In recent years, I've made a series of decisions to lower my career trajectory in favor of spending more time and energy with family and friends. I switched from a core but stressful beat at the paper to a new beat that was mellower and lower profile. Then I moved from fast-paced New York to relaxed Austin and began working remotely, losing valuable face-time with key editors and colleagues. And more recently, after my first son was born, I took a long, nine-month maternity leave and started working part-time.
All these choices have strengthened my relationships and personal happiness, while reducing stress, but they've also come with a career price, lessening my professional standing and pay.
These moves have also complicated my feelings about ambition. Although I don't regret my decisions (and am grateful that, unlike many other parents, I had such choices) I've sometimes had difficulties aligning my professional ambitions (to cover important, buzz-worthy stories) with the realities of my part-time work schedule and my full-time role as a mother. I can't fit in all that I want to do professionally into the hours I've allotted for work during the day. As I've written before, my old ambition and my new, limited working hours haven't yet found a truce.
Sometimes when I see other colleagues producing terrific stories (especially about things I used to cover) I feel some twinges of jealousy, longing and guilt. 'I should have written that,' I think. And when I see other working mothers putting in long hours and stellar performances, I occasionally wonder, should I be doing that too?
Deep down, I know that it's the glory that's appealing ' not necessarily the long, stressful effort to get there (although there's a certain rush to feeling really productive and engaged on the job.) I also know the grass is always greener, and that some full-time working parents wish they could be at-home parents. But we don't talk as much about the reverse: the longing that some at-home parents have for the workplace.
Right now, I'm trying to figure out, emotionally and logistically, whether changing my relatively comfortable schedule ' not to mention forgoing quality time with my kids 'is worth it to realize my career ambitions. I haven't figured out the answer yet. Perhaps the solution is to put my ambitions on hold for a while, and then return in full force when my kids are older; the uncertainty is whether a fulfilling job will exist for me then after being on the sidelines for a while. I do know that I don't want to be one of those parents who channel their thwarted career ambitions and aspirations into raising their kids, saddling them with immense pressures.
Have any of you ratcheted back your schedules or status at work? Even if you're full time, you might not be able to work as long or as hard as you used to, because of heightened juggle demands, such as kids. How have you reconciled your new status or hours with your old ambition? Are you at peace with it, or do you feel regret or guilt?