Midlife crisis vs family responsibilities

[emptydreamer]

The thread is not directly about me, although there surely are certain similarities. It is inspired by several discussions I had with friends over the last couple of weeks - it seems that the lockdown had triggered an early onset of the dreaded midlife crisis in many of us.

So I will call the abstract heroine Mary.
Mary has a steady, secure and well-paid job - let's say, she's an accountant. She is also a parent to a couple of small children, and let's make it even more difficult - a lone parent, so there's no help or a safety net from a partner.
Mary is quite unhappy in her job, and has been for some time. She has always dreamt of doing something very different - let's say, veterinary medicine. Going back to uni to re-train means that Mary's family will have to live a very basic lifestyle for a couple of years, and then some, until Mary catches up in her earning power.

So the question.

Does Mary owe it to her children to stay in a mind-numbingly boring, but safe job? Or does she owe it to herself to try something she really wants?

It entirely depends on what you mean by basic lifestyle. If the children have a roof over their head, food on the table, and are well loved and cared for then they are fine. They don't need to live in a big fancy house and join the sailing club and take ballet lessons. Those things are luxuries that are nice to give kids but are not essential. Being a parent doesn't mean selling your soul to feed as much money into your children as possible. I have never understood this mindset.

I don't know whether it is only in my circle or a wider phenomenon.

It's a thing OP - hence the well-know term 'mid-life crisis'. People in mid-life evaluate where they are, whether they've achieved what they'd hoped to be 40 or 50 or whatever. Some shrug resignedly and realise that ship has sailed, others try to remedy that thing by changing job, career, DP or vehicle!

What you describe as a "basic" lifestyle is a normal lifestyle for lots of people.
I was looking from the perspective of "what they have now" vs "what they will have then". The majority of my friends' children are in private schools, which seems to also be a big concern as to whether to downshift.

As long as Mary can still provide everything her kids need then she should go for it

I really think it all depends on what you mean by a ‘basic lifestyle’. Children only get one childhood - and they need some core things - you as a single Mum to be happy but also stability - emotional, physical, financial. So if you can keep the food, the house and their needs for growth and love steady - and also give them a happier Mum then go for it!

If it means a few years of you being stressed, juggling too much, hardly there and reliant on not great childcare a lot, moving house, moving schools etc. Then I’d wait until they were older.

Thing is you could maybe add to your skilllset in the existing career and take a sideways move to create interest or change jobs for a change of scene (though right now it's hard).
Or start a new hobby maybe even related to the dream for fulfilment and see work as a means to fund it.
There are less drastic options and far too much emphasis is put on chasing dreams.

I think Mary should look at OU courses/degrees.

I think this a very common thing at a certain time of life. Apparently after the midlife unsettlement period with worries about children and ageing parents and wondering whether you've "missed the boat" on certain things in life there comes a period of, not exactly resignation, more an acceptance that that's the way things are, that you actually have many things in life to be grateful for and things are ticking along fairly nicely all things considered.

I'm at the anxious, mid-life stage. It's awful. I don't know if I'll have a job this time next year as it's public sector and funding will go through the floor I'm sure. I go from being grateful that our mortgage is already paid off thanks to an inheritance and DH has a good secure job so we would actually be ok financially, and have an anxiety attack that my working life will be over and I'll never get a decent job again and what if DH dies or divorces me and I'm stuck alone with no job etc, so should I be leaving now and retraining? And even if DH is here and alive and well and we are happy then what if we have issues around me not bringing money in and how would i feel about having to use his hard-earned money to buy eg clothes for myself etc. etc. What if I spend money on retraining and it comes to nothing? What pressure would I be putting on us while DSs go through GCSE and A-levels and they have no parent here for them in the evenings (DH works long hours/away).

Honestly, my mind goes on and on and on. I lie awake at night wondering what to do for the best. Then, ultimately, I have to shake myself and think that now, in a pandemic and period of staggering economic uncertainty, with even university funding at risk, it is not the time to be pursuing pipe dreams, and I just need to be grateful for what I have now till I reach the "acceptance/contented/just bob along quite happily" stage of my life after this. Bloody menopause and questioning the meaning of life. Thought I'd got that out my system when I was a brooding 6th former!

Yes, Zafferana is right. My dad just went out and bought loads of "jazzy shirts" for his mid-life crisis. We just smiled and let him get on with it as we knew what it was. He threw them out after a year and realised they weren't him. Imagine doing that with a new career

Thought I'd got that out my system when I was a brooding 6th former!
A very, very accurate description, same here. I do experience a sort of existential angst I haven’t felt since my teenage years.

Going to uni when you have kids is not impossible. I did it. My youngest was in year 1 primary, she went to breakfast club and after school care. If they're younger uni has crèches. Do it. Budget the money. Check Student Finance England to see what funding you'll get. DO IT

I think Mary should look at OU courses/degrees.
It is a very good suggestion, and some friends are indeed looking this way.

I think this pandemic and the ensuing lockdown has highlighted for many people a couple of things; that life is short, and that they are not living the life they wanted, upon reflection. For some people that is the hankering to up sticks and move to the countryside, for some it's critically evaluating their romantic or platonic relationship/s, and for others it's jobs. Especially if they suddenly realise they are not indispensable after all and have been working from home for a while. Add in to that extra time to reflect on these things without distractions and you have a bunch of mid life crises waiting to happen.

Whether people should immediately rush out and act on those longings is not so obvious. I prefer to think of those sudden hankerings as clues that perhaps you are not living the life you dreamed, but taking action doesn't have to be hasty. Sometimes if you dig a little deeper and reflect a bit more, you can find what is really motivating the sudden desire to become a pilot etc etc, and then perhaps find ways of meeting that need without the years and years of expensive training and making your family live on beans on toast/leaving your husband and moving to Alaska etc.

@GisAFag

Going to uni when you have kids is not impossible. I did it. My youngest was in year 1 primary, she went to breakfast club and after school care. If they're younger uni has crèches. Do it. Budget the money. Check Student Finance England to see what funding you'll get. DO IT

Yes. I was 30 with a nine year old when I did my first degree. Life’s too short for regrets.

It would be hard to believe that a total Career change and retrain would only mean two years of study. I would be super cautious, I know people who have been students for years and years due to a desire/dream only to keep studying.

Just looking at your most recent update, private school vs not private school does unfortunately make a big difference, depending on the not private school, which is a bit of a lottery. If they are school age, missing out with sport and music outside school would make a big difference. So it depends on age. And a change of career will (presumably) still be possible once they are older, it isn't very long to wait. But I agree with others, you need to take a look at whether a major change really will make you happier imagine yourself in 5 years with the change and then in 10 years.

A friend of mine retrained as a doctor, but she already had a science degree so it was fast-track and had her DH and a nanny to provide childcare.

Even so, doing a medical degree with 2 small kids was very tough.

She wouldn’t have got through it without her DH I think.

I think any “dream” job needs to be carefully researched. For many there will be post grad as well as undergraduate exams, and usually a period of working in very junior roles . In medicine for example, managing childcare as a junior doctor would be a nightmare .
These jobs can also appear exciting from the outside but will actually be more mundane in reality , and initially highly stressful and relatively poorly paid .I would worry more about the emotional effects on the family than the financial ones

Pulling them out of fee-paying schools and moving house would probably be dealbreakers for me. I'd want them to have consistency. Re-training can wait.

I have an absorbing job I love (ICU dr).

I simply could not bear being in a job I didn’t like,
or that didn’t challenge me. Even if you only spend 40hrs a week at work.....that’s just SO MUCH of your life to waste.

You need to provide for your children, obviously, that’s a non-negotiable part of being a parent in my view (interestingly this is not often not the view of the majority on MN.....until there’s a possibility of a woman chasing a difficult dream.....). As long as you can do that, it’s ok to pursue a more fulfilling life.

It's a difficult to balance your happiness as an individual with the needs of your family; the childrens' security and wellbeing must come first. However life is too short to spend the next 10-15 years feeling unfulfilled and desperately unhappy in a job you hate.

If it means getting massively in debt and living as a family in someone's spare room for years, rethink your plans. But if the balance can be achieved by cutting back on your lifestyle without significantly impacting your financial stability while retraining then go for it!

It depends. If the career "Mary" wants to retrain for offers a reasonable degree of certainty of a steady income stream and she is able to provide for her children albeit at a lower level in the interim then she should go for it. If it really is something like veterinary medicine then that sounds like a punt worth taking.

I think the idea that being a mum condemns you to having to remain in a career you loathe simply not to have to take a pay cut is bollocks.

If she was taking a proper flyer and chucking in a secure job to do something like circus skills it would be a different matter.

Not sure what fast track there is for medicine PP? In my country it means a four year grad degree instead of five/six yrs undergrad but makes no difference to the postgrad training time of ten years for my specialty.

It is - and was - hard with children.

Doing a shitty pointless job I hate would be pretty hard with children too.

decreased ability to contribute to the children's own university fees or help with the house deposits

Since when did these become expectations?

I think if the children are in private schools, it's a harder choice because the impact on them is much greater. So, the more you have been able to give them doing what you do now, the harder it will be on them if you stop.

I have always been of the opinion that if you have sent your kids to private primaries (Prep schools or whatever) then they leave there with a very strong foundation for everything they would do in secondary.

So, I do think that as long as you talk to them and prepare them for what is happening, then that's the time to change your lifestyle. Though obviously you could wait another couple of years until after GCSEs.

If your life needs to change that much though, I would have thought something much more drastic than going from 9-5 to 9-5, but something much more creative, a complete change, creative in some way. Music, art, baking. Though then I would say just go pt and do more of the hobby.

All jobs have their boring/miserable side. There's a lot hanging on your job, so you would need to try to pinpoint exactly what it is you want to change. You may find that simply moving employer is enough.