Do you wish you’d been more ambitious or less?

[MagicJigsaw]

I’m in my mid to late twenties and currently work as a lawyer. I’m at a bit of a crossroads as I’m not sure whether to carry on with law with all the long hours and stress that entails, or do something a bit less intense / more family-friendly.

I’d love to hear from some older / more experienced people who are a bit further along in their careers how you feel about work now. Do you wish you’d spent less time at work and more time with your kids doing the things that really matter? Or do you wish you’d been a bit more ambitious and high-flying? I would’ve thought most people would be in the former camp, but I recently spoke to an old colleague who basically said she took a step back in her career to support DH and the kids and regrets it a bit. Please do share your wisdom with me!

I have a similar career and have purposefully kept it going. I’m 40 now and I can see how much harder it is for women, both older and younger. Not a chance in hell I’m taking my pedal off the metal.

My youngest is 5 and I took a years may leave with each and went to 4 days, which was lovely. Im trying to get back to FT now.

Honestly I would stick with it. The more senior you get the easier it is to flex.

God, more. I fooked about travelling and had a high old time, and chose a good steady career that enabled me to do that. I’ll never be out of a job, but I’ll also never be paid very much, and I’m bright enough I could have done more. Having said that having DC has put more of a bomb in the middle of my life than I ever thought, so there’s that!!

More ambitious. Use the extra money to spend on having someone else do the drudgery so that all the time you spend with your kids is 100% focused on them.

I'm a lawyer and I'd recommend trying to do both (if you don't want the long hours/small children combo)- find a role that allows you to step back when they are small and then step up again once they are bigger. Eg PSL, knowledge lawyer at PLC or LexisNexis etc, some in-house roles, government/regulator etc. Your qualification and skills are incredibly valuable and it's easy to under-rate them when you're trying to find a way to combine work and family.

Being ambitious and having a brilliant supportive partnership with my DH has allowed me to enjoy time with my kids and have a wonderful life.
More.

Do you already have kids? This makes a difference I think.

Less. Or rather, less snooty. I thought being a teacher was lowly and I needed to aim ‘higher’. But it’s the best

I’m just getting into earning reasonably well now and I’m 40. I spent my 20’s doing low paid admin before retraining in my 30’s. I found admin rigid and not family friendly, eg having to ask weeks in advance for half a day of to go to a nursery event. I wish I had been more ambitious younger. My job now is much more pressured but at the same time I can set my own diary and I am not micro managed. I want to progress further up the ladder.

Life is too short to spend it all at work. You need a healthy balance IMO. I'm happy in my 30s with a well paying, but less stressful job than I had in my 20s. Personally I prefer to put family and children first over climbing the corporate ladder and all the politics which goes with it. What's the point?

Yes and No
Due to having bipolar I chose to not go for a masters degree and a higher paid pressured job because I can't cope with stress which can bring on relapse. I'm in a skilled but low paid full time job I have done for years. I could do more but it isn't worth the risk of likely relapsing with more stress with two children,
I hate the fact I had to do this but I recognise it's necessary
I wish it wasn't so money wasn't so hard

I wish I'd chosen a career that would have brought me higher earnings.

Agree with this. I’m a mother of two young children and I took a role like the ones described here. I work full time but reasonable hours, mostly from home. I’m thinking about dropping a few more hours to be around a bit more but it’s important to me to keep my career going. I enjoy it, anyway, so that helps. I’ve worked full time my whole working life - bar the odd six months doing 4 days straight after my two maternity leaves - and I don’t really want to do that forever.

I have no regrets. I carried on working full time in management roles throughout. Plateaued ever so slightly for a few years while dd was in primary/early secondary school because I had a very flexible job that enabled me to maintain a good work life balance. Picked up the pace again when she was in her GCSE years and am now at the top of my field. It is stressful at times but I love what I do and the difference that it makes, and I'm proud of what I achieved. Don't feel that I missed out on time with dd in the slightest as having a senior role actually gave me much more leverage and flexibility. She is off to uni now and I don't fear the empty nest that nearly broke my mum...I have plenty of other things to focus on!

Late 30's. Happy that I'm not particularly ambitious. I earn a reasonable amount, there's still a career ladder Infront of me so I wish. I work 32.5 hours a week, hybrid 3 days at home, 2 at work. When kids are 18 ish I will drop to 4 days so we can have long weekends away at our leisure! Life is too short.

I think it’s difficult for a lot of people to appreciate how busy it is in legal private practice. I think it’s difficult to combine it with young children. There are other jobs in the legal profession which are still well paid that have a better work life balance. But you generally need the years in private practice to get the good jobs elsewhere.

in my case I worked crazy hours in the city but took a more relaxed job recently. So I’m glad I was more ambitious in my younger days so I can be more relaxed now.

Thanks for your answers all.

I don’t already have kids but DH has said he would like them eventually. I’m becoming very aware that, in law, a lot of people either don’t have kids or if they do they have an army of stay at home partners, nannies and cleaners to make it work - and even then it doesn’t seem to work very well!

I wish I had worked harder when I first started my career and pre-children. I didn’t come into my own at work till my mid-30s whereas I probably could have started moving up the ranks in my 20s when I had the time but I was too busy enjoying myself.

I had a successful career but didn’t earn a huge amount and exh earnt so much more that I had to give up work when it became obvious that one of dc had autism, then the other one was diagnosed.

So - to me it isn’t about ambition but equality. If I had earnt the same as exh then perhaps our childcare solutions would have been more equal. So I do wish that I had been in a higher paying career.

Financially I’m very comfortable- thanks to exh providing for us - but exh does bugger all childcare, works abroad a lot, works ridiculous hours, has a great social life and a mystery hobby (!) and I have very little freedom. If I had known at 18 where I would end up I would’ve made very different decisions.

I'm 61 and I think I've done really well to work at all. I've had complex PTSD for 50 years with dissociative amnesia, hallucinations and I hear nocturnal voices. I was expected to never be able to work after being sectioned as a young woman but with modern psychiatry and medication I've managed to work for 40 years in the NHS and I'm on 50k.
If I hadn't had this condition so severely the sky would have been my limit but I've recognised what I can and can't do and I'm proud of myself for getting as far as I have.

My kids are only tweens but I find it hard to believe I will ever regret being ambitious and career orientated. Whilst we were very reliant on childcare in their early years (a stage I very much struggled with anyway, work was my escape!) progressing has enabled me to be in a very flexible, self directed role now they're at an age where they need me differently but still quite a bit. Being career orientated doesn't always have to mean being absent, and it affords us a quality of life I can't ever imagine regretting.

You’re right that it’s hard. It’s doable though if you want, especially these days, and there are lots of options that are a bit more 9-5. I would caution against giving up your profession completely unless you have a real desire to do something else (which might be being at home)- if you can keep your hand in somehow you give yourself many more options down the line.

In my 20s I did the working really hard thing and climbed the career ladder (in finance rather than law). Then I had a career break and was a SAHM when my DC were little. Then I went back to work in a more family friendly role (and have been there ever since).

I don't regret my ambitious years at all, because the stage I'd reached in my career made it possible for me to find a family friendly role that's also interesting and fulfilling despite having been out of the workplace for several years - no easy feat! But I also don't regret stepping back and being less ambitious in later years - it has been worth it to be more present for my kids than would have been possible in my previous job.

I also have a friend who's done the same as me in law - moving to a department that is known for being shorter hours and less stressful than others in her law firm.

I'm not at all ambitious when it comes to work although I was always quite academic, I work part time and that's good for me. I just don't find any work interesting or fulfilling, even if you do your hobby you love as work it ruins it IMO. Work just pays the bills. I love being a mostly SAHM though, that's the best thing I've ever done. Fortunately our mortgage is paid off and I am very low maintenance apart from when it come to the two things I really love and am ambitious about - gardening and travel.

I'm in law, don't have a SAHP, cleaner, or nanny. I work three days a week, two from home and one in London. It is hard, I do work in the evenings and sometimes on NWD, which is grating me - I'm not paid to work these days! I'm also underpaid for my PQE. I'm currently trying to find a better role, but it's nigh on impossible to find a 3 day per week role, and I don't want to miss out on too much time with my DD. On the other hand, maybe PP is right that if I worked and earned more, I could outsource a lot of the drudgery and not really be any worse off. She's only 15 months, but maybe I'll try to find a four day per week role.