How To Love Life After Your Kids Leave

Life before kids…

What was your life like before you had kids?  Think hard.

It seems a little fuzzy to me. They’ve always been with me or so it seems.  

Actually, it’s been 24 years since my daughter was born and 20 years since my son was born.  So, yeah, life before my kids was more than a few years ago.

Do I remember life before them?  I do.  Did I enjoy my life before I had kids?  Of course.  Did life shift drastically when I had my daughter?  Yep!  Did I put some things on hold while I raised my kids?  You bet.

Don’t all moms do that???

I think as a mom, you want the best for your kids.  If that means that you make some sacrifices in order to provide the best life for them that you can, then that’s seems okay.

Often the first thing to get sacrificed is our careers and that was true for me!

You see, my daughter was born with some health issues.  It meant that for the first two years of her life she was in & out of the hospital and doctor’s office a lot.  She was sick.  She needed surgeries and she needed me to take care of her.

My response to this challenging start to her life was to be a stay-at-home mom.  I honestly didn’t feel that I had too much of a choice.  She was so sick at times that I would have missed more work days than I attended.  My life at that moment consisted of a brand new master’s degree and a very sick newborn on my hands.  So, instead of using my new degree, I put my career on hold and stayed home with my daughter.

I don’t regret it!

I don’t regret the decision to focus on my daughter the first couple of years of her life!

I’m so grateful that I was able to be there for my daughter.  She needed the support & I was in a position where I could be there for her full-time.  So, that’s just what I did.

Then almost 4 years later, I had my son and any ideas of a career took a backseat to raising my kids.  At that point, I was completely absorbed in being a full-time mom.

Now, I did work part-time while my kids were growing up, but that was not the original trajectory that I was on.  I had planned to work full-time and be the career woman.  That just didn’t work out as I thought.

Does this life sound familiar to you?

Putting a career on hold is something that a lot of moms do.  Many of us are happy to do this, but it does shift your life’s path somewhat.

I’ve talked to many moms who either quit a job to stay at home with their kids or they worked a job that wasn’t ideal simply because it provided some benefits for the family.  Some moms worked part-time and only while their kids were in school.  Others took a job because of the health insurance that they needed and wanted for their family.  You may not particularly like the job but that health insurance was important to you so you did what you needed to do in order to provide for your child.  Still other moms, needed the income that a specific job could bring.  Again, the job wasn’t ideal but the income was necessary.

Time to shift my life again.

Now that I’m not raising my kids full-time anymore, I’ve been able to get back to the career that I originally wanted.

However, my career isn’t what I originally imagined.  Like so many of you, the dreams that I had before kids aren’t the dreams that I have now.  So, I put my master’s degree to the side & created a career that is right for me now.

How did I do this?

Well, it took a lot of exploration.  I had to connect into what is important to me NOW.  To go back to a career that no longer interested me wouldn’t have worked out well.  Instead, I needed to create something that fit me in this chapter of life.

You can do that too!

For me, that one big thing that I put on hold was my career.  What was it for you?  Is there something that you put to the side so that you had more time to focus on your kids?

Do you want it back in your life?  Does that original version of your dream still fit you or do you need to shift it in some way?

What would you like to bring back into your life now that you have more freedom with your time?

If you can’t answer these questions right now, then sit with them a bit.  Give yourself some space to let those answers come to you.

You gave so much of yourself to raise your kids.  You deserve to give some of that energy to yourself now!

I’m starting Who Am I Now? January 31st.  It’s designed to help you connect into your dreams and goals again.  

Think a bit about what you want to do, be or have in this stage of your life. If you’d like to have a chat about whether Who Am I Now? is right for you, then schedule it here.

Until next week…

Love & hugs,

Becky