnings. At that point in time, I was the higher earner, so from society's view, it didn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteI have an unusual career in which it has been an option to work prn as a professional, which is what I chose to do when our son was born. My husband and I tag-teamed our parenting--I worked a lot of weekends and holidays, when he could be home, so we never had to use child care. This was an especially huge blessing when I found myself as a caretaker for my aging parents (I experienced a lot of being in the sandwich generation). There were many years when I thought I should be wearing roller skates to get everywhere that I needed to be. Now I'm (mostly) an empty-nester, and have found that the prn schedule is one that I love. I get to work in a highly satisfying job with people who I (mostly) enjoy, and I get tons of flexibility. I've had positions where I was miserable, working crazy hours for and with difficult people, and it's burdensome (so sorry for where you are in your job, Alice). I will likely continue doing this as long as my body allows me to.
If you are still reading, thanks for sticking with me. :) I also identified with L&L's statement about feeling pressure to be either a full-time SAHM or a full-time worker. Society can be unkind, but Lili, you have created a nice little corner of the internet where we can all make the choices that make sense for our individual situations and can share those choices. Thank you!
Hi Kris,
DeleteIt sounds like you made sound choices for yourself and family.
We made a sort of similar home-ownership decision to you. But not as paying on a single income as the qualifier, but buying a house that we were certain we could pay off, and we left a sum in our savings in case of a lay off. As it was, we prioritized paying off the loan as fast as we could, 14 years. I didn't want that hanging over our heads.
By PRN, do you mean pro re nata? Have there been any downsides to PRN for you?
Thank you for sharing your choices.
Sorry to use a term that might not be recognized outside of those in a medical field. Yes, you are correct. It's an "as needed" status, and is officially called "resource" at my facility. There are definitely a lot of downsides. The pay is a flat rate, meaning that all resource staff are paid the same, regardless of experience. It's a financial boost for the newer therapists, but I have 38 years of experience, and that is not reflected in my hourly rate. Resource staff are the first to be called off in an overstaffing situation. Last winter/spring, I was called off due to low census frequently. We view my earnings as icing on the cake, and don't rely on it. We receive a staffing list via email the evening prior to a scheduled shift. I may be listed as "available", meaning that I'm not officially on the schedule, on this list. However, I have to be available to be called in until 7:30 a.m. the morning of the workday in case they need me last-minute. This is my least favorite scenario. I find it hard to shift my mindset from being at home to suddenly going in to work. Similarly, I can be officially scheduled for work, but might be called off the morning of my scheduled shift.
DeleteAt work, it means that I'm not part of a designated "team", and could be assigned to a huge variety of patient types--I could be on the neurology floor (my favorite), orthopedic trauma (car accidents, etc.), cancer, post-surgical, cardiac, etc. While I am often placed on floors that aren't my favorite, it does have a benefit in that I get to meet a lot of different therapists and gain knowledge in different areas.
We also paid off our house loan quickly--I don't remember how many years it took us, maybe 15 or 16? It gave me peace of mind when that happened.
Hi Kris,
DeleteOne more question -- can you turn down a shift, or once someone else schedules you you're stuck with it? Both of my daughters pick up public school sub jobs to supplement their career incomes. But it's entirely up to them if they want to work or not. And not accepting a job won't affect their future with the school district. The pay isn't all that great, especially for the daughter who only has a bachelor's degree. The other daughter has her BA plus an education certificate, which yields significantly better pay as a sub.
Paying off the mortgage early has been seen as a poor financial decision in some circles. My father used to tell us that our mortgage was a good type of debt in the big picture, and we shouldn't work so hard to pay it off quickly. He was a very smart man, but I'm glad we didn't listen to that one piece of advice. We worked hard to pay off student loans in the first few years of our marriage. We really didn't want to have any more debt in our life. The other thing we did that was super helpful for us, as a single-income couple, well two things actually, we saved aggressively for a big down payment, and we spent a lot less on a house than the loan officer said we would qualify for. The result was we had a very manageable mortgage, which could have been paid off with only one of us working, even at a very low level job, if push came to shove.
No, once I commit to a shift, the only way I can get out of it is to request for another resource employee to take it (we have a scheduling site where we can do this). I try to be very careful about what I commit to, and I am at the age where 2 days/week is doable, but more than that is very tiring for me (my job involves being on my feet a lot and helping patients move, so I am doing a lot of physical work. That doesn't include the emotional/mental load that goes along with patient care, which is tiring in a different way). I know that I have missed out on income over the years by limiting my work hours, but we are ok with that. :)
DeleteWe also purchased a more modest house than our income suggested we could afford. We both were established professionals by the time we got married, so we had money for a bigger down payment. I am with you, paying off our house sooner rather than later was a priority for us. Our financial planner encouraged that, partly because if something happened and my husband was on disability, at least we wouldn't have to worry about house payments or foreclosure, and I wouldn't have to race to find full-time employment. Our financial goals have never been about wealth accumulation, but rather to have a good quality of life, living in a safe but modest neighborhood, having our needs met and a few of our wants, as well, being able to help with college costs with our children, and saving for retirement. Tithing/generosity is ingrained in both of us. If we were pursuing wealth, we likely would need different careers. :)