To say that the expression 'no one ever looked back and wishes they'd worked more' is not true?

[Loosemoosegoose]

This is something you read on Mumsnet a lot. I can't help but think it's not often true. When taken literally, perhaps, but it tends to be used in the context of finding a fulfilling career versus prioritising family. I have been blessed with both a wonderful DD and a very fulfilling career and honestly, I need both in my life. I subscribe very much to the idea that there is absolutely no reason a woman can't have it all, she just can't necessarily always have it all at exactly the same time and there are times when taking time to focus on family or career is what is needed but generally, there are also times when you can give both all you've got and balance the two beautifully.
Of course there are some who do not want one or the other (or either) but I feel that a woman's career can often be dismissed by phrases like this because it minimises the value many people do place on their life's work. I want to be able to look back on my life and feel that I did give my career my all because I work in a field I am incredibly passionate about and if I didn't do all I could to continue in this profession and do my best in it, I know that I would look back and feel regret.

Interested in others views. Do you think it is possible to place as much value on your career as you place on being a parent and still be a good and present parent or do you think it is something you look back on and realise you sacrificed one for the other no matter how you try to balance it?

@Loosemoosegoose

What's the point in me telling you my DD's age. If I tell you she's 6 weeks old does that make me a terrible parent? If I tell you she's 17 years old does that make me a good parent? I'm not asking for opinions on my life choices, I'm asking for opinions on my post that it is entirely possible to have a career that you are fulfilled by just as much as you are fulfilled by parenting. That's all.

Of course you aren’t unreasonable to think this. It is absolutely possible. I am every bit as fulfilled (and frustrated and maddened) by my work as by parenting my beloved DS, and I can absolutely imagine being on my deathbed and wishing I’d done more and better work.

I think the phrase is like most things partly true and partly untrue - its all about context. If you are working every hour there is and missing out on things that would have brought you greater happiness then yes the phrase is true, but if you work very little and then feel you have missed out on the income in order to enjoy life and/or you feel you are have been unable to reach your full potential. Its all about context.

It is categorically not true. It is my elderly mother's single greatest regret in life, and it is a source of tremendous sadness for her. She was a talented, ambitious woman who wanted to make a difference. She gave it up to become a SAHM, because that was the done thing at the time, and she never found the confidence to go back. She regrets it immensely, and has never quite recovered from the impact that it had on her mental health. She was an amazing mum, but sadly, she feels like she wasted her time and talent.

Knowing this, I have never once doubted my decision to maintain my career. For some people, work may be unimportant, but for me, it matters. It gives me the sense of purpose, achievement and contribution that was so sadly lacking in my mother's life.

I can see myself looking back and wishing I'd done more worthy work tbh. I'm in a private company where our goal is to sell stuff and make a rich man even richer. On my deathbed I might regret that, but I do get a good balance. My work is high stress, but I don't have to do crazy hours. And I don't hate it. In fact, I think I mainly like it, but I do wish it was making a bigger, better difference. It is quite a creative industry, so maybe it does make a difference, just not in that obvious way. We certainly aren't a charity.

But I definitely won't wish I'd spent more time doing MY job. So the saying would probably be true for me.

Depends on so many things. Other people will feel differently. I was with my mum before she died fairly young and all she talked about was us (her dcs) and her own mum who was still alive. But that's that's straw poll of one obviously!

And my mum was a nurse, so definitely worthy! She loved her job, but it didn't get a mention on her deathbed, funnily enough. Also that whole "your employer won't push your wheelchair thing" was very true for her. She was totally abandoned by most people she worked with when she was ill. They all came crawling out of the woodwork for the funeral, but they didn't come to see her before she died. So, I think I lean more and more towards thinking the phrase would be true for me. But even if it is, it doesn't mean I would want to suddenly quit my job and prance around fields with my 7 kids (i'd need to have some more kids to do this) home schooling and making clothes out of curtains or whatever. I like working, but I also won't regret doing more on my deathbed. I'm almost certain it won't come into my head. Will report back from the afterlife naturally! They get mumsnet there yes ?

Not doing more *

Speaking personally, I love my job ... it is not really a 'career', I don't earn much but I genuinely love what I do and look forward to going to work. I choose to work more hours than I am paid for. I am nearing retirement age but I have no plans to retire, I can fit in my hobbies, volunteering, seeing family etc around my hours ... so yes, I do love spending time at work . My DH is retiring but I am no rush to retire just to spend more time with him, he has his own interests to follow, we don't need to be joined at the hip.

It's something I've thought about particularly in relation to DD and encouraging her to follow her interests. She's still v young but I'd love to see her find a career she enjoys and gets a lot from. And if she wants to have a family then that's good too.

I regret taking a year's maternity leave. I was bored, miserable and isolated on maternity and far far happier once I was back at work part-time. I was also a much better, more patient and interested mum once I wasn't with DD all the time. Babies and small children are immensely boring and frustrating! Doesn't mean I don't love her, but our relationship improved dramatically once I was back at work. My Mum was a SAHM for years before working part-time and she really didn't have the patience or interest for being a SAHM. We'd have been much better off in childcare but she didn't have a 'career', she had a 'job' which feels different?

My Mum also retired in her mid-50s, only 13 years older than I am now. I can't really imagine that (financially I wouldn't be able to retire at that age anyway!). Whilst it would be nice to have more time for hobbies and exercise, I think I'd miss the feeling of achievement and getting things done that I get from work?!

I think it is a nuanced phrase and obviously it is often correctly applied in scenarios where an individual hits a work-related life crisis and realizes they have put too much emphasis on work compared with family life.

But like many phrases context is everything and I think some of you are being a bit naïve if you don't recognise that it can be used in quite a gendered way.

I don't want to derail but for generations of women in my family their biggest regret was not working enough. Both my mother and my maternal grandmother were more or less forced to stop work because their husbands thought it would be undermining to their status to have their wives work. Both of them were highly intelligent (particularly my grandmother who got a first from Oxbridge in the 1920s when this was almost unheard of for women) bitterly regretted it. My mother regretted it even more because she basically would have left my dad if she'd had the financial wherewithal to do so.

I have been massively influenced by this but I also have to work to support my daughter because I'm on my own. Not only would it not have been possible for me to stop work, it would have been very unhelpful to adopt an approach that work is just a means to an end and something to be got through in the hours when you're not with your children. Taking this approach would have made what was already a stressful situation miserable and pointless and diminished my earning power into the bargain. Maybe I take this too personally but I can't be the only one who finds this phrase upsetting.

I think its perfectly possible both to acknowledge that some people work more than is good for them while also recognising that some people don't have a choice and if you have to work, you may as well be doing something remunerating and rewarding.

And comments like those from @LittleDandelionClock, which imply that you are unreasonable to want to work at all when you have children are not only wildly impractical but borderline offensive to people like me.

I think its perfectly possible both to acknowledge that some people work more than is good for them while also recognising that some people don't have a choice and if you have to work, you may as well be doing something remunerating and rewarding

I think that is very possible and eminently sensible.

I would say though, that the pressure to stay at home when you have dcs, in my circle and my generation, is significantly less than the pressure to be a high achiever at work. It's subtley frowned upon to be a sahm where I live, unless you have huge amounts of money. Even then all the sahms in that position have some endeavour and they identify that way - never as a sahm ime, even if the project they have is not a job and is done very, very part time. It just isn't cool to be a sahm where I live (commuter belt to London).

So, although I can see how in the past phrases like this were used to control women who wanted to work, I don't know if I find it as upsetting as you do people.

Most people can't choose to quit work either. Most women I know need to work for financial / preventing homelessness and starvation reasons. Being on your own does make it even less likely you can quit work though. I recognise that and think phrases like "they're only young once" or "why have kids if you don't want to raise them?" are extremely cunty and should be banned.

It's all in the context. Fulfilment hugely depends on if you're working because you want to or only because you have to. For me, I had a good career but would never describe myself as passionate about it and certainly wouldn't have given it my all at the sacrifice of family time and other life pleasures. Jumped at the chance to stay home with DC and feel like a completely different person in a good way.

I'm privileged to have the choice of whether to work or not and expect I will work again in the future, but in a different field. It's all about balance. I wouldn't feel happy in a career if it meant I was missing a lot of my DC's lives. I don't want them in wrap around care - not because I'm a martyred mother, but because I personally want them with me while they are young. It's about what's right for individuals and no one should be judging anyone. Ultimately, no, I won't wish I worked more on my deathbed.

Work to me is just a means to end. It allows me to live my life. Just how I am - I would give up work in a heartbeat if I won the lottery!

I regret not working more! I'm self-employed, recently turned 50, and things gave definitely slowed down in the past few years. I need to step up the hustle. I took my eye of the ball when the kids were little.

I think generally if people wanted to work more then they would have.

Few people feel as passionate about their work as you do OP (I think you're really lucky!!) and those that do are unlikely to give it up for their children - so I think it probably is almost always true.

I've never had a job that I felt any passion for. Some things interested me or I quite enjoyed them but no passion. My passion is for parenting, travelling, gardening and crafting. But make any of them a job and the joy would be gone.

However, women are still told that once they become mothers, they have to forget about their own life and wishes and ambitions, because if they want to do anything but to spend time with their children, they should not have had children in the first place.

By whom ?
Not my experience at all. In fact, the few people who offered opinions were 100% supportive of both parents working.

I don't think the phrase is intended to mean that you shouldn't derive fulfilment from your job or enjoy doing it. It's meant to encourage people to think about priorities and what brings them most meaning and importance in life when they have to make a choice between competing priorities. If someone always puts the job first ahead of everything else then yes I do think that is likely to lead to regrets later on
I agree with this, but I also think it applies to those folk who give up everything that makes them who they are, to become a SAHP for a couple of decades, and doesn't involve themselves in anything outside of what their dc are doing. It is, as a pp said, about not putting all eggs into one basket.
Over the last 4 or 5 years, there has been a lot of reported 'loneliness' across the UK, and, to my mind, a lot of this comes from people putting all eggs into one basket, then being utterly lost when that 'basket' goes - be that their work, their partner or their dc.

@Kite22

By whom?

By @LittleDandelionClock, for one. And the armies of other people who say things like "Why did you have children if you don't want to look after them?"

I think the opposite is true. You are more judged negatively by your peers for being a sahm than for working definitely.

I have a fulfilling career that I absolutely love. I'm also actively looking to reduce my hours (no kids or health issues). Because while I enjoy every minute of my job, I enjoy it in the context that 'as things I do to afford to live go, this is the very best version, but it is still done so that I can afford to live'.

I don't think I want children, but if I did have them, I would still need to be able to afford to live, and would want to do so in a way I enjoyed - so I wouldn't 'do' parenthood at the expense of my career. The friends I have who have put their careers on the backburner are those who didn't like their careers much to begin with, those who are (at great financial and mental cost!) juggling both to maintain career progression are those who loved their jobs very much to start with.

@MsTSwift

I think the opposite is true. You are more judged negatively by your peers for being a sahm than for working definitely.

Well like so many other things women do you're damned either way aren't you? People are judged for being a SAHM, sometimes rationally sometimes not. But then women who work either through choice or necessity are told that they can't love their children because if they did they wouldn't want to leave them for a second.

When people talk about ‘my mother felt x,y,z...’ I can see how that might resonate with you personally, but beyond that, it’s irrelevant really.

Things were very different for women of previous generations. Nobody likes feeling “forced” to do anything. So when women in the past felt forced or obliged to SAH, this will obviously be a cause of resentment in some.

But equally today, many (most)? women feel they have no choice but to work. It’s a totally different society. It will suit some, but not others. Some will feel as if they “have it all,” (like the OP); others will feel very resentful. If you are a SAHM out of choice, then this is a totally different mindset to a woman who feels she has no choice in the matter. Choice is always a privilege, whatever you do with it.

OP, I’m not sure why you need the phrase “no one ever looked back and wishes they'd worked more” to be “not true” for everyone? Do you need everyone to feel the same way as you for some sort of validation?

As do some said upthread, you are a straw poll of one. Everyone will feel differently and find their own balance in life.

Are they? Very odd. Never heard anyone be told that. Both my grandmothers worked and got those comments but don’t know anyone who holds those views today. working mothers is hardly a new development!

I generally take the comment to mean that you should strive for balance in all things. It's not meant to imply that you can't strive for a fulfilling career.

MsTSwift the second I got back from my first maternity leave, a colleague came to my office, sat down and told me that it must be so hard for my children, having a working mother, and am I not sad, missing all those precious moments.

(The irony that the colleague in question himself had 2 young kids and he often called his wife and pretended he needs to work late, so he would not need to help with bedtime, was unfortunately lost.)

I have been the target, personally or as a working mother in general, of many similar remarks since then. Honorable mention to " I would wonder why they had children, if they preferred to be at work, rather than with their children" on this very thread.

I totally associate these phrases with absent fathers. Never heard it ever directed towards a woman!

And I do know a few lazy people who definitely should wish they had worked harder in the past!