Submitted by the 40 daddy

While it’s common to discuss the merits of the Family/Career balance, I actually feel healthier when I focus on the Family/Career/Passion balance. 

At a high level I define these as follows:
--  Family time is spent with my children and spouse; all of us together as well as time alone with my spouse.
--  Career provides my source of income…obviously.
--  Passion The collection of activities and hobbies that bring me joy.
 
FAMILY
Family obviously consumes the greatest share of time, as it should. Kids wake up and need to be coaxed back to sleep, they need food (so needy ;), want to play, and get sick. (And those little germ factories will get you sick!) We all know the drill. It takes a lot of time to raise kids.

But it’s easy to forget what I consider to be a critical component of family time: I call this “spousing”. (Is spousing a word? I’m not sure, but it wasn’t autocorrected so let’s add it to the lexicon.) And while Netflix is technically shared time together, it’s not really enough. We make time to talk for at least 10-15 minutes before Netflix. (We have so much free time!) We take walks together (e.g. we go down to the basement to look at what needs to be repaired or walk over to the garage to discuss the strange pool of liquid under the car). We try to go out for dinner together every few weeks too. (At least when our parents are in town, and there are plenty of diapers and breastmilk on hand. And the emergency numbers are up-to-date on the fridge. And you’ve conveyed which snacks are okay and which stuffed animals should always be near which blankies. And … ok fine we’ve only done this twice in three years.) It might end up only being 10-15 minutes, but we try to have “non-child-based" conversations …
 
CAREER
Career takes almost as much time as family. We all know you gotta pay the bills.

Many employers will say they respect the demands of parenting, but it doesn’t always feel that way. Some of my previous co-workers (and managers) didn’t have children and didn’t truly understand the demands they present. To be fair, how could they possibly understand? I know that I didn’t fully understand them until I took the plunge.

I’ve always been open about my family obligations. I try to manage expectations about my work through clear communication. I’m also careful about the spacing of large projects that require a lot of time and attention (e.g. long days, weekend work, fast responses times). One trick I use is to be sure to include often overlooked tasks within my full-time schedule. (i.e. I schedule blocks of time for mundane activities like administrative work and supporting teammates.) This provides me with a bit of a buffer so when I’m not in the middle of a critical project I can often arrive a little later, or go home a little earlier, and shut off my phone for the weekend.

When I strike that clear, well-defined balance, it helps with my morale at home and at work, it enables me to spend plenty of time with my family and on my career, and feels like I’m contributing in both roles.
 
PASSION
For me, it’s crucial that I also make some time to pursue my passions. Sometimes it’s guitar, sometimes it’s writing, sometimes it’s carpentry, or rehearsing a theater piece. 

I find it hardest to make time for these things. Several nights of broken sleep aren’t great motivators for waking up early to write the next Game of Thrones. If we don’t get all the kids asleep until 9:30 pm, I don’t have enough energy left to break out the guitar or get the table saw running. Standard home maintenance tasks like sweeping, dishes, groceries, and laundry can easily consume all of our time during a weekend … That makes a beer and Hulu feel like the most peaceful way to spend my cherished down time.

I’ve managed to carve out some time for these activities in several ways. I hustle the kids out a little earlier than normal so I’m at my desk 30-45 minutes before I’m needed. Or I pack food, kill the Internet, and put on head phones during my lunch break. My wife and I will swap out time on the weekends so she can take a yoga class on Saturday and I can go for a run on Sunday. 
 
Time for ourselves and our passions does wonders for my wife and me.
 
BALANCE
I feel lucky in many ways. I started a family later than many; just after I turned 40. That gave me 20 years to play around, screw up, try and reject jobs, learn to live without much money, and then land a career that I enjoy and really establish myself. By the time my kids were born I’d developed a strong reputation, a large industry network, and marketable skillsets. This stability means that my career enables me to spend a reasonable amount of time with my family.

I also have a strong partner with a career and passions of her own that I actively support, and on occasion I make sacrifices to help her accomplish her goals. We have each focused on each other’s careers and needs as much as, if not more, than our own. For us this is hugely valuable; doing everything we can to support each other’s careers. At different times, one career or the other takes precedence. Sometimes only one of us is intensely pursuing a passion or career, and if a balance isn’t struck it can lead to stresses in the relationship.

Just recently I reached a point where I am able to trim back my career, which I love, to make a bit more time for family as well as passions that could lead to a secondary career. It’s taken 20  years to reach this point, and it still feels like a risk. We’ll see what happens.

I feel strongly that my deathbed memories will not be focused on my careers and hours worked, but instead will focus on our family and the passions we pursued. I’m working on making sure I have lots of great deathbed memories. (As morbid as that sounds as I write it.)

Submitted by The Mama Politic

My husband and I both work. ​I'm an academic researcher. He's a sociologist. We have a daughter who recently turned one and older children from my husband's previous marriage.

For now we're prioritizing my career, although neither of us is slacking on the job. His strong support is enabling me to advance in my dream job as an applied research faculty member at a large university. I feel lucky to have his backing along with somewhat flexible work hours. We also have great daycare which we appreciate. Our caregiver is wonderful, and our daughter appears to be thriving. Lots of things are going really well.

Still, it isn't easy. One of the things I find hardest about being a working parent is balancing career objectives with this feeling that I need to "do it all". And look fantastic doing it! As the sole cook in our family (long story), I need to get dinner ready each evening. Given my food allergies, this takes some extra effort. And to make things extra challenging, my daughter just started becoming incredibly fussy when we get home at the end of the day. Trying to make dinner and keep her happy is starting to feel like a losing battle. Between my Type A personality that has me wanting to make a great dinner and her unabated screaming, feelings of frustration and uselessness often take over. Hopefully this is a temporary phase.

One way I am staying motivated is by training myself to say, "Screw that!" to a lot of things. I didn't puree my daughter's food when she was younger, I don't make bento boxes, and right now I just feed my daughter everything we eat - spices and all. She has slept in her own crib since day one, and I never breastfed because post partum depression required me to take a mood stabilizer. Sometimes I feel like I can't possibly be "enough" at home. Interestingly, many things seem to come more naturally to my husband than they do to me. Maybe it's because he has older children and has done this before. Still, I feel like I need to do it all, or at least I want to do it all. These feelings and challenges are helping me learn the value of prioritization. 

As I ponder the way we negotiate this life, I think about my need for my husband to support my career goals and understand my need to go to work every day. We are far from perfect, but he definitely has my back professionally. This may be difficult for some couples to understand. Maybe the fact that we both had working moms is why it feels right to us.

Some friends who don't get it give me flak. They warn me that I'll regret not putting our daughter to bed every single night, and they're concerned that I've never cried when I've taken her to daycare. When our daughter was six months old, I changed jobs so I could spend more time with her, but some still seem concerned for me.

My husband and I take this all in. We also know that our daughter is healthy, happy, and developmentally on track. She clearly loves us. Because we need our work to feel fulfilled, we truly believe that we're making choices that are best for her, our marriage and our family. It just feels right.

Link to a short video clip from Good Morning America

Many working parents are constantly assessing the way they spend their time. Tom Brady, quarterback for the New England Patriots, is no different. He recently told Michael Strahan on Good Morning America that he thinks about the tradeoffs related to many of his decisions. You can view Brady's comments about family starting at 3:14 in this short video.

Submitted by Tina Schmiedel

Submitted by Jon Thorne (The New Papa)

While I was in the expecting stages of becoming The New Papa, a wise father told me that a man could never truly know fear until he has a child. Now, this father was similar to me in that his son was born to him in his mid-40s. What was different was that his son had severe health problems, needing surgery and intensive medical care. At that time, I simply played off the idea that this father had had a rare experience and his ideas of fear came from a unique place. His experience was his own and mine would be totally different. I wouldn't fear anything. Of course, I was totally wrong.

I was very fortunate that my beautiful baby boy was born very healthy. Yet, that idea of truly knowing fear came at me fast and furious, even before my boy was born. During my wife's labor, as she lay on the delivery table waiting for her water to break, a sudden alarm came blasting through our phones. This was followed by a 6.6 magnitude earthquake. Now, I'm from California and am quite experienced with earthquakes. I can usually brush them off pretty instantly. Not this time. My heart sank. I froze in terror. I was waiting for everything to come crashing down, being on the fifth floor of the hospital. All my golden dreams of the picture perfect family turned into a bloody mess of carnage underneath the rubble and dust of a flattened building. Obviously that did not happen. The doctors came in and were quite reassuring, but I still asked if I could have my own epidural. My legs shook the rest of the day, even after the delivery was over and I was at home finally trying to get some sleep. It kept running through my head: such a fragile creature I just created. How the hell could the human race have survived this long?!? It was the first of many sleepless nights.

Even now, after my seasoned fatherhood of 11 months, that fear remains. I'm still waiting for it all to come crashing down. New fears now dominate my thoughts: is he eating enough, did I proof the house enough, is my wife too stressed, am I holding him too much or not enough, what's that new rash on his leg, shouldn't he be walking by now, is he crying all day when I'm at work, what if I lose my job, is my health strong enough to do this, what if I die? The weight of it all is immense. I haven't yet learned how to shake it completely off, but I do have some ideas on how to manage it all.

I feel that in order to manage fear, you have to be able to understand where the fear comes from. For me it's pretty simple, I'm a control freak. I've said it before, I've always had a basic lack of trust in people. This has led me to avoid accepting help from others, the prideful vanity of doing everything on my own and my own way. I've noticed the fearful thoughts are the loudest as I'm on my way to work, from the moment I step out of the house. It's at that point I give up all control and the symphony of worry begins. It generally lasts all day until I return home and pick up my son. It's a horrible way to spend the day. It causes me to make many decisions based on the fear. I can't go out for a coffee after work, I need to get home immediately. I can't buy that new bag for work, all my money needs to be saved for emergencies. I can't complain to my wife about anything because she's already stressed and tired. It's not healthy, and not what my son or wife needs.

Thus, another lesson for The New Papa to learn: you can't control everything all the time. I have to believe in my wife, that she has the power to be an amazing and caring mother. I have to believe in my son, that he has the power within him to grow strong and independent. I have to believe in myself, that I have the power to truly put my thoughts and focus on the areas that I can and should control. I cannot make another decision rooted in fear. Only sorrow and misery will sprout. I want my family to be surrounded by trees of hope!

Another wise friend (really lucky to have so many wise people in my life) once wrote that the lack of peace in most people's lives comes from living in fear of a future that may never even happen. It's time to start living in the joy of a future that will eventually come true!

Submitted by ​Chatón Turner

I'm a "Working mom on a quest for balance in stilettos". My children are 7 and 3-years-old, and we have another one on the way. I'm a wife to Andre Smith. And I'm also an attorney for a healthcare system, an adjunct professor, and a public speaker. In my "spare time" I maintain a social media presence via my chatonsworld.com web site, @Chatonsworld account on Twitter, and @chatonsworld account on Instagram. Obviously I like to write and communicate.

Balancing all of my roles is my biggest challenge. Indeed, Corporate America is still not very accommodating to working parents, and many organizations do not have formal flexible work policies. The culture and lack of flexibility makes balance incredibly hard. Still, I'm driven by high standards and a vision for the lifestyle I want to provide for my kids. My income matters to my family, and my family matters to me, so I try to do it all. I also hope that my example -- trying, working hard, and persevering despite these challenges -- will serve to teach my children what is possible.

Luckily I have good role models at work, and my mom worked the whole time I was growing up so I know it can be done. Maybe being a working parent is like childbirth. After powering through my own drug-free child birth experience, just like my mom had done, I asked her why she hadn't told me about the pain. It seemed like it might have been worth mentioning! She said "Nobody talks about it because if we did nobody would do it." So, like I said, maybe it's the same for working parents.

People tell me that I need to  power through the working parent struggles to get to the glory, and I'm in it for the glory of my kids. Hopefully these people are right!

Submitted by Rick Steffens

​One challenge that confronted me every day at work was determining what time to go home. I get great satisfaction from finishing a task and like to start every morning with a clean slate, but many days, when my meetings were over and it was time to go home, I found myself facing a backlog of action items.

At the same time, I felt a strong pull to get home and spend time with my wife and kids. To figure out where to draw the line and when to go home, I created a process so that I could defend my decisions to my kids, my wife, my boss, and most importantly, myself. Interestingly, in the end I never needed to defend them to anyone but myself.
 
Here's what I did. At the end of the day, if someone or something was pulling me to stay in the office, I would imagine sitting down with my kids and telling them why I'd needed to work late and miss out on spending time with them. If I felt good about that conversation, then I stayed and focused on the task. But way more often than not, imagining that conversation just didn’t feel right, so I went home.

On the occasions I did decide to work late to take care of something, I felt better about it because I knew that there had been many more times that I'd put work on the back burner to be with my family. This process enabled me to show my family that they were important to me, and to show them that work requires sacrifices sometimes too.

Submitted by Rick Steffens

When my two kids were in grade school, I needed to travel for work a lot. To be sure I stayed connected with them in a meaningful way, I wanted to establish a fun, special and easily repeatable activity that would make it clear to them that our relationship was one of my top priorities. After some discussion, we decided I would take each of them out for lunch once a month. 

When we were just starting out, I didn't really think it was a big deal. But every time I picked one of them from school, the teacher would tell me that they were really excited. 

Copied with permission from the Preface to the book Running for Office, Getting yourself elected to the career you really want by Mary Anne Gale with Shelley Cowan

Continued from Making Tough Choices

Throughout my thirty-five years at P&G, I shared the insights and experiences I gathered as my career progressed. I mentored, advised, and befriended thousands of my P&G colleagues, helping them determine what roles to go after, how to go after them, and what to do when things weren't working. During my years in China, I began to share my views with people in global corporations, government agencies, and academic institutions throughout Asia.

In explaining how I managed to build the career I wanted for myself, I always stressed that career satisfaction and success were inseparable from the rest of my life. This was true from my earliest moves: from Washington back to Lansing, to northern Michigan, and then to a dual location marriage. IT was true throughout my career.