How can you manage the commendable balance of having a career and family while following your dreams? It helps to work on boundaries to make more time for yourself, let go of perfectionism, keep a dry erase calendar to prioritise activities, consider child care, and make gratitude lists to maintain a positive perspective. Prayer and meditation are also immensely helpful for staying focused on a goal.
If you’re still deciding whether or not you want to wait to create a family, it will behoove your future in many countless ways to make a conscious choice about when and if parenting is right for you. Make a list of pros and cons if you were to have a child anytime soon. Read other people’s pros and cons online. Ask yourself: “What’s my motivation to have children?” Write that list of motivations. I’ve seen some motivation lists that include:
- Getting a man/woman to stay in my life,
- Making my parents like me more/getting approval from my family,
- Feeling accepted by my friends,
- Having someone to love me back,
- Having someone to take care of me when I’m older, and
- Feeling like I contributed to life, accomplished something, and left something behind that was meaningful
Allow me to deconstruct these motivations to their realistic ends.
- If someone’s going to leave you, they’ll do that whether there’s a child there or not. If he leaves, he’ll leave you with the child. If you’re worried about your partner leaving you, try working on that relationship and deciding if it’s the best one for you before having a child with a person you don’t trust.
- What if you have the child and your parents still don’t seem to like you? Momma’s not gonna raise it. Making a sacrifice for what you perceive as a benefit to someone else will lead to resentment of the other person and regret of your own actions…not a good place for finding love for yourself or for your parents. Not everyone’s going to like us in life. That’s the way it is for all of us. Some will love us, some will hate us, and most will be indifferent. We don’t have time to be close to 7 billion people, anyway. If someone doesn’t love you, find the love that you have for them, pray for them, and put the focus back on yourself. Love has an infinite supply from the Universe…just open up to allowing it into your life and it will come to you from the sources it’s meant to.
- If your friends can’t accept you as you are, these friendships are lacking crucial components. You don’t have to make sacrifices in order to be loved by other people. You’re loveable just as you are. Work on self-care; you’ll need to master this practise if you’re to be a positive example to children, anyway. It’s a lot more challenging to take care of yourself when you’re taking care of others, so get started now, before you begin multiplying.
- It’s not a child’s responsibility to love you. It’s your responsibility to care for them without expectations of anything in return. It’s an unconditional obligation.
- See #4. Also, how much does it cost per year to raise a child? Multiply that by 18 (although nowadays, the financial support for children is realistically more) and you will most likely have saved enough to be cared for in your later years. Savings provide security, but there is no guarantee that your children will be available when you’re older, and many aren’t. Also take into account the time it takes to raise a child, and think of what you might do with all that time if you choose not to have children for now. Time, after all, is more valuable than money. Money can be replaced, but time once lost cannot be regained.
- You can make meaningful contributions to life in many ways. There is a population problem that is affecting the environment. You reduce consumption and help the future of the environment by not having children. This is not to chastise those who do, as some must if humankind is to continue beyond this century. You may or many not have a calling to be a parent. You may have other callings, too. Take a look at all of them. List them. Then list them in order of importance. If other destinies are more compelling to you now, prioritise if possible. This might take 5 minutes. 5 minutes is shorter than 18 years.
Take a look at your completed pros and cons list again. What if you have less pros than cons? What if your motivations are incongruent with your deepest beliefs? That could be a sign that it’s not time to make a decision yet. What if you later revisit this list and find that your interest in having children has waned? Will you still be as happy in the future if you choose not to become a parent? Ask yourself, “Am I happy now?” Having a child is not a solution to creating, diminishing, or enhancing an emotional state. Internal conditions are generated from within and are not successfully remedied by external change.
However, if you do decide that having a child is the right choice for you and you are also career-oriented and in the midst of pursuing a dream, perhaps you can work on building a network of support for accountability of your investment in your dreams. This could be in the form of friendships, support groups, or an online forum. Parenting really is a good path for some, and if it hadn’t been, none of us would be having this wonderful moment we’re experiencing right now in this beautiful time and space.
To hear last night’s interview about this topic with Young and the Restless star Lauralee Bell, please listen to the Zodiac Divas podcast, available on CBS Radio, iTunes, and at www.zodiac-girls.com
