AIBU to have completely lost interest in my career?

[toffeefig]

My career is one supposedly done for love and passion and enthusiasm. I’m not a saint but there was a period where it was the most important thing in my life. I spent my own money (I cringe when I think probably how much!) on things for it, I enthusiastically discussed how best to do this or that, I gave my own time unpaid, so willingly.

Now I’m having a baby and I have lost interest. Before I get shouted down, I’m not piss taking, I’m not doing a bad job, Im still conscientious enough and I’m still absolutely lovely to the people I work with.

But I sit in meetings wondering why we are discussing things that are so unimportant. I look on FB groups where impassioned discussions are taking place and I think ‘so?’ I resent extra pointless time.

Am I getting old and jaded or is this motherhood?

This thread is very interesting. I'm a teacher but used to work in consultancy in my 20s. I've worked I three schools, the first was great but I moved area, sad to leave. Second looked good but poorly run, beauraucratic nightmare, couldn't wait to leave and had me questioning whether I still wanted to teach. My current school is great, with SLT who don't want to do all the crap, they want teachers just don't a good job, so we all get more freedom. Yes we all need to mark work but no we don't all need to use purple pen and wishes. I love my job. *
When I got pregnant with my first, I lost any drive for my job, I was going through the motions but hormones made me very baby/home focused. Even a year after the birth, I went back to work, enjoyed having some time outside of being a mum, but didn't immediately have the career drive back. It took another year before I felt fully invested in my job, career progress, etc. I'm now on maternity leave with my second, and this time I'm not feeling that same distance. I love my children but knowing this is my last child, I'm thinking ahead, thinking about long term career and work life balance. Saying that, my school is very accommodating and supportive of working parents.

I have lost all passion for my job. It's partly having kids, partly being fucked over and redeployed twice in the space of three years. A younger relative is also terminally ill which has made me question everythng now. I also did a frontline/coalface type job for a while having always been back office. After going back to 'back office' I've realised how little people who do my job actually have a clue what is going on in the organisation and have become very disillusioned with it all.

I'm currently looking for a new job BTW.

Have you considered moving to a different school? I know that all schools have a degree of bullshit involved, seemed to be endemic in the education sector for sone reason, but I do also know that all teachers I am friends with/have spoken to on the subject have found that different schools offer different environments. For some they preferred well resources schools, others thrives in a Montessori environment, others found their zen when they moved into private sectors, others found purpose by moving into the state sector and so on.

Not really. I think they all have drawbacks and positives.

Of course your priorities change when you have a baby op. However, if you genuinely are “psml” at the idea you can make a difference to children’s lives, you do need to think about a career change.

I’m in my 40s and was lucky enough to have some great teachers throughout my schooling at primary and secondary (average comp). They had a huge impact on me, my career, my self esteem, etc. Good teachers make a massive difference to many kids especially where those Kids don’t have ideal home lives. I’ve never told my teachers what an impact they had on my life so they may have no idea but I’m forever grateful.

Well, your teachers might have been good but it seems they didn’t teach you the finer details of comprehension skills, as I was PMSL at the idea I could change a meeting, but regardless.

So I have to have The Passion. I have to be Committed to Changing Children’s Lives. Why isn’t it enough just to teach really effectively and get everyone through their exams well? Is that somehow not enough? I have to have a burning desire underpinning it all as well?

You're not alone, OP. I have also lost all passion for my job. Having children was actually the impetus for me to change careers, commit more to work and study - but now, almost 20 years on, I have really lost interest.

It now all seems like such bullshit. I am in a 'worthy', socially useful job and I spend most of time rolling my eyes in meetings too. So many people just apparently spending all day inventing pointless shit and obsessing about non-problems, justifying their salaries and their 'busywork'. Drives me insane.

And once you've seen through it, you can't un-see it.

Tbh someone crying in a red pen in a meetIng is just a kind of public sector obsession about nonsense. I had the same when I worked in local government. We need much much better management in the public sector, that’s for sure.

Lol at the dog at my comprehension skills. The statement that you were “psml” at the idea you could make a difference Was on its own with no other context at the start of a post. I hope you are teaching the kids to write more clearly than that.

Dig not dog. Autocorrect gone mad.

Tbh I had great teachers but some terrible ones who weren’t interested too. They don’t seem to sack them like they do in other jobs so it seems like you’re onto a winner op. Just hope my dds teachers are not like that.

Post at 8:28 said you can change this. Make sure the meetings have proper agendas and that the chair of that meeting keeps everyone on track

And my reply at 8:35 said PMSL at the idea I can change things though I sat in a meeting where someone cried about red pen

So it wasn’t intended as a dig; this whole idealistic change the world thing is lovely but in the real world wont happen.

Education is important. I will deliver it and deliver it well. The fact I privately think a lot of it is also nonsense does not mean I should resign!

Do you think your DDs teachers will sit you down and say actually, I don’t GAF. I am doing this because I earn too much to do anything else and there’s a great pension. Now, your DD is doing fine. Piss off?

I’m being silly obviously but the point is that how bad or good a teacher is is not measured by how much they ‘care.’ Something I will tell you is that actually the ‘caring’ teachers are sometimes the worst in terms of actual raw results. Not always, of course.

Do you really believe that in order to do an effective job there needs to be the much-dreaded passion? Or can you merely do a good job and go home?

I totally get it. I went through the same when I had a baby. i'm in a very different sector though.

In the long run, the passion came back, but tempered by the understanding that there were more important things in my life. It's been a very positive change to be honest.

I don't beat myself up about stuff anymore and I'm much better at switching off. I have much less tolerance for the bullshit, it forced me to focus on what was actually important and what I wanted to get out of my career. I moved companies, because the culture was getting in the way of what was important to me.

The idea that we should give 'all' to our jobs is very damaging. We need balance. It's only one part of our lives.

And crying over red pen. OMG.

Caring too much can be really problematic. There are limits to what teachers can do to change things. If they're constantly frustrated and depressed, that's not good for moral or mental health.

I don’t hate my job but it’s just a job, y’know? I don’t actually give much of a shit about it, it pays the bills so I do it to the best of my abilities. I’m a PM for a bank, working on small change.

I’d love a passion project. Pottery or sewing. But I need money to live so I guess I’ll just carry on.

If I’m honest I probably am a bit depressed at the moment which contributes to feeling like this.

I ADORED my teaching job, was early years and mornings only but would get in at 7.30 and stay till 5. I commuted 50 minutes each on a dual carriageway and didn’t care, I loved it so much.

Was school rep for our cluster, teacher governor, responsible for the10% provision for on site playgroup, responsible for several different curriculum areas (all unpaid of course and still only MPS 3) and head hinted at deputy position.

Got pregnant, still convinced I couldn’t love my child more than the children I was teaching, fully told my head I wanted to come back after ten weeks ML that I wanted to go full time after I returned because I just loved it so much. Even when I was signed off at 30 weeks because of videos SPD and another pregnancy related illness that I can’t remember the name of for live nor money... I had black spots in front of my eyes? Can’t remember. Even when I was officially signed off I still popped in every week to help the head with paperwork and planned for my class every week for the supply teacher.

I LOVED my job so much... then DS was born. I extended my ML for the full year and I really just couldn’t anymore. I saw how much was expected to be a martyr type approach and whereas before I didn’t care, now I did. I didn’t want to stay till 9pm for the governors meetings that were unpaid. I wanted to leave at the end of my contracted hours twice a week instead of staying till five each time without having snarky comments about ‘leaving early.’ My head was married to another of the teachers and they had young children, but stayed till 8pm three nights a week and came in at the weekends so that was sort of the expectation, and one that I had joined in with pre DS but I just couldn’t be involved anymore.

I quit.

I’m poorer than ever but I’ve got (or had, before lockdown ) a job that is flexible, part time, fits roundDS school hours in theory and,most importantly, inconsequential, and I’ve never been happier!

I've had two careers. I used to work in finance, now I'm a university lecturer. So I've gone from a corporate, money-oriented career to a public sector, 'putting something back' type of profession.

The thing is that they're both just jobs at the end of the day. I would say that I love my job, because I find it very interesting and fulfilling and I very rarely think "I really don't want to go to work today". (I could say exactly the same about my corporate role btw.) Loving my job and doing it to the best of my ability and going the extra mile for my students - I do all of that. But it never keeps me awake at night and my family is my main priority.

My priorities shifted. My child is now nearly 3. I stuck it out because I was getting paid a lot. I cared enough to go in and do the work to the highest standards.
I could pay for childcare and have lots left over. My pension was being paid into. I retained my career in a sector.
Although I didn’t care enough to go in at 7am and leave at 7pm. Or work long hours in the evening and weekends.
I went back part time. Then full time and now I want to just give up. There’s just so much pointless bullshit.
And I thought I was one of those career people. Actually I’m not!

I fought against this feeling until dd started school. By this point I had well and truly decided I was much happier spending more of my time with dd. I know I know I should have been more committed but now I have a rubbish pt low paid job and I swear I'm happier.

I worked ft until dd started school pushing my career as usual. I was so drained. However i can't let it all go that easily and am applying to do a msc in my field this year so as to potentially keep up my qualifications and I pay for all my own cpd and licenses which is a big pain so I can't really say 100% ive given it up but I'm certainly not pursuing it as I once did.

I left academia when DS was one for a load of reasons but one of them was that I'd gone back (I had six months mat leave) and just realised how totally mad and unsustainable it was. Being not at work for six months had also made me realise how trivial what I was doing was to the world - there are probably 200 people in the world who think my sub-field is crucial but I spent my whole working life (and, actually, my whole life more or less) surrounded by them so it felt like the most important thing in the world. Fundamentally, I just stopped caring so much and once I had stopped caring so much all the many downsides were so overwhelming that it seemed obvious that I should leave. My job is actually a lot less meaningful now but there's no expectation that it will be the great passion of my life which is a blessed relief.

It now all seems like such bullshit. I am in a 'worthy', socially useful job and I spend most of time rolling my eyes in meetings too. So many people just apparently spending all day inventing pointless shit and obsessing about non-problems, justifying their salaries and their 'busywork'. Drives me insane.

And once you've seen through it, you can't un-see it.

Thank God for this - I thought it was just me !

I thought you were going to say nurse there for a second OP. There's a lot of high end manager crap and I just want to care for my patients and do my job without all that. I know people have gone above and beyond and leaving their families during covid 19 to work live in hotels for 3 months etc but I'm like nope!!! Your just seen as a number to management and Family comes first for me, even more so that I am a Mam.
As others have said when the children are older your feelings might change but all I can think of now is to do my best with my patients and my family and that is working part time. It may change in the future x

I am not a teacher or in the public sector, so possibly don't have the same experience but I have a lot to my career before kids.

Actually, I still do, it's just that I do it without too much emotional investment. My aim is to do what I consider to be a good job and my appraisals still say I am doing a very good job, so really what I have done is drop some of the perfectionist eager to please added extra stuff that I used to do when I had more emotional energy to invest!

It has actually made me more efficient - I focus on doing the core of my job and doing it well and try not to get involved in stuff that is a waste of time (I don't refuse to do stuff if asked, obviously, but I don't put my hand up for voluntary stuff that I feel is pointless and doesn't help my clients or give me a professional leg up and if I don't agree with something I suggest something I think is better without much emotion (and then just leave it if others disagree - trying to persuade people who feel strongly otherwise is wasted energy even if I know I am right) or if I don't agree with stuff but feel there isn't much I can do about it I just take the path of least resistance and move on.

Obviously, I wouldn't just zone out if (in my field) something was illegal or would lose a client money etc or (in your field) if there was a risk to a child - it's a core part of the job, but if it is just about admin crap then really there is no point getting too excited about it!!

I also try to laugh about people's lack of perspective (at home with my husband, not at work), so it doesn't become something that grates on me at work. We both have a similar attitude in terms of doing a good day's work but not living for it, so we just choose to find some of the work crazy funny!

Not a teacher but I had the exact opposite experience after having kids (now late teens). Absolutely loved going back to work - having babies is wonderful but a whole different kind of exhausting and also often extremely boring!

I got promoted quickly twice when I returned and got a 'big job' when eldest was four that brought in a lot more money. My passion for work was and is much stronger than before kids. I think I've got the balance right but who knows?