Being a Parent Changes Your Perspective on Life and a Career

Being a Parent Changes Your Perspective on Life & Career

If you asked me to pick an ice cream flavor from the store, you’ll find it takes me about 20 minutes to finally pick one out.

I really love ice cream.

I’m also a millennial. One of those people born after 1982. Millennials and generations born after are known to be very indecisive. I also love ice cream. I love it so much I said it twice.

Millennials and the generations after want options. We were born with options, and we want them instantly. We believe we can be anyone because that is what modern culture tells us. Yet nobody ever tells us how hard it is to choose a career, especially as you grow older and your life changes.

We want career options that make us happy in every possible way — a ping pong room, catered lunches, a comfy workspace. Did I miss anything? If we don’t get these luxuries, we aren’t afraid to leave that career to pursue another one.

We live in an age where we believe we should be happy with any career choice and have the motivation to succeed in it. Those are two very hard things to find, at least for me.

Career Option 1: TeachingTeaching was not for me, neither was this classroom.

My first career choice was teaching, and it just happened to be teaching middle school. Despite all the negativity of middle school teaching, I actually didn’t like it. But I was happy with my first real career paycheck — a whopping $2500 a month. I was happy earning that much back then, living at my parents’ home, no expenses, and pocketing most of it.

Then I found the love of my life, married her, and had a child 16 months after we were married. Now $2500 a month didn’t seem like a lot, especially when you’re living in California.

I know people make a living from teaching. They make it work.

I did too. Except it wasn’t what I wanted. I’m glad I realized that after the first few years of teaching, rather than figuring it out ten years into teaching.

“Making it work” didn’t appeal to me and how I wanted my life to be. It hit me harder when my wife and I had our first child.

What parenthood does to you. Or what it should do to you.

When you have a child, there’s this feeling that should exist in every parent — you want to provide for them. It should be engrained in your mind as a parent the moment you have a child.

As a teacher, I couldn’t buy my son nice things all the time, but I wanted that option. Teaching made me realize that I didn’t just want to provide for him, I wanted to buy him nice toys and clothes, go on nice vacations and have a nice house.

If you’ve ever experienced being a parent, you understand this feeling of wanting to provide for your child. It doesn’t mean spoil, it means buying them nice presents for their birthday, for Christmas, and on any random day.

Teaching wasn’t for me. I didn’t like the pay and I wasn’t willing to wait 10–15 years to appreciate the pay that other jobs were paying employees in their first year.

Career Option 2: Nursing

I chose to pursue nursing because:

1. I enjoy helping people.

2. The pay isn’t half bad (if you’re in California).

As my son grew older, there was this overwhelming urgency to provide more. Obviously, kids eat more and need more clothes, yet there was a different sense of urgency. An urgency to move out of an apartment to a house with more space. At least a backyard. An urgency to give my son more.

What killed me was that I couldn’t afford any of this.

While I waited and prayed to get into nursing school, I substitute taught, worked as an EMT, and wrote for pennies to make extra on the side.

I waited, waited & waited. For two years I waited. Nothing. No acceptance letters. I didn’t want sympathy, I wanted an acceptance letter. I had the grades and recommendation letters. Sometimes things just don’t work in your favor, and it may take forever before they work in your favor, especially if you keep waiting on the same people to see your value.

I eventually realized that.

So, after another and final rejection letter, I decided I wasn’t going to wait for someone to see my value. I was going to create my value. I had the motivation as a father and a husband.

Career Option 3: Entrepreneur

Starting a business was an opportunity to show my value. I knew how to write and research. I knew what I could learn with my motivation and my skillset.

Being a parent gives you a drive. It should. That drive and that passion to work harder and smarter. It showed in my pursuit to be an entrepreneur.

I’ve known people to work 50 hours a week at minimum paying jobs. They chose to work more to pay for their luxuries. But I believe it’s about working smarter, not harder.

Writing content was an opportunity to prove my worth.

Eventually I learned to create value that people value, such as drip email campaigns & social media management.

I chose my career, I didn’t let a career or person choose one for me based on what they determined my value to be.

Fatherhood motivated me. It changed me. My motivation became more than just about me, it was about what I could provide for my family.

Some people choose the right career the first time. For other people, it can take years of finding that career. For me, it was finding that motivation, that happiness, and a willingness to realize what I’m working for and how to achieve it.

Being a Parent Changes Your Perspective on Life and a Career was originally published in C.R.Y on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.