When/Why you stopped working (for pay)...

[v-girl]

Very cool!

[Auspicious]

I went from full-time career work (I mean, not a super-career or anything, but you know, a career) down to very part-time WAH when we moved for the start of residency, to coincide with our plans to start having children. I did not regret it or miss it much at all at that point--I was excited about the next phase (having children), somewhat burned out on my work, and had reached a point where to reach the next level of my career would have required a big push over probably a longish period of time, when I was interested in just the opposite--wanted to dial back to have time for kids instead.

The WAH worked out well at first, but got harder and harder as Cora got older and slept less, and then she dropped her final nap just as her baby sister was born. So for the final 18 months of training I was just gutting it out, not enjoying it at all, very focused on the end date of this situation, and fantasized about quitting many, many times.

When the time came I couldn't quite bring myself to do that. Especially with the way the whole transition to attending went, and how much control over our lives was suddenly removed from our hands. I ended up being very glad to have the continuity of my job (miniature little job though it was), and have something that was mine, and that pre-dated this whole medical mess by several years, and to have paychecks with my name on them. And I don't even love the job that much, I just want all that other stuff.

What I was able to do instead of quitting, was fix the circumstances under which I worked, which meant hiring child care for the first time, which was huge. (I find there is an enormous improvement between spending 90% of my time with my kids and spending 99.5% of my time with them.) And also sort of psychologically owning that I work for all these other intangible reasons and not just because I have to. Sooo, 2012, our first full calendar year out of training, will be my highest grossing year since before Cora was born--end of training has meant working more, not less, but under better conditions.

Also, attending money is nice and everything, but it's not like winning powerball--I still have room in my wallet for more money. And that's different, too, because in training it's like you're behind/in-the-hole no matter what you do, but now I can see that little margin of icing on the cake that my checks make. Also I think pathology is unstable and we need to make hay while the sun shines.

So that's my story. Good thread. This is a complicated issue for me and I have many mixed feelings about it.

[Ladybug]

. . . we need to make hay while the sun shines.

Awesome.

[houseelf]

I feel compelled to make some disclosures before I tell my story. First, I wasn't passionate about my work. I always liked the jobs I had, but I never felt the passion like I see in DH. Second, I don't think our residency/fellowship experience and our reaction that that experience is exactly representative of medicine in general. Dare I say that we might have had a more intense 9 years of training without offending others?

With those disclosures, I will tell you my journey. I worked the first 7.5 years of parenthood while DH was in GS residency. My job was both wildly interesting and mundane at once. It was fairly family friendly but in no way maximized my earning potential. I don't regret working then because being busy and social during a grueling residency program is a fabulous coping mechanism. There was a constant stress level and a feeling of always needing to be somewhere else. I didn't find a new job when we move for a fellowship that was q2 for two years. We financed it with the remainder of our savings and VISA, which we justified because we had been very fiscally disciplined during residency. I went on to have a third child during the last month of DH's fellowship. If I'm truly honest, DH wasn't 100% on board with my SAH. In turn, I wasn't 100% on board with fellowship so there you have it. Ironically, he LOVES me staying at home now. Our marriage is calmer because I have time for him.

I can honestly say I feel less conflicted about SAH because I intimately know WOH. Both options are both wonderful and horrible. I couldn't agree more with Pollyanna's take about kids needing you more in MS and HS. I still have a little one at home so maybe I should revisit this question in few years. I am definitely not a lady who lunches or joins the tennis league (nothing wrong with that), but I will work to figure out this next stage. I will probably go back to some sort of employment when my oldest goes to college and my middle child can drive. I would like to help defray the cost of college and this will be a coping mechanism for the empty nest. Two huge factors for our family is taxes and childcare. The work I seek might be cash only or some sort of business where I can write off expenses. If i go for paid employment, it has to make sense and not take away from the primary breadwinner's ability to earn income. Dh is building a stream of income through medical instrumentation consulting.

I am incredibly blessed to be in this situation. At the end of the day, this is such a personal thing. Someone else's journey is really meaningless against the backdrop of your family's life. Best of luck.

[rainbabies]

I stopped working when I had ds, 9. I haven't regretted it much, other than when the occasional "self worth" feeling came along. With three kids all one year apart...paying for child care wouldn't have really made it worth it. I did the occasional babysitting job while dh was in residency. All that covered was groceries, however.
Currently...all three kids are in school. I still don't work. I have no desire to work. I'm pretty happy playing with my animals and riding/training my horses. I think about starting a business sometimes. A used tack shop, specializing in children or a mobile dog grooming business. Dh and I are looking at the possibilities...
I do worry sometimes, that if anything ever happens to dh, I don't really have anything to fall back on. I'm not marketable...

[v-girl]

I do technically have a job that pays. But it's only 3 days a week and I don't count playing with ST's baby and showing her off at Target to be real work. LOL I use my pay to cover my niece's dance lessons (DH doesn't know I pay for her classes) and I pay the girls an allowance out of it. Oh, and their babysitting money.

[ladymoreta]

Sorry, I know I'm several days late, but I'm playing catch up!

DH and I had planned for me to stop working when we had our first baby. For us, that meant waiting until close to the end of intern year. I stopped about 3 weeks before he was born, and I haven't regretted it. I also just had a job, rather than a career. Had we stayed in the city where he did medical school, I think that job was on its way to becoming a career that I might have stayed with, but I guess the Match knew what it was doing.

I'm also wondering what I'll do once both kids start school. I've always loved the idea of being a homeroom mom and volunteering. I've also entertained the idea of teaching computer science in middle school or high school. I think if I go back to work, it will be teaching, so I can still be on a similar at-home schedule with my kids.

[DCJenn]

I stopped working for roughly 17 months - the month before we brought Nikolai back until we moved here and I found my job.

I was just thinking as I was vacuuming the house- "I need my life back"- the kid thing is so much more complicated as they get older and I only have ONE and he only has TWO after school activities that require my full attention. (and Cub Scouts but that's another story) I am lucky in that my current position is one that I basically carved out for myself- I pretty much come and go as I please. Recently we went through a reorg that now has me training my replacement who is my supervisor- Ouch! But I after I told them to go fuck themselves and applied for another job within the company they've begged me to stay. I like the freedom and they're offering me 15k more. So- I'll probably stay and have the freedom to leave at 3pm when I have to get the kid to and fro.

I am very glad I was able to be home with him when we first brought him back from Russia- he was so confused about everything and while it was generally easy, I felt that it was in his best interests to learn that he had people there who 100% were there to meet his needs. By the time we moved here though, it was pretty clear that we needed a break from each other. (who says that about their toddler!?)

I also do volunteer stuff and I think that honestly, volunteer activities are best left to those who have the time and energy to focus on them. (definitely NOT me) I am the most half-assed volunteer ever.

I work so that we have the funds to play and for my own self-esteem (which took a hit w/ the most recent developments- although they made that decision in part because I have made it clear that I do not want to manage people or money ever again- which makes it hard to figure out what to do with me!)

We're definitely not rolling in the cash but if I didn't work, we'd be fine. I like the extra income. It would NOT be worth it if I worked at a job that wasn't totally flexible though. I couldn't do it.

J

[moonlight]

A sincere thank you to everyone that shared. Your path really had helped me comprehend things. I'm developing a plan and I think it might just work. The big take away is flexibility, right?

[spotty_dog]

The big take away is flexibility, right?

Yep. With kids, flexibility. With medicine, flexibility. With both? Bend like the willow tree, darlin'! Bend so you don't break.

[DCJenn]

Amen- You are THE parent 90% of the time. Kid sick at school- it's the spouse dealing with it. Appliance repair- you, car repair- you, general household management- you.

I've explained it to people who somehow think that my husband is shirking his duties on purpose- he can't exactly say, "hold on seizing child, my kid needs to be picked up from school." Even in attendinghood- he's at work at 7 and home at 6:30 and everything that happens in between those hours falls on me. When he's off - he's all over all that stuff but the Army only gets 30 days of leave a year!

J.

[Vishenka69]

I first quit working full time when we moved for The Job. DH got lots of vacation time and we needed to work on our relationship, which wasn't doing so great after training. The two years we took to rediscover why we got married in the first place really helped. During that time I did a few consulting/temping gigs and some volunteering. Once we had our first, we both realized that it doesn't make financial sense for me to work full time and one of us has to be the flexible one (see Jenn's comment above). I stayed home with DD for a year before deciding that we need some time apart from each other and I started looking around for something to do. Volunteering didn't do it for me, I found the local Junior League to be a bunch of pretentious bored housewives (although half of them WOH). Starting my own business seemed to be the only option that would bring any kind of financial benefits while giving me the flexibility I need. It's only been a bit over a year so far and I haven't had many clients but I like it and hope that some day soon it'll be profitable and not just a hobby.