Building a Life on Purpose

Image: Priscilla Du Preez

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.