Relationship-Career Balance
Some recent minor events came together for me as a powerful realization about myself.
I have a friend, a former co-worker, who used her engineering career to put her husband through medical school debt-free. Once he was established, they bought a house and she spent the next decade building their family, with some engineering contracting/consulting on the side, both to keep her skills active and to have a little extra income. Once their youngest was in third grade, she started her tech-focused MBA, and he shifted toward academia (with a huge pay cut), together ensuring their family was always well-parented.
Not only are they the most joyous family I know, but their kids are simply fantastic individuals. They both plan to be working when their kids start college, to ensure they all graduate debt-free. Their empty-nest dream was to semi-retire together and travel the world, but now they're talking about adopting teenagers.
This family-focused partnership started well before the children arrived. The career fluidity intrigues me most.
A YouTuber I follow recently announced her engagement. I jokingly suggested that, now that she has someone to help with chores, there should be more videos. Her response was that his and her careers have become "their" joint careers, not separate things, and are explicitly included as part of their relationship together.
These two examples, along with others, brought some insight to my own history of abandoned engagements and broken relationships.
My career as an engineer is a vital part of my identity, both how I view myself and how I interact with the world. It's a defining part of who I am. My prior relationships competed with my career for my attention and focus. My career was easy compared to my relationships. Nothing surprising there, since to some extent it happens to every couple.
Most folks would simply adjust and move forward. I didn't. My current realization is that the impact a relationship had on work also had an impact on my perceived identity, which I appear to have viewed as a threat, at times perhaps even an existential threat.
So, looking back, I clearly see I tended to pull away, or at least try to put the relationship into a box that didn't compete with my career. Which is not a recipe for a successful relationship, and certainly no way to start a marriage.
For most of my adult life I've interpreted my relationship history as simply meaning I wasn't the "relationship type". I no longer think that's the case: What I see now is that I didn't realize I was trying to juggle multiple relationships, career and romance, and was failing badly. No part of my identity ever bonded to my partner and our relationship like it did to my career.
Why this realization, and why now?
Late in 2017 I encountered EnCorps, a non-profit with the goal of getting experienced tech professionals into the classroom. I dipped my toe into the water and started learning about teaching STEM. In 2018, during a gap between jobs, I spent over 400 hours volunteering in the classroom (and doing other things) at a local high school. That experience led me to commit myself to becoming a full-time teacher.
I was very surprised by my new desire to become a teacher, that I was considering it at all. Yes, being an older engineer does have its costs, including ageism in the employment market, but I've always found my next job sooner or later. No worries there. I still very much love engineering!
My experiences in the classroom revealed I do have something to contribute to students, something they can truly use. What surprised me most is how a vital relationships are to education and learning, and how working with students revealed within me deep wells of empathy and determination. I believe it may have also awakened within me some sort of a latent parenting instinct, to care enough to bring everything I have and am to the table.
Given that perspective and these recent realizations, my transition to teaching is beginning to make more sense to me.
I'm shifting my career to one that's relationship-focused. No, I'm not becoming a partner or parent, but I'm eager to do more in students' lives.
I'm also thinking I may also be becoming better relationship material, that I may indeed be the "relationship type". Better late than never, right?
In the past I've always changed jobs, bringing my expertise and identity along with me. It may finally be time for me to change as well.
I believe that change is already well underway. Only now I'm beginning to see it for what it is.
I'm so excited!
I have a friend, a former co-worker, who used her engineering career to put her husband through medical school debt-free. Once he was established, they bought a house and she spent the next decade building their family, with some engineering contracting/consulting on the side, both to keep her skills active and to have a little extra income. Once their youngest was in third grade, she started her tech-focused MBA, and he shifted toward academia (with a huge pay cut), together ensuring their family was always well-parented.
Not only are they the most joyous family I know, but their kids are simply fantastic individuals. They both plan to be working when their kids start college, to ensure they all graduate debt-free. Their empty-nest dream was to semi-retire together and travel the world, but now they're talking about adopting teenagers.
This family-focused partnership started well before the children arrived. The career fluidity intrigues me most.
A YouTuber I follow recently announced her engagement. I jokingly suggested that, now that she has someone to help with chores, there should be more videos. Her response was that his and her careers have become "their" joint careers, not separate things, and are explicitly included as part of their relationship together.
These two examples, along with others, brought some insight to my own history of abandoned engagements and broken relationships.
My career as an engineer is a vital part of my identity, both how I view myself and how I interact with the world. It's a defining part of who I am. My prior relationships competed with my career for my attention and focus. My career was easy compared to my relationships. Nothing surprising there, since to some extent it happens to every couple.
Most folks would simply adjust and move forward. I didn't. My current realization is that the impact a relationship had on work also had an impact on my perceived identity, which I appear to have viewed as a threat, at times perhaps even an existential threat.
So, looking back, I clearly see I tended to pull away, or at least try to put the relationship into a box that didn't compete with my career. Which is not a recipe for a successful relationship, and certainly no way to start a marriage.
For most of my adult life I've interpreted my relationship history as simply meaning I wasn't the "relationship type". I no longer think that's the case: What I see now is that I didn't realize I was trying to juggle multiple relationships, career and romance, and was failing badly. No part of my identity ever bonded to my partner and our relationship like it did to my career.
Why this realization, and why now?
Late in 2017 I encountered EnCorps, a non-profit with the goal of getting experienced tech professionals into the classroom. I dipped my toe into the water and started learning about teaching STEM. In 2018, during a gap between jobs, I spent over 400 hours volunteering in the classroom (and doing other things) at a local high school. That experience led me to commit myself to becoming a full-time teacher.
I was very surprised by my new desire to become a teacher, that I was considering it at all. Yes, being an older engineer does have its costs, including ageism in the employment market, but I've always found my next job sooner or later. No worries there. I still very much love engineering!
My experiences in the classroom revealed I do have something to contribute to students, something they can truly use. What surprised me most is how a vital relationships are to education and learning, and how working with students revealed within me deep wells of empathy and determination. I believe it may have also awakened within me some sort of a latent parenting instinct, to care enough to bring everything I have and am to the table.
Given that perspective and these recent realizations, my transition to teaching is beginning to make more sense to me.
I'm shifting my career to one that's relationship-focused. No, I'm not becoming a partner or parent, but I'm eager to do more in students' lives.
I'm also thinking I may also be becoming better relationship material, that I may indeed be the "relationship type". Better late than never, right?
In the past I've always changed jobs, bringing my expertise and identity along with me. It may finally be time for me to change as well.
I believe that change is already well underway. Only now I'm beginning to see it for what it is.
I'm so excited!
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