To not care about achievements anymore. I just want a family.

[Newnyham]

I have been at university for so long. I'm training to be an architect and this is my final year of formal education and I have ran out of shits to give.

In the meantime life has carried on. I'm married and will be TTC as soon as I've been in a grad job for a few months. I already have a number of projects on the go on a self employed basis and this is my long term career goal.

I have so many deadlines for writing papers that are 8,000 words + in early January that Christmas will be almost non-existent. In the past I was very type A, always wanted to do the best bla bla bla. Now I just want to scrape through and be done with it forever.

I want a family, and go for walks and have cuddles, and spend time with my DH outside of our study and not have to work on weekends! But I also feel shit for wasting the education available to me, to becomes a qualified architect I don't have to do well, I just have to pass the course and get a job. I'm just finding it really hard to motivate myself through the final 6 months. The work in university is so detached from the real world.

My Parents asked how things were going recently and I got an utter bollocking for telling them how I felt.

Am I actually being that unreasonable? Do most people reach a time in their life where they're just aching for a family and don't really care about much else?

Aww thanks OP! We’ll see if I manage to have kids before deciding it’s worked out! But really, I would never have wanted them before my thirties anyway, and knowing that whatever happens with my personal life I have a great enjoyable career to go to each day and can support myself financially independently whatever happens in my relationships is massive. It gives me so much peace of mind. I’m so glad I will hopefully never be dependent on a man. Even if OH and I split and I didn’t meet anyone to have kids with I know I will be okay financially and that lets me sleep at night in a way I never could before! I’m a huge advocate of women getting their education before settling down and having kids, it helps you avoid so many sticky situations or being unable to leave someone abusive or living with the stress of hand to mouth. It’s so important not to set your aim solely in what your service is to others (being a wife and mum is not all you’re capable of).

VeryClumsy - Its good to know other people feel the same, I hope what other people have said has been a bit helpful to you too

Basque - Thats the part that scares me about waiting to have children, that I'll wait too late especially because we want a few. I guess its a pretty common dilemma.

Newnyham i had the same dilemma, but looking back I'm so glad i established my career first. I already had 10 years of post qualification work experience before having my first child aged 33 and then went back for almost 4 years before having my second. I can provide everything i ever would want for both my kids thanks to putting the hours in during those childfree years which meant my position was totally indispensable and i was treated very well during my mat leaves. Friends who had their first child younger really struggled professionally and most dropped out to do low level jobs because they couldn't put their career first for those important years of building your reputation up

Those first few years of work with no study were a really fun and fulfilling time for me. I definitely wouldn't have swapped them for having children sooner. Once the kids arrived, I found my life became about them rather than about me. Great and all that (don't get me wrong) but you are giving up a couple of years of early married life, nights out, holidays with your partner, having money to spend on yourselves while establishing yourself in your career.

New motherhood is HARD and takes every ounce of you energy. It's worth it in the end, of course but equally as worth it if you do it at 30 as at 26 (but you can't get back your alternative 26 year old life when you are 40 or whenever)