Dilemmas of motherhood...

I had lunch with a wonderful friend. Now she’s wonderful for a various number of reasons. She is kind, she is hardworking, she is not judgmental, and she gets me. She is also 10 years younger than me, which, funnily enough, is like many of my friends. I don’t know why many of my friends are so much younger, maybe I’m young at heart, or maybe I’m a great mentor and people like to learn from me….

But I digress.

What I wanted to say, was she is in her career, where I was in my career, at her age. She is at the top of the ladder and loving it. I had just got married at her age, and was about to fall pregnant, but I was a high flier, and doing well. I am now not such a high flier 10 years later, and I have two kids and an ex husband dragging behind me. Life has changed somewhat.

Anyway, we discussed where we were in life and where we wanted to be. I discussed going back into the ‘tough corporate fighting’ arena, or slowing down, and having a family life. I have decided you can’t have it both, and I have to say that I think the former kills the latter.

So, I told her, I was looking to the easier (and less financially rich) life, for the purposes of having a rich and valuable relationship with my kids and lover. My father worked like a dog all his life, and I have very little relationship with him. Not that he made much of an effort to actually improve the relationship when he was at home, mind you, but so be it. I don’t want that.

I don’t want a life that does not have strong family ties to my kids, for the short-lived pleasure of having much more money and no doubt swish holidays.

I think that 5 years of hard work and lots of money will equate to 40 years of bad family relationships and lonely geriatric days.

I’ve seen it before,I know how it works, and I’m not gonna let it happen to me!