My kids ruined my career--if you have any, they will probably ruin yours too.

I was awesome in high school.  No, really.  I was on swim team, and I debated, and I did theater.  I was in National Honor Society and Spanish club and a bunch of other dumb things like that.  I was quite successful.  Then I went to college, for free, because of the aforementioned high school awesomeness.  When I graduated from BYU for undergraduate (the real BYU, the one in Provo*...) I did it in two years flat and I had amazing grades, again.  I worked practically full time between my three jobs and I took a heavy load. Because, as I mentioned, I was awesome.

In fact, I was the youngest graduate from BYU.  (Not ever, but when I graduated).

Then I went to law school right away, and when I finished law school at the real UT (you know, the one in Austin**...) I took the bar exam in Texas and I was the youngest lawyer to pass it.  In fact, the next year, I was still the youngest lawyer, because I graduated from BYU at 19 and law school at 22.  See?  Awesome.

I got a job at a cool, boutique healthcare firm in Austin, Texas where I rocked it.  It was hard at first, and it was hard in the middle and it was hard in the end, but I did great.  I made a LOOOOOOOT of money and I drove a nice car and my career was right on track.  In fact, they had begun to tell me I was right where I needed to be to make partner.  Good news.  Five years of awesome work, following five years of awesome post high-school education.  (Really seven years, but I did it in five...because I was awesome, right?)

That whole time, you know what I was thinking?  Gosh, wouldn't it be nice if I didn't have to get up every single day and go to this sucky job where I have to think and think and think and get better and better and better and where they pay me to do things I wouldn't otherwise want to do on my own??? (Because folks, that's why they call it work.  You wouldn't normally want to do it...which is why they pay you.)  But honestly, when I got married, I began to think, geez, it would be awesome if I could have a baby and then another and I could just stay home with them.  Every morning when I drug myself out of bed, I would think, "Oh one day, I will have a baby and be a stay at home mom."  I had this bizarre notion that somehow I would get more sleep.  HA!! (I haven't slept in since 2007, because even on "no kids" vacations, my brain is so broken, I can't sleep past 6:45.)

But finally, after all that longing and wishing and waiting, I did it.  I had a baby and I quit my job to move out to Pennsylvania with my husband (who had just matched to Hershey, PA for residency) and I was totally alone out there, with my big fat baby boy.  He was a craaaanky pants, too.  And guess what?

I hated it.

Also, I have no earthly idea why I thought it would be better to have to take care of a baby than to get up every single morning to go to work.  At least when you're working, you get weekends.  And someone pays you.  And you occasionally look nice, and someone occasionally tells you you're doing  a good job, or you know, at least doesn't cry at you.

I am not making a joke and I am not being cute when I say--I hated being a stay at home mom.  I hated it so badly that when they assessed a condo fee and we absolutely needed the money, I immediately began hunting for a part time job.  I needed to use my brain!! 

Sadly, I wasn't licensed in PA and I hadn't spent the last nine months working on getting licensed so the only job I could find paid nothing.  The pay was crap, and the work wasn't much better.  Even so, I dropped my fat baby off for someone else to watch at least once a week and went to do the work for which I made only slightly more than I was paying for childcare and I SMILED while I did it.

A year or so later, I found this AMAAAAZING part time job that paid a little better and the work was good and the people were super nice.  I hummed along there until BAM we had to move again.  I had this bizarre blip on the Bridget career path then called "Oregon: Where Bridget actually made a living wage in a one year period, mostly by accident."  That is because I kept my old part time job from PA, and I got a new one in Oregon, and I did side work for people in Oregon under my shiny, new, Oregon law license, which was promptly and expeditiously obtained.

At this point, we needed the money because of moving and kids and blah blah blah, and that made me try harder.  Then we moved to Texas and by then, I had three kids.  I got pregnant with the fourth somewhere along the way and man that fourth really knocked me out.  I stopped taking part time work from PA.  I stopped doing much of any work at all!  I never found another part time job.  I have kept up my skills--I do wills, estate work, tax work, and contract reviews for family and friends, and there is more of that kind of work than you might think, but still, for the first time, I have had no real "job" in years.

Part of that is not the fault of my kids.  I will give credit where it's due.  I have always wanted to be a novelist and I started writing in earnest around the time my last baby was born.  I have spent a lot of my free time writing novels, none of which have been sold (published) yet.  I have found that I have a very hard time writing with kids around, too!  So to sum up, I went from AWESOME to LAME in the course of a seven year period, and honestly, it's because I have four children.  FOUR! CHILDREN! What was I thinking??

A little part of me cries inside when I think about my decimated career.  I try to carve out time, even now, to write.  I had a babysitter lined up today, but then one of my two girls at home got sick and shabam, kids are home with me.  I keep thinking it will get better.  They will all be in school soon, and then I will have more time.

I'm probably lying to myself.

I may homeschool, if it ends up being better for the kids.  I will certainly be involved in their education.  There's homework and projects and meetings and, of course, summer and holidays.  Eeeep!  What was I thinking?

All of this makes me sad about what I could have become and didn't.

But it also makes me better.  I am a better person for having my children.

I do more with the time I have, I appreciate the opportunity to work now, which I took for granted before, but most of all, I have turned myself inside out.  Every single thing I do (almost) is for another person.  I am harder working, more selfless and more complete now than I was before.  I don't mean to be patronizing to people who have no children, but it changes you, completely, down to the tiny midget toe on my left foot.

Isn't it funny how these tiny little people can turn everything upside down?  It is hard, and it is depressing sometimes, but after a while, you realize, maybe things look better this way.  Maybe your life is better upside down than it used to be when things were in place.

So yes, my kids decimated my career.  They razed it to the ground.  I used to be amazing and now I am an unimpressive, unaccomplished mom.  I am sad about it.

But my joy in my children, and in the person they have transformed me into, far surpasses any sadness I feel about the destruction of my work path.  If you are on the fence about having kids, I will only say: Do.It.

You will regret it!! You will struggle!!  It will be the hardest thing you've ever done.

But it will be worth it times ten over, I swear.

* I am kidding.  Calm down.
** I am not kidding.  University of Texas campuses outside of Austin suck.***
*** Still kidding.  Geez people.