What Would You Do? The age old Family vs Career choice.

[kateinlouvain]

If you were my daughter I would say...
A. Have a small simple wedding and stop having a ""partner,"" but a real old fashioned husband once he has the means. Don't plan your children. Saying you want to delay childbearing to work with children is silly and not age old but a modern new trap for women. Women used to assume they would have to get childvbearing done by thirty, not start it. I really recommend the resource Ladies against Feminism for great support and inspiration in your journey. Good luck to your, your beloved, and your future babies.
BTW both Wales and Oz sound like very romantic places to marry and raise children.

[crunchymama]

Ladies, I love your advice here and I just thought it was worth reposting for Laura as well as any others who might be looking for advice about career vs family, the best time to have kids, should we ttc, etc.

Yorkist-- you are so right...the best laid plans never go as planned! I do understand Laura's dilemna though because I get OCD in planning and looking forward can be so confusing. Learning to let go is always an ongoing thing! I'm glad I'm not alone in that feeling.

kateinlouvain-- Ladies Against Feminism definitely came to my mind on this thread too. Unfortunately, it's not something most people think of as an option in the 21st century. I'm a supporter of Proverbs 31 and Titus 2 ministries!

My advice to you is to stop worrying about child #4 and start thinking about child #1. And don't worry about your career at 40; start thinking about your career at 28. And either decide to go for Australia right now and make that your #1 goal (and I have to warn you, children tie you down), or put that dream off until retirement.

By the way, I have a cousin that gave up having children at the age of 30 and had three surprise pregnancies in her mid-40's; she now has 3 perfectly healthy girls. Twenty-year plans don't work, but two-year ones may.

If you were my daughter I would say...
A. Have a small simple wedding and stop having a ""partner,"" but a real old fashioned husband once he has the means. Don't plan your children. Saying you want to delay childbearing to work with children is silly and not age old but a modern new trap for women. Women used to assume they would have to get childvbearing done by thirty, not start it. I really recommend the resource Ladies against Feminism for great support and inspiration in your journey. Good luck to your, your beloved, and your future babies.
BTW both Wales and Oz sound like very romantic places to marry and raise children.

[zaelia]

It seems like you can totally understand what I'm having to decide. So did you start TTC abroad? Get pregnant abroad? Was that stressful? Did you come home during the pregnancy or have the babies abroad?

Sorry for taking so long to respond to you! We've been really busy...

We started TTC once we moved to Sweden, got pregnant here, had all our maternity care here, and delivered the boys here. We didn't go back to the US at all during the pregnancy although at 5 months pregnant we went to Turkey (and I had to take paperwork to prove I wasn't days from delivering- I was that big!) for a last pre-kids vacation.

We are planning to take the boys home to the US for a month this summer though. Now I am trying to figure out how to manage 1 year old twins during the 24 hour trip back to California...

[babyoneday]

Another Laura :-)
30 years old is not too old to be having your first child! That is pretty young, most people I know (I live in Sydney Australia) had their first babies in there mid to late thirties or even early 40s. If you started at 30 (granted there arent any fertility issues) you could definitely have 4 children with 2 years between each before you are 40 years old.
You sound so passionate about working with children (I work with children, it's the best thing in the world) it would be crazy to not pursue it, that way when your children have left the nest you will be qualified and can still have children in your life everyday :-)
And I may be biased as I am Australian but you should visit our beautiful country, before kids as holidaying with little ones is a much different experience!
Good luck!

[lynae]

I am going to be bold and say you should plan to do it all! Career and kids combined is still a possibility for you. If you lay the foundation for a career ASAP and don't wait until your late 30s to start having children you may well be able to do both. If you give one up for the other you may well have regrets (not everyone will mind you, and it is far less frustrating I imagine to pick one path and stick with it, but based on what you have told us about your passions I am making this assumption). Keep in mind that you can always modify your focus in life as opportunities and circumstances present themselves. So, for the next 5 years or so you may be 100% career dirven and then when it is time to start a family you can shift your efforts, in full or part, depending on what is right for you and your family. The trick is keeping a foot in the door of your career so you can step back in when you are ready/when the kiddos need you less. You can have it all, maybe not all at once...

[caracakes]

I haven't read through this all, sorry! And I'm a bit late into the conversation, but I just wanted to say this...

When it comes to career vs children, I think it really boils down to whichever feels more right to you and your SO. If your career is really important to you, and you'd like to start it NOW, then by all means do so! You still can have children in your 30's and up! Of course, there are some complications that are possible to come along with doing so <3 I do not think there's anything wrong with going this route though!

But some food for the thought, if you have children young, you will still have time to pursue a career Say you have children at 24, by the time they graduate high school [say their 18] you'll be about 42. And your still young at 42! [tbh, it feels like a really old number to me, but I'm still fairly young myself, hehe!]. You can still pursue a career at 42! And you know, working with children may be that much a different experience after having one of your own. You'll understand children a bit more after raising one or more, and you'll also appreciate the younger ones more after yours is older! If you have a steady financial situation currently and think this option I suggested sounds good, I'd totally recommend going for it!

For me personally, this is my plan Though, this is also factoring in that my personal goal has always been to be a mum, so career comes second to me. But its still a viable option for someone who is focused on a career! Why not talk the options over with your SO?

Its hard to necessarily go by a plan, cause of course life doesn't seem to like going as planned. But its still even an option to pursue a career with a child Once your child is in grade school, there will be a good portion of your day opened to doing whatever you choose. You could work the retail job, you could stay home and clean, or you could even start taking a few classes! I think it could be a wonderful option to work a few shifts then take a couple classes during the day! Or even work a couple nights if you SO would be home for the child. This would still leave you time to be there for him/her, and go after your dreams! You don't have to pack your schedule or go to school full time. You could just take two or three classes a day, or even one if your feeling to stressed about taking so many! It may take more time to reach your goal, but it'd be totally worth it! <3


Of course, this is all just a matter of opinion! And you have to do what is right for you personally! Me and my SO are planning to follow one of the routes I suggested. I'm thinking I'm going to take some courses while pregnant, and wait until the child is in grade school to take some more classes. There's a wait between courses, but courses never go bad or anything. Always worth just as much. Though I also took a semester of general credit courses for college already. I'm planning to pursue a career in childcare myself! I want to work with the infants of a daycare.

I hope this helps!!

[sophiarose]

I have to say, I don't really think people can ever have it all. I think people are always torn. If you chose to do the degree, you'd be forever wondering if you'd rather not have. If you chose not to, you couldn't help but let your mind wander to if it would have been better if you'd done the degree. I think everyone would like to think that whatever they're working for, or doing, at the end of it everything will be amazing. People think that whatever they do, in the end they'll think it'll be perfect. I don't think life will ever settle down to someone being completely fufilled with the choices they've made. It's always your choice, but I think that's it. Either you'll decide you'd rather be a mum now, or you think you'd prefer to do a degree. I don't think people can have everything, because all of life had decisions. Decisions to chose one guy over another, to move to Australia or stay in the UK, to work or to stay at home, all of them will effect your future, and I don't think anyone can say they've never wondered what it'd be like if they'd done the opposite.

[ninanoo]

I didn't read all the replies, but here is my thought on it.

Keep learning, but not for a career. Your children will beniefit from your education. ( which can be self taught. ) homeschool and have a direct inpact on your own children. If you want to impact other children, then work sunday schools, or start a program you can teach out of your home. It is the best of both worlds.

[amandaaylwin]

We were in the same position, but not so much with study but with work and mortgage. I am a teacher and am only on contract so we had to decide whether to wait for me to get a permanent position before trying or to just do what we felt was right. We decided that (at 30) our time to start trying was now and we were very lucky that we fell quickly. Have you thought about studying in Australia while you travel? Or studying externally while you continue to work? In Australia we are lucky in that in most cases you get 14 weeks full time maternity leave (Im taking it at 28 weeks half pay which is more than enough) and on top of the employer pay we get 18 weeks paternal leave from the government). So I will be lucky to have 46 weeks of some sort of pay! Being a contract teacher I am not guaranteed a full time position when I want to return but in the town that I live in I could quite comfortably live off supply teaching work (4 days a fortnight would be heaps enough)! I know a heap of people with small children that study as well as teach - while it is tricky and tiring, it is also possible. Teaching is a good profession in that if you are happy to work 1 or 2 days a week (supply) you can - not sure what it is like where you are from. Good luck with your decision! Im sure youll decide on something that is right for you!

[k8d]

Yes, I was forced the make the decision between career and children. I had worked as a lawyer for year when my boss flat-out told me that if I chose to become pregnant that I would lose my job. Sure enough, when I became pregnant, I was passed over for a promotion and then lost my job. It was very stressful at the time, but it has turned out to be a huge blessing. I don't regret my decision at all. In fact, the time away from that job made me realize how unhappy I was while I was working there. I'll be gingo back to school in the fall for a master's degree to go in a different direction with my career. I'll have a 2 1/2 year old and a 4-ish month old when I go back. Also, I was 29 when I got pregnant with my first, had him at 30, and am 32 having my 2nd any time now.

I'm a super planner, so I understand wanting to get everything mapped out, which I thought I had done. However, life doesn't always work out the way you plan for it to. I wanted three or four kids, but I found out with this pregnancy that there are medical issues that will prevent me from having more kids. So, now we're faced with the decision of whether we stop with two or adopt in order to have more kids. I hope that you don't have any sort of issues like that, but my point is just that you never know what life is going to throw at you. For example, you may end up having twins or triplets. You just can't plan everything out as far as this all goes. It seems like you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself by trying to make all of these huge life decisions at once. My advice is to decide how much the career means to you and then go from there. All the best!