Growing up, I always imagined being a stay-at-home parent/housewife and always thought about how boring it sounded. Did I want to have kids? Of course. Did I believe my only job in life was to get married, have kids, and clean up after them? Absolutely not. To me, the idea of staying home all day, doing the same tedious activities of cleaning up after the children and doing daily errands just didn’t seem to be the life I wanted to live. I wanted to have adventures and do something with my life outside of having a family.
I want a career. I want to be able to provide for my family. If something were to happen to my husband or I, I want my children to be cared for financially. I watch stay-at-home moms/housewives suddenly become a single mother, then watch them struggle to provide for their children. Having no professional skills, the most they could get is a minimum wage job that can barely pay their rent. This is something I wanted to prevent.
Part of my childhood was spent in a 2 income household, the other part of my childhood was spent in a single income household. The difference between the two was absolutely heartbreaking. My mother wasn’t a single mother, but my father had a rather unfortunate incident with his health. Going from 2 incomes, one being the “breadwinner” the other being minimum wage, down to 1 income was extremely difficult on my family. My parents went from being happily married, to constantly fighting about money and where the next meal would come from. We were luckily blessed with an amazing family that pitched in during our time of need.
I will always put my career first. Not because family doesn’t matter and not because all I care about is money, but because I never want to struggle like my parents did. If I were to suddenly lose my spouse’s income, I would want to be able to care for my children and them not know the difference.
Family isn’t the only reason, though. I am an extremely ambitious person. I have always wanted to reach for the stars and make the best out of the life I have been given. I find the answer to this is creating a career and stability for myself. Of course there are various ways that other people can achieve this, be it in the form of creating a family or through their careers and furthering their education in places like RMIT Online. But at the end of the day, how we reach for the stars depends on what our pace and focus are.
I will never be a damsel in distress. I will never need to be saved from the life I created. I will never have to turn for help (financially at least), and I will be able to help my family to the best of my ability.
Being taught from an early age that careers come first and having a family comes second has deeply affected how I foresee my future. Putting your career first means having no ties to anything. You are able to pick up and move out of state for that huge pay raise. At the beginning of your career, you definitely spend more time in the office than outside. If I were to create my career after having kids, I would feel guilty about not being able to spend as much time with them as I can. While kids and strong relationships are a blessing, it is very difficult to be fully committed to a career long enough to get your roots set into a company. So maybe, just maybe, my ability to build a career first is a blessing.
I made sure to take every precaution I could to make sure that I could succeed for both my sake and the sake of my future family. I put my career before my family and I am not ashamed. I will be that 30-35-year-old mom chasing her young child through a daycare bright and early in the morning while you sleep in because your child is in high school, and I will do it with a smile on my face because it was the life I created for myself.
Featured image via Andrew Neel on Pexels
