I went from being a top achieving student in college directly into motherhood, having held no job more prestigious than waiting tables at a Pizza Hut. I speak three languages fluently and my IQ is estimated to be quite high, though the actual number is meaningless to me. I remember my college advisor’s crestfallen face as I told her that I had no plans to go to graduate school and her stunned « but you are too smart to just stay home and have babies! » I was too polite to ask whether only marginally intelligent people should raise children? Ultimately, I knew very early on that I did not have the temperament to climb any kind of corporate ladder, though I had the brains for it. I lacked the ability to be cutthroat, to argue a position which was morally compromising to me, or to drop a crying baby off at a daycare center knowing that all he wanted was to be with me. I was home for 20 years, taking part time employment that interested me, quitting when it became a burden. When the kids were grown, I taught in public schools for 7 years, and then quit again when I became a grandmother so that I could be available for my grandkids at any time during the year. I once again found part-time work that feeds my soul, but does very little for my bank account… I will never grace the cover of Vogue, Ms Magazine, Glamour, or Good Housekeeping, my name will never be remembered by anyone beyond my immediate family, and that is more than OK with me.
I think it takes a great deal of courage to swim against the current that places more importance on money, prestige, and power than on sacrifice, love, and peace.
And PS… you haven’t quit working, you have just stopped working for a salary. If you are any good at this parenting gig, you are working as hard, if not harder than at the big law firm!
Fran, thanks so much for the comments and for your example! Your experience is very much reminiscent of my mom, who was an example for me in this stuff.
As for "quitting work," I could say that I just meant it in the sense of "paid work," but I agree with you...but you can't blame a guy for doing just a sprinkle of clickbait haha
The crazy thing is that, in raising high achieving children, we run the risk that they will chase the « dream job » instead of valuing for their own children the very thing that got them there!
Thank you so much for sharing this!🩷 I'm currently struggling with conflicting ideas about whether to provide for my family and my 3.5-years-old twins financially and have less energy for them or live off savings and enjoy the life we currently have to the fullest. And your perspective is tremendously helpful with this! I both have ambition and the willingness to bet on my kids instead, and it's a real struggle, not a clear path ahead of me.
I know what a sacrifice you are making and I can promise you 2 things:
1. You will feel bad on some days that you took time away from work, especially as you watch your friends brag about their awards and accolades on social media.
2. You will never feel guilty that you gave this time to your children.
Feeling bad is not the same as feeling guilty. Some days as mothers are incredibly unrewarding and tedious, but we are making a huge difference in our children’s lives. Our children will never have to wonder whether we love them or our careers more.
I will illustrate a point. When my middle son was 15, he joined the swim team having never swam competitively before. His coach offered him a private session and got in the water with him to break down the technique and show him how to be more efficient in the water. After about 15 minutes of flailing about, I watched his movement become smoother and his body started to glide through the water instead of slapping through it, after a revolution in the pool,his head came out of the water and he looked for me in the stands, his face breaking into an « I did it, did you see that? » smile. And I responded with a smile of my own and a thumb’s up. It was a moment I will never forget because, even at age 15, he KNEW I would be watching, and he KNEW that I saw his moment of triumph, and he wanted me to celebrate with him. It was like watching his first step, hearing his first word, watching him read his first book aloud… he knew that his mother delighted in his success. There is no worldly accolade, no promotion, no amount of money that will ever mean more to me than to see his face light up as it came out of the water because he knew that his mother was there, and would always be there.
I needed this deeply. I am an anaesthetist in the UK, it’s been my adult’s life work to get to where I am but the itch to slow down, take a U-turn and focus on my family is getting stronger and stronger. I’m excited to follow along!
Shivani, thanks so much for sharing this! Thinking about the sacrifices we made to get where we are, only to pick an entirely new destination can be really distressing. I just have to put my faith in the idea of sunk costs (the only direction that matters is forward) and the idea that the value from where we've been isn't always determined by getting where we thought we were going, if that makes sense. As in, I'm still really glad I went to law school---even though I'm not a lawyer, it still changed my life in a lot of ways. Wondering if you think you'd feel the same about our path even if you hopped off the professional ladder?
This is so important. I left my career as a teacher (no where near as impressive as yours) two years ago. It does feel like a gamble: there’s something else calling, but I couldn’t say what it was, just the dream of a life where I didn’t have a constant stomach ache.
There’s a lot of “leave traditional employment” content on this app, but it needs to be talked about for what it is. It isn’t a better life, necessarily, it’s a different one. What I loss in stress of working 50+ hour weeks, I gained in the necessity of filling out a tax self-assessment for my (much more flexible) small business. Life is a series of a choices, but got to admit (experience as a teacher NOT a parent) you’re pretty lucky if your chips land in a way that spends more time with young people!!
This is a great insight! I am new to Substack so I thought that my story was going to be really unique, but I have found that you're exactly right---lots of people who leave their careers seem to come to this app for processing and solidarity! Which I suppose means that I've found the right place.
The thing that I'm allergic to is the overly tidy and self-validating happily ever after thing. Maybe I'll get there someday, but I'm not there yet! It's all trade-offs. Sounds like we agree on that.
And I'm with you---young people are a particularly wonderful subset of the human race. They're also SO EXHAUSTING though
Oh I wanted to also address the thing about "nowhere near as impressive as yours"---this is a kind of thinking and comparison that keeps me up at night, because my espoused principles and my actual behaviors are so far apart from each other. On the one hand, I want to say--don't say that! Lawyers are not more important than teachers and we should not be more impressed by them! And while I mean that when I direct it toward you, I find myself struggling to subconsciously believe that about myself. I *feel* less impressive as a parent than I did as a lawyer. I *feel* more self-conscious when I introduce myself to a room of professionals. Why is it so hard for me to apply my own wisdom?
Haha yes young people are excellent but also exhausting. One thing I (problematically) really struggled with as a teacher was this feeling that when I introduced myself to people, they made assumptions about me. I have no idea why a) the majority of people say they could never be a teacher/ raise young kids etc. BUT b) we (and I don’t necessarily mean anyone here but “we” as a society) attribute so little respect to people who do. And I don’t just mean respect as in “yes, I respect teachers and stay at home parents,” I mean policy and salaries that make these into roles that seem aspirational rather than alternative. The not being able to hear your own wisdom thing is very relatable. I know that people working with children are doing one of the most demanding and necessary jobs (paid or unpaid), but it feels a bit like screening into an echo chamber whenever I say that to anyone who has never done it.
I enjoyed reading about this major choice you've made. So many questions...do you make money at all? Or is your wife the provider? Obviously, kids are expensive and you have a couple...
My wife is the provider! I don't make any money right now. My wife and I both structured our careers in a way that we would be able to provide independently for a family if we needed to. I'm sure I'll talk more about this in future writing but my whole life I expected to provide for my wife to stay at home with kids, but then I married a passionate professional, so we decided to swap roles!
I immediately understood what you meant when you said you’re stomach churns while watching Ashley Revell even though it was so long ago and you know the outcome… because minutes before I realized my heart was racing reading about you calling your boss and quitting you job and career. Loved reading this!
This is awesome! Thanks especially for presenting your journey with honesty and complexity - really nice to take something from your outlook without having to believe that you have everything perfectly figured out :)
You never disappoint. This is like amazing humility mixed with chutzpah... Is it a little sad that I sometimes pray people will subscribe to my Substack just so I can subscribe to others? That's when I understand how the arts have always needed patrons. The only way I'll ever be one is to do what Ashley did. Gotta admit, I'm tempted.
Great post--similar but different boat. I've hated work with a passion my whole life and it continues to get worse even as my jobs get, objectively speaking, better. It's tough not to feel crazy sometimes. I want to quit and pursue my own life desperately but fear the consequences of doing so. Subscribing for more of your thoughts
Can’t be a coincidence this came into my feed. I work in fintech and it’s the best/most grown up job I’ve ever had but I’m working on a plan to just teach swim lessons for extra income and spend more time with my almost 2 year old. It’s terrifying to think about leaving a place I enjoy so much, majorly relying on my husband’s income and going back to a job I did in high school and college.
It's SO scary! I wish I had more answers. As I alluded to, I've been glad I did what I did, with a big dash of mixed feelings. But I also didn't truly love what I was leaving. But I think trusting your heart enough to shake up your life and find a new direction when that feels like the right thing to do is the play
Oh but you ARE working. It may not be a paid job, but caregiving and (I presume) household management is Work. Which doesn’t mean parenthood is work per se, but part of it is a LOT of work. Valuable and necessary work that our society and capitalist economy has chosen to render invisible.
You're right! It's so much work. You're probably right that in my quest to optimize for clickability, I landed on something a little philosophically misleading... 😅
That might be the case if everybody and their brother didn’t also refer to full-time caregiving and household management (I.e., “stay-at-home” parenting) as “not working.” So I don’t fault you. But it’s time to change the way we talk about it.
Found this post belatedly and wanted to drop a note of appreciation. I'm a fellow elite law grad, but only a few years out of law school, and trying to figure out what I want out of this crazy, unstable world. I also am a novelist and currently balancing both careers. I love meeting people like you who made the bold choice to get off the hamster wheel of elite law and see what else is out there. Following!
Thank you so much for sharing this!🩷 I'm currently struggling with conflicting ideas about whether to provide for my family and my 3.5-years-old twins financially accepting a job and have less energy for them or live off savings and enjoy the life we currently have to the fullest. Reading this essay made me realise even though I could be ambitious like you described it as getting the next gold star, it may not bring the happiness I so deeply desire for my family if I don't have that much time and energy for them.
Thanks for the comment and the support! I've been amazed at the community of people who are shifting away from that grind culture. Very interesting and encouraging!
Great writing-- I look forward to reading more! I'm a mother of two, and the thought of full-time parenting makes my skin crawl. However, I am planning my exit from teaching and betting it all on writing full-time in 2 years. Not that I expect to make any money writing, of course, but it comes with the huge benefit of being more available to my family and feeling personally fulfilled (the same reasons, I imagine, people choose to full-time parent in the first place). You never mention a partner--I'm curious if you will write about that in future installments. I love telling people (especially my working mom friends), I plan to quit in two years-- I want to write through my 40s! But I always leave out the subtext "....and be supported by my husband who makes plenty of money." That's not a very noble story, I guess.
I went from being a top achieving student in college directly into motherhood, having held no job more prestigious than waiting tables at a Pizza Hut. I speak three languages fluently and my IQ is estimated to be quite high, though the actual number is meaningless to me. I remember my college advisor’s crestfallen face as I told her that I had no plans to go to graduate school and her stunned « but you are too smart to just stay home and have babies! » I was too polite to ask whether only marginally intelligent people should raise children? Ultimately, I knew very early on that I did not have the temperament to climb any kind of corporate ladder, though I had the brains for it. I lacked the ability to be cutthroat, to argue a position which was morally compromising to me, or to drop a crying baby off at a daycare center knowing that all he wanted was to be with me. I was home for 20 years, taking part time employment that interested me, quitting when it became a burden. When the kids were grown, I taught in public schools for 7 years, and then quit again when I became a grandmother so that I could be available for my grandkids at any time during the year. I once again found part-time work that feeds my soul, but does very little for my bank account… I will never grace the cover of Vogue, Ms Magazine, Glamour, or Good Housekeeping, my name will never be remembered by anyone beyond my immediate family, and that is more than OK with me.
I think it takes a great deal of courage to swim against the current that places more importance on money, prestige, and power than on sacrifice, love, and peace.
And PS… you haven’t quit working, you have just stopped working for a salary. If you are any good at this parenting gig, you are working as hard, if not harder than at the big law firm!
Fran, thanks so much for the comments and for your example! Your experience is very much reminiscent of my mom, who was an example for me in this stuff.
As for "quitting work," I could say that I just meant it in the sense of "paid work," but I agree with you...but you can't blame a guy for doing just a sprinkle of clickbait haha
The crazy thing is that, in raising high achieving children, we run the risk that they will chase the « dream job » instead of valuing for their own children the very thing that got them there!
Thank you so much for sharing this!🩷 I'm currently struggling with conflicting ideas about whether to provide for my family and my 3.5-years-old twins financially and have less energy for them or live off savings and enjoy the life we currently have to the fullest. And your perspective is tremendously helpful with this! I both have ambition and the willingness to bet on my kids instead, and it's a real struggle, not a clear path ahead of me.
I feel for you! These decisions are so tough, but it sounds like you have two good options! Keep us posted on developments.
I know what a sacrifice you are making and I can promise you 2 things:
1. You will feel bad on some days that you took time away from work, especially as you watch your friends brag about their awards and accolades on social media.
2. You will never feel guilty that you gave this time to your children.
Feeling bad is not the same as feeling guilty. Some days as mothers are incredibly unrewarding and tedious, but we are making a huge difference in our children’s lives. Our children will never have to wonder whether we love them or our careers more.
I will illustrate a point. When my middle son was 15, he joined the swim team having never swam competitively before. His coach offered him a private session and got in the water with him to break down the technique and show him how to be more efficient in the water. After about 15 minutes of flailing about, I watched his movement become smoother and his body started to glide through the water instead of slapping through it, after a revolution in the pool,his head came out of the water and he looked for me in the stands, his face breaking into an « I did it, did you see that? » smile. And I responded with a smile of my own and a thumb’s up. It was a moment I will never forget because, even at age 15, he KNEW I would be watching, and he KNEW that I saw his moment of triumph, and he wanted me to celebrate with him. It was like watching his first step, hearing his first word, watching him read his first book aloud… he knew that his mother delighted in his success. There is no worldly accolade, no promotion, no amount of money that will ever mean more to me than to see his face light up as it came out of the water because he knew that his mother was there, and would always be there.
This is the kind of thing I need to hear! Thank you for sharing!
I love this🩷
I needed this deeply. I am an anaesthetist in the UK, it’s been my adult’s life work to get to where I am but the itch to slow down, take a U-turn and focus on my family is getting stronger and stronger. I’m excited to follow along!
Shivani, thanks so much for sharing this! Thinking about the sacrifices we made to get where we are, only to pick an entirely new destination can be really distressing. I just have to put my faith in the idea of sunk costs (the only direction that matters is forward) and the idea that the value from where we've been isn't always determined by getting where we thought we were going, if that makes sense. As in, I'm still really glad I went to law school---even though I'm not a lawyer, it still changed my life in a lot of ways. Wondering if you think you'd feel the same about our path even if you hopped off the professional ladder?
This is so important. I left my career as a teacher (no where near as impressive as yours) two years ago. It does feel like a gamble: there’s something else calling, but I couldn’t say what it was, just the dream of a life where I didn’t have a constant stomach ache.
There’s a lot of “leave traditional employment” content on this app, but it needs to be talked about for what it is. It isn’t a better life, necessarily, it’s a different one. What I loss in stress of working 50+ hour weeks, I gained in the necessity of filling out a tax self-assessment for my (much more flexible) small business. Life is a series of a choices, but got to admit (experience as a teacher NOT a parent) you’re pretty lucky if your chips land in a way that spends more time with young people!!
This is a great insight! I am new to Substack so I thought that my story was going to be really unique, but I have found that you're exactly right---lots of people who leave their careers seem to come to this app for processing and solidarity! Which I suppose means that I've found the right place.
The thing that I'm allergic to is the overly tidy and self-validating happily ever after thing. Maybe I'll get there someday, but I'm not there yet! It's all trade-offs. Sounds like we agree on that.
And I'm with you---young people are a particularly wonderful subset of the human race. They're also SO EXHAUSTING though
Oh I wanted to also address the thing about "nowhere near as impressive as yours"---this is a kind of thinking and comparison that keeps me up at night, because my espoused principles and my actual behaviors are so far apart from each other. On the one hand, I want to say--don't say that! Lawyers are not more important than teachers and we should not be more impressed by them! And while I mean that when I direct it toward you, I find myself struggling to subconsciously believe that about myself. I *feel* less impressive as a parent than I did as a lawyer. I *feel* more self-conscious when I introduce myself to a room of professionals. Why is it so hard for me to apply my own wisdom?
Haha yes young people are excellent but also exhausting. One thing I (problematically) really struggled with as a teacher was this feeling that when I introduced myself to people, they made assumptions about me. I have no idea why a) the majority of people say they could never be a teacher/ raise young kids etc. BUT b) we (and I don’t necessarily mean anyone here but “we” as a society) attribute so little respect to people who do. And I don’t just mean respect as in “yes, I respect teachers and stay at home parents,” I mean policy and salaries that make these into roles that seem aspirational rather than alternative. The not being able to hear your own wisdom thing is very relatable. I know that people working with children are doing one of the most demanding and necessary jobs (paid or unpaid), but it feels a bit like screening into an echo chamber whenever I say that to anyone who has never done it.
I enjoyed reading about this major choice you've made. So many questions...do you make money at all? Or is your wife the provider? Obviously, kids are expensive and you have a couple...
My wife is the provider! I don't make any money right now. My wife and I both structured our careers in a way that we would be able to provide independently for a family if we needed to. I'm sure I'll talk more about this in future writing but my whole life I expected to provide for my wife to stay at home with kids, but then I married a passionate professional, so we decided to swap roles!
I immediately understood what you meant when you said you’re stomach churns while watching Ashley Revell even though it was so long ago and you know the outcome… because minutes before I realized my heart was racing reading about you calling your boss and quitting you job and career. Loved reading this!
Thanks Aim ♥️♥️ sorry to stress you out. 😂
This is awesome! Thanks especially for presenting your journey with honesty and complexity - really nice to take something from your outlook without having to believe that you have everything perfectly figured out :)
Thank you so much! I keep trying to figure it all out and it keeps eluding me. Maybe tomorrow I will though
You never disappoint. This is like amazing humility mixed with chutzpah... Is it a little sad that I sometimes pray people will subscribe to my Substack just so I can subscribe to others? That's when I understand how the arts have always needed patrons. The only way I'll ever be one is to do what Ashley did. Gotta admit, I'm tempted.
Abby, you are so kind. And stop worrying about paid subscribing! I'm just very happy to have you around here :)
Beautifully written, that is all I have to say 🥹 All the very best!
I did something similar. I did a podcast about it, available here, if you are interested: https://www.ccfp.org/ccfp/why-homemakers-matter-with-ivana-greco
Great post--similar but different boat. I've hated work with a passion my whole life and it continues to get worse even as my jobs get, objectively speaking, better. It's tough not to feel crazy sometimes. I want to quit and pursue my own life desperately but fear the consequences of doing so. Subscribing for more of your thoughts
Can’t be a coincidence this came into my feed. I work in fintech and it’s the best/most grown up job I’ve ever had but I’m working on a plan to just teach swim lessons for extra income and spend more time with my almost 2 year old. It’s terrifying to think about leaving a place I enjoy so much, majorly relying on my husband’s income and going back to a job I did in high school and college.
It's SO scary! I wish I had more answers. As I alluded to, I've been glad I did what I did, with a big dash of mixed feelings. But I also didn't truly love what I was leaving. But I think trusting your heart enough to shake up your life and find a new direction when that feels like the right thing to do is the play
Oh but you ARE working. It may not be a paid job, but caregiving and (I presume) household management is Work. Which doesn’t mean parenthood is work per se, but part of it is a LOT of work. Valuable and necessary work that our society and capitalist economy has chosen to render invisible.
You're right! It's so much work. You're probably right that in my quest to optimize for clickability, I landed on something a little philosophically misleading... 😅
That might be the case if everybody and their brother didn’t also refer to full-time caregiving and household management (I.e., “stay-at-home” parenting) as “not working.” So I don’t fault you. But it’s time to change the way we talk about it.
Hear, hear!
Found this post belatedly and wanted to drop a note of appreciation. I'm a fellow elite law grad, but only a few years out of law school, and trying to figure out what I want out of this crazy, unstable world. I also am a novelist and currently balancing both careers. I love meeting people like you who made the bold choice to get off the hamster wheel of elite law and see what else is out there. Following!
Thank you so much for sharing this!🩷 I'm currently struggling with conflicting ideas about whether to provide for my family and my 3.5-years-old twins financially accepting a job and have less energy for them or live off savings and enjoy the life we currently have to the fullest. Reading this essay made me realise even though I could be ambitious like you described it as getting the next gold star, it may not bring the happiness I so deeply desire for my family if I don't have that much time and energy for them.
Hi, I write over at The Hustle Habit—a space where we’re gently unlearning hustle culture and remembering how to live slow, soul-led, and true.
If you're navigating life shifts, purpose pivots, or simply craving deeper presence… you’re not alone.
Let’s support one another as we find new ways to be. 💙
Thanks for the comment and the support! I've been amazed at the community of people who are shifting away from that grind culture. Very interesting and encouraging!
Great writing-- I look forward to reading more! I'm a mother of two, and the thought of full-time parenting makes my skin crawl. However, I am planning my exit from teaching and betting it all on writing full-time in 2 years. Not that I expect to make any money writing, of course, but it comes with the huge benefit of being more available to my family and feeling personally fulfilled (the same reasons, I imagine, people choose to full-time parent in the first place). You never mention a partner--I'm curious if you will write about that in future installments. I love telling people (especially my working mom friends), I plan to quit in two years-- I want to write through my 40s! But I always leave out the subtext "....and be supported by my husband who makes plenty of money." That's not a very noble story, I guess.
I am married and yes my wife is our breadwinner! I'm sure I'll write more about that in the future. Thanks for your comment!