Why Go Back to Work??

When I graduated high school, I would have very openly told you I wanted to be a wife and mother but I also would have told you I wanted to be a pediatric surgeon.  Like most millennials, I forged my path straight to college.  I got good grades, took the MCAT for medical school, and graduated at the top of my class.  However, I took a year to expand my skill set and see the world as a non-student; however when I got accepted to medical school I made the decision not to go.  I looked ahead to many more years of schooling, grueling hours and massive debt and chose a different path... A FAMILY.  Looking back this is the first big decision I made for my children, I wanted to provide them with a life and my time and I didn't want to keep my then boyfriend in a holding path towards the future.   In a few short years, I married my high school sweetheart purchased our first home and got pregnant with our first child.  I vividly remember painting the nursery and asking myself the following questions:

Who will I be when my children are ready to spread their own wings and they don't need me as much anymore?  Is my relationship with my husband strong enough to sit on the back burner until my children leave the nest? Will I know how to fill my time when its time for my children to start lives of their own?

The answer to those questions wasn't easy at first, but with some thought I got some clarity on the subject.  The day my children leave the nest I will be the same person that I am the last day they are with me.  I needed to maintain my own identity outside of just mommy and for me that was the one thing I felt I was most proud of and that was my career and my marriage.  I think that I needed to be fulfilled in different ways while my life would be incomplete without my children my life would also be incomplete without my career. 

I choose to go to work to provide my children with the life, I want for them.  That doesn't mean that its the life everyone believes a child needs.  I want my children to have a sense of independence but still know mommy and daddy love them.  I want them to have two parents that want to spend as much time with them as possible, but I want that sense of self worth that comes with working.  I choose to make time everyday for my husband to ensure a strong relationship, one that my children can learn from.  I want my children to strive to have a marriage like mine and if I want to teach them those lessons, I have to put just as much importance on my marriage as I do on my relationship with my children.