To not want a career?

[Holl90]

Anybody else feel the same? I’m happy as I am in my job and don’t really want to progress or want a career? I feel like I should want it though?

Fathers prioritise paid work for numerous and varied reasons, eg they want DC but prefer paid work to weekday parenting and domestic work; paid work has monetary and social payoffs; they personally retain these in the event of divorce.

Paid work needn’t be ‘all or nothing’.

I am not in poverty.

Crikey, only on MN you are seen as a failure if you only have a job and not a career. The benefit bashing on here is bad enough.

I am not in poverty. My income is £2k a month, single parent of one child. My mortgage is £300pm. Rest of the bills come to about £500pm - that's council tax, energy, water, childcare (minimal costs with a school age DC), phone bill, TV and internet, and all insurances. That leaves £1200 for food and leisure activities. More than enough.

I have a career (more of a vocation) but was part time when the kids were small. I don't do over time and never have. I can leave my work at the front door so I'm never overly stressed (in a highly stressful job). I've gone as high as I wanted to. Single mum 52k.

There is a balance. But im also not 'career driven'.

What do these words mean anyway?
Being in a professional role, but avoiding promotion is very different from a job with no prospects.

I personally think it’s wise to get the best job & best paid role you can. Make hay while the sun shines. I enjoy my career though & feel proud that I’ve achieved my potential. I would always wonder ‘what if’ had I settled for a bog standard job.

Yes indeed, in fact our income is far nearer to 30k than 60k. We are entitled to child benefit but that is all.

No I'm not interested. I don't want my life to revolve around just one thing or have to go the same place every day.

My life does revolve mostly around one thing but it's my child which I found came naturally.

I like the work I do but it's not really a career, it's just gigs and I like it like that because I can do lots of different things and if I fail in an area it doesn't really matter since it's just one of the things I do.

You can't feel like you "should" want or should do certain things though because you're only causing yourself grief. Literally no one else cares what you do with your life. Just enjoy your life on your terms; really you've got more than about 99% of people on the planet if you can do that.

@Waxonwaxoff0 ahh... that's your secret sauce.. the low mortgage!
Round here it's about £1000 a month at least for a bog standard terrace. In an 'ok' area (not 'naice' but no constant robberies/break-ins). For recent housebuyers. Don't know about those who already own.

Someone has to do the low paid and unskilled jobs though.

Life is not a contest and you don’t get a trophy at the end. Find what works for you and your family, and if everyone is happy, you’re ahead of a lot of people who actually do think it’s a competition.

I didn't want a career either. Dropped out of uni, did a secretarial course, went to Europe, learnt cordon bleu cookery, improved my French and came back to London to find a husband and have babies.

Except I got a little job as a secretary on a trading floor and loved it, then got moved to the Syndicate desk, then the sales floor. Finally got married and had my first at nearly 35 and he was quite poorly so I gave up work for 7 years to have more babies. Along the way DH's career took off and there was no need for me to go back to work.

Then all of a sudden the youngest was in reception and the days were long and I was doing far too much stuff voluntarily and DH said "you ought to get a part time job round the dc and so when you say no to lovely things it's because you're earning not sitting on a bloody committee". One came up locally and I got it. It was great, and I loved it and was quite good at it so they made a full-time job for me and sponsored my professional quals and 15 years later I am very senior in another organisation also by accident and because people asked me to apply.

The thing is op, if anything had ever happened to my DH I'd have had a career/life outside the home to fall back on. And now, in the twilight of my career, a very very good occupational pension which will be more than what I spend every month anyway.

Mumsnet is a fascinating place. Millions of people live on sub-£30k salaries without bieng 'in poverty' or being dependent on someone else... the average UK salary in 2021 for full-time work was £31k.

My sister earns £27k, has a mortgage (alone!), goes on holidays, and generally has a lovely life. Christ, I have friends who live in London who earn less than £30k and aren't in poverty.

There's more to life than earning loads of money.

Personally, I'd rather not waste the best years of my life slaving away in a career until I'm too old and exhausted to carry on with work.

I'm 33, don't have children and work part-time running my own business and have no absolutely no desire to ever work in a full-time job again.

Absolutely. It will differ from area to area. But it's just stupid to insist that anyone on below £30k is living in "poverty", there are still plenty of affordable places in the country, just because people on MN don't live in them doesn't mean you just ignore their existence.

Yes I'm a librarian. It's ok wage we can pay our bills. I don't want to go higher.

Here’s my totally unfashionable opinion, OP: you have found the key to happiness. To be happy with what you have, when that’s contrary to society’s expectations of you, takes a good deal of maturity.

Further, your choice to (1) strike a good balance for you (2) strike a good balance for your family (3) agree with your DH that he will be the one of the two of your pursuing the career rather than the job (4) do what you do at work for so long that you become an expert in it to the benefit of your colleagues and customers/clients (if you have them) - all these are absolutely the things that lead to a whole, complete, content life for you and your family (and because they’re happy, so you are even further). you will be a content person, parent, employee (hopefully!).

I don’t for a moment think it’s your role to do this as the wife/mother (it can be man or woman, equally successfully after the pregnancy/childbirth/newborn months and years), and I don’t think you should do it at all if you are being pressured into doing it. But to choose to do it, in agreement with your DH - well, imo that’s the key to happiness

You can always change your mind later, if you choose to. But my goodness go for it now while your D.C. are young, life is busy, you have physical and mental energy. Time is fleeting, and killing yourself to climb the ladder won’t nourish and sustain you into old age (unless your job is positively life-affirming in some way).

Exactly.

Nurses start on £25k. Not known one in poverty.
Monthly mortgage on my house was £250 a month (but was for 80k)

For some reasons, lots of posters on MN seem to be convinced that everyone lives in expensive areas with huge mortgages and tonnes of outgoings.

Where I live, the average salary is around 24k. A three bed terrace with a garden costs around 100k. We own a two bed terrace plus garden and our mortgage is only £300 per month.

Not everyone needs to be slaving away in careers to have a decent standard of living - many people all over the country work in perfectly normal jobs and don't struggle at all.

Yes, my house was £100k.

I think people insisting that people on under £30k must be living in "poverty" either live in very expensive areas or couldn't bear the thought of perhaps lowering their standards. I see people on here who say they absolutely will not buy a house without a driveway, or space for a dishwasher, etc.

Those of us on low wages know our limits and have to live within our means. I'm fully aware that I can't have my dream house on my low wages. So the house I bought has no driveway, a downstairs bathroom, a postage stamp size garden that is overlooked from every single angle, area isn't great. But it's what I can afford and still have a decent standard of living alongside paying the mortgage.

@RosesAndHellebores but you were in your 40’s when you did this? I haven’t given up my job I just don’t want a career right now as my main focus is the kids? It’s hypocritical to say that when you completely gave up your job to be with your kids, I am guessing you wouldn’t swap that time with them for anything? Your not living that time of your life right now.

😂😂😂😂 @ 30k being poverty.
Some people really have no idea about the real world!

FFS. “Lowering my standards” 🙄

No, I was posting from a work POV (not personal) of knowing what kind of incomes still need topping up with benefits when a single mum works and pays rent (and knowing how much food and utilities have recently gone up too). Admittedly, all the cases we’ve been reviewing are localish, so south of England, and so the rents are not only recent, but also southern (😱) but they are insane levels, the rents.

Whenever I see what normal rents now are, it makes me thank the housing gods I managed to buy. The rent v mortgage difference is itself like having a second mortgage to pay.

If any woman can “only” earn £30k, and ever splits up and finds herself single or whatever, that can actually be an issue. These days that might not be enough to pay rent (not mortgage), and support a child l, considering all bills, especially if you pay childcare and especially if you are on the south. (Not every divorcing woman can up sticks to Runcorn or Hull or wherever.)

So when deciding whether to improve, maintain or drop your PERSONAL earning capacity, it is worth doing these sums of “what if he turns into a bastard, cheats or dies?”, “what if I have to rent?”, “what if I have to cover all bills for me and D.C. and contribute to a pension?”

It is much easier to slip into poverty than it used to be.