Career or Family?

[mooks]

mooks I don't think it's that easy to answer those hypotheticals. A lot depends on the character of the individuals concerned.

But that's exactly what I'm interested in finding out about. Where do you draw the line with family before job or job before family? What do you do when your work is your passion but your family suffers as a result? What would you as the husband do if the wife wants to work more and play taxi less? What if she doesnt want to work at all, are you prepared to work more to be the sole breadwinner? There are no right or wrong answers. I'm just interested to see what people would do in those kinds of situations.

 

[blunomore]

Mooks, I smell a subtext here.

Spill it!

 

[Boris Becker]

Family first. Every career or business decision we make is based around family

 

[bwana]

Family first. Luckily it's a simple task for me to schedule my career around them.

I can only imagine the regret I'd feel down the road if I'd fobbed off my kids upbringing to a nanny or such so I could pursue a few more Rs, $s, or £s.

 

[HavocXphere]

You get a call from your teenagers headmistress - there has been an incident at school, child is fine but shaken up and needs to be collected early. Wife is traveling and you have an important meeting that day. What do you do? Leave work and postpone the meeting? Ask a relative/friend to collect teenager and catch up with child later when you get home?

Inquire as to what exactly happened, then judge situation based on details. Depends on a billion factors. e.g. If the kid is physically hurt I'd be 10x more inclined to drop everything. If its a boy I'd be more inclined to tell him to suck it up (minor physical scrapes). Does me dropping the meeting threaten my ability to provide financially for the kid going forward? If yes then the kid had better suck it up.

On the whole I'd lean more towards the drop everything side - one skipped meeting is hardly the end of the world & "my kid needed me" is pretty solid if not abused.

Your boss calls you in to tell you you have been promoted. The promotion includes a transfer to a country far far away. It's lots of money/power/corporate back-patting (whatever floats your career boat) etc etc but would either mean leaving wife and kids behind for months at a time for 3yrs until oldest finishes school or moving the whole family. Do you take the job?

No - I can make an excellent living without leaving behind loved ones for months on end.

Wife's mother gets ill and wife to move to (country/city) to take care of her. Do you go with or do you stay because you've recently been promoted and your job is going really well?

Neither - wife's mother to be moved closer either temporarily or permanently.

Note: All hypothetical - I have no wife or children.

 

[azbob]

Family first. Luckily it's a simple task for me to schedule my career around them.

I can only imagine the regret I'd feel down the road if I'd fobbed off my kids upbringing to a nanny or such so I could pursue a few more Rs, $s, or £s.

Uh-oh

 

[bwana]

Uh-oh

I'm speaking as a product of such a parenting decision.

 

[Johnone]

The OP's question reminds me of what Stephen Covey wrote in his book about finding the respective diaries of a father and son on a day they went fishing. The father wrote: A whole day wasted! Whereas the boy wrote: Got to spend the whole day with my dad! Best day ever!

The father obviously didn't have the perspective of a family man. His priorities was jaded.

If you want to be a family man, you have to look at your life and decisions from your children and wife's point of view. How much time do you spend with them? How do you make them feel?

A family man would plan his career well ahead of time and make certain his career doesn't negatively affect his closest relationships.

The rhetoric then of needing to work in order to provide for the future needs of the family, is just an excuse. Time will be rightly scheduled and rightly applied so that a balance will be struck.

In the end, a man needs to work. But a man also needs to choose. Your work/job/career can be chosen. Your family can't.

Maya Angelou: People will only remember how you made them feel.

 

[mooks]

Inquire as to what exactly happened, then judge situation based on details. Depends on a billion factors. e.g. If the kid is physically hurt I'd be 10x more inclined to drop everything. If its a boy I'd be more inclined to tell him to suck it up (minor physical scrapes). Does me dropping the meeting threaten my ability to provide financially for the kid going forward? If yes then the kid had better suck it up.

On the whole I'd lean more towards the drop everything side - one skipped meeting is hardly the end of the world & "my kid needed me" is pretty solid if not abused.


No - I can make an excellent living without leaving behind loved ones for months on end.


Neither - wife's mother to be moved closer either temporarily or permanently.

Note: All hypothetical - I have no wife or children.

Wahay, I have a taker! Thanks HavocXphere

 

[zippy]

family first. another job is gettable.

Sometimes replacing the wife is the better option

 

[Priapus]

Right now it's about my career. I don't have any kids so my view is different. I make time for myself and my partner. Other than her family I am not close to my own family so meh.

If it wasn't for my job I couldn't support my own family. There needs to be a balance between the two.

I suspect when / if I do have kids my view will change.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

For me the end goal was to spend more time with the family as no man on his death bed ever regretted spending too much time with his family.

But in order to get their I'v had to make some serious sacrifices as when I place the family first in the beginning I was getting nowhere and it was doing a lot of harm.

I bit the bullet, had to work harder and two years later I'm able to start focusing on my family again. Still a couple of years to go where I can say I'm giving my family all the time the need and at the same time earning enough to care for them.