Category Archives: Parenting & Motherhood

Family, Married Life, Mental Illness, Parenting & Motherhood

Her First Grey Hair… and Turning 31

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“You have one,” my boyfriend exclaimed in a taunting manner. “I have one what,” I asked, half paying attention. “You have a grey hair,” he said, giggling, knowing that he was pushing my buttons just a few days before turning 31 (to be fair I’ve teased him re: his own grey strands for years now.) “WHAT,” I exclaimed, suddenly feeling the blood rush away from my face, breath stop, and the panic of time punch me smack in the stomach for the nth time this week. If turning 31 wasn’t enough god though to start the decolorization process of my hair as a gift for surviving another year.

Now that I’m about 31 and topped off with one silver grey hair (or, apparently, the start of one in about an inch of root) it’s very clear that in order to accomplish anything in the life of mine I must make haste. It’s so easy to get lost daydreaming about the meaning of all this and coming to yet another lapse of solid conclusion. I think back to the days when I felt excitement for the future, for moments, for all the ups and downs of life… and I try to swallow the memory of those days when there was true unfiltered anticipation and trepidation… today I’ve completely lost that part of myself. I look forward to absolutely nothing.

Maybe that is being my bipolar self yet again, perhaps I’m in a depressed phase. Or maybe this is just the way a rational person approaches life. What will the next thing that I look forward to be? A year ago I took a trip to southeast Asia with a friend and I was somewhat excited about that – it seems travel to new places is the only thing that really excites me anymore, yet I don’t like traveling on my own and I don’t actually have time to travel with work. Instead, I just am trying to be heads down, really focused on my job. I know I’m in such a fortunate place where I have a great position in a company where I actually am interested in the subject matter and I like the people I work with and I’m getting paid well. Everything is going so great. I should be extremely elated right now. But happiness is not what I feel. I feel the rush of saving money each month. The rush of knowing that I’m increasing my networth so one day I can be free – but even if I could actually accomplish financial freedom what would that actually buy me? I spent two months without a job and I was miserable and ready to go back to work by the end of the first week.

I am convinced that the next thing I’d be actually excited about is having children and seeing them grow up and go through their own phases of over excitement in discovering their new world. Yet I don’t see a life as a mother and life as a startup executive jiving together. I don’t think I can do both. Sure, some women can, but I’m barely able to handle such a high-pressure job without the kid(s) nagging for my attention and time. I’m pretty sure I’d fall completely apart trying to do both at once, even with the support of a future-husband who would be more than thrilled to stay at home.

And, of course, I shouldn’t rely on children to resolve this emptiness in my life, the hollowness in my heart. I don’t have time for hobbies but I’m sure if I had the motivation I’d figure out a way to make time. I don’t do well in a life without structure yet I’m terrible at making structure for myself. The days and months and years just tick tick tick on and on. Soon more grey hairs will pierce through my scalp, swallowing the vibrant strands which tease as the remnants of youth. Meanwhile I’m watching my always angry father fade away from his cancer and my mother continue to nag as she nags and all of life just slip past as I beg of it to stop so I can embrace it as fully as I once did, back when every moment meant more than it should have, instead of near nothing, a fractured fragment of its absolute worth.

Aging, Dating and Relationships, Mental Illness, Parenting & Motherhood, Wedding

The Thing About Growing Up

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You know the feeling of being far from a place you’ve been so real to you that you can’t imagine it’s really gone forever? That is what it feels like to grow up. You may be able to go back to the physical place, but it’s gone no matter how there it is. And time itself is this strange continuum that seems to be on your side until about your mid twenties when suddenly it becomes your worst enemy, pulling you further and further away from the security of your long lost home.

Some days I close my eyes and find myself, as if it was yesterday, sitting in gym class frustrated beyond belief for my inability to climb a rope or run a mile. I can taste the fall air as we would be forced through physical fitness testing, cold on my lungs, as I failed pretty much everything besides the flexibility test. I can smell the leather of my friend’s dad’s car as he drove us to dance class, the burn in my lungs as I chased a school bus down the street in the rain yet another morning of waking up late, the dizziness of being a child and spinning around fast looking at the ceiling in our empty dining room to entertain myself, or lying on the cold floor of our game room pressing start and go of my tapes in order to write down their lyrics. Some moments are crisp while many are a blur, but nonetheless the place feels so real that I can only imagine if I try hard enough I could find my way back to it, despite knowing that I never can.

It’s not that I had a wonderful childhood. I was miserable most of the time. I was bullied by my parents and my friends. I was hyperactive and annoying and constantly trying to figure out a way to fit in. I was lonely and bored and unable to handle my own many imperfections. But there I was safe and free all at the same time. And growing up means letting go of that person you once were, the place where you’ll never truly return. You might as well have blasted off to another planet a one-way trip because that’s life, shooting you fast towards the night stars, whether you’re ready for it or not.

I used to be terrified of death — I’d stay up all night and try so hard to imagine myself not existing for a moment, and I couldn’t find the feeling. In eleven days I turn 31 and I know that life is not forever. I have twenty years ahead of me of either/and a strong career or family, and time is ticking onwards as a little part of me hungers to return to that place I once took pity on myself and hid in my bedroom, looking out the window at the tall trees swaying in yet another storm.

There were things to, like stability, which used to scare me that suddenly are what I long for most of all. I think this is because I grew up with such a theoretically stable life (despite constant wars raging in my household which begged to question if the stability was a benefit or a curse) I wanted none of it when I left home. At seventeen I left for college in Chicago and never once considered returning back permanently. I was running ahead full force, faster than I ever had in those mile runs of the physical fitness testing, trying to find comfort in change, afraid to settle down, afraid to stop before I was ready.

Even now I’m restless in many ways, probably more than the average person, but I still need the stable base in which to build from. I’ve found that in my boyfriend who has been there with me for the past nine years. He’s level headed and calm and he has no desire to run away from stability like a man running from a loon wielding an AK47. With a childhood where he had never-married parents who didn’t know how to handle their accidental child, he is perfectly comfortable with a planted life. And, despite not knowing each other in our childhood, we can look in each other’s eyes and still see that person we once were. For a second I am able to transport back to my home, but locked up in the arms of someone who wasn’t forcing me into a box of something I’m not, jabbing at me at every opportunity. With him I have acceptance of the girl who never got that as a child. With him, despite being lightyears away from where I’ve been and can’t physically return, I’m more home than I ever was.

 

Career, Family, Parenting & Motherhood

Biological Clock, is That You?

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Time for another post about babies. Babies are everywhere in my life, it seems. Well, not my work life. But my friends back home are having babies (actually, they’re on #2) and my friends out here are on number one. Yesterday I visited a friend’s nine-month old and today I visited another friend’s newborn. Now I see a whole host of them infesting my Facebook wall. They. Are. Everywhere.

Now that I’m 30.5, I’m really seriously thinking about having children. I’ve spent my 20s saving somewhat wisely and at this point life feels all but meaningless without a family. I could definitely see spending the rest of my life barren of children (easier to picture that then it is me as a mother) and it makes me terribly sad. Continue reading Biological Clock, is That You? →

Career, Girl Talk, Parenting & Motherhood

Top Countries to Be a Mother? USA Ranks #31

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As I approach the years when — if it’s going to happen — I will become a mother, I’m thinking a lot about what that means, logistically speaking. Growing up in America we’re taught to think that we live in the world’s greatest nation, or at least one at the top of the chain — powerful, successful, prosperous. But in terms of places where it’s best to be a mother (at least according to an annual Save the Children report) the US is dropping fast in rankings, from top 10 in 2000 to above 30 in 2014.

This report largely focuses on the health, educational, economic and political status of mothers. While the goal of the report is to remind us that there are many countries where being a mother is terribly grim, it isn’t looking so great for America either.

For a country that’s so gung-ho about making abortion illegal, and pundits noting that hell is freezing over (or something like that) now that women earning the majority of income for their families, you would think that at least our conservative nation would support the family values of making it possible to afford being a mother. Not so. In fact, the U.S. is the ONLY western country that doesn’t require paid maternity leave.

Continue reading Top Countries to Be a Mother? USA Ranks #31 →

Dating and Relationships, Family, Parenting & Motherhood

Behind or Ahead, Does it Matter?

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Seventeen or so ladies crammed together in a tiny San Francisco space drinking tea and crumpets, celebrating an upcoming birth. At the adorable baby shower I arrived late, and sat in the back with the older friends of my friend’s mother, who commented on how their group of daughter’s were not yet procreating despite being over 30. This woman was the first. They seem stunned when I noted many of my friends and acquaintances from back east were already on their second child.

I sat and ate my crumpets with organic jam, sipped my Darjeeling tea, and soothed a panic attack from claustrophobia and life-o-phobia with pastries and ice water. I texted my boyfriend: let’s have a baby, now, soon, I’m ready. I am ready. And I do want a kid. I really want to have kids. Continue reading Behind or Ahead, Does it Matter? →

Investing, Parenting & Motherhood

My Goal: $500k Networth Before Kids

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I’m terrified of having children before some sort of financial stability. While $500k networth does not mean financial independence, I think I’ll start to relax a bit once I hit this major life goal (the others are 2 kids, 1 house, + $1M by 40 and $3.5M by 65 all while being able to travel and see the world on occasion.)

This chart assumes that each year I can make an average 5% off my existing networth (figure shown below = the networth at the beginning of the year.) I reduce my monthly savings in 2017, at age 33, assuming some of that money will be going towards my first child!

Year Age interest 401k invest Networth
2014 30 $12500 $17,500 $36,000 $250000
2015 31 $15,800 $17,500 $36,000 $316,000
2016 32 $19,265 $17,500 $36,000 $385,300
2017 33 $22,903 $17,500 $30,000 $458,065
2018 34 $26,423 $17,500 $30,000 $528,468
2019 35 $30,120 $17,500 $30,000 $602,392
2020 36 $34,001 $17,500 $30,000 $680,011
2021 37 $38,076 $17,500 $30,000 $761,512
2022 38 $42,354 $17,500 $30,000 $847,087
2023 39 $46,847 $17,500 $30,000 $936,942
2024 40 $51,564 $17,500 $30,000 $1,031,289

This chart offers the same savings plan but at a better rate of return: 10%. Here I reach my $1M goal early by 38. Continue reading My Goal: $500k Networth Before Kids →

Career, Family, Girl Talk, Parenting & Motherhood

Maternity Leave at Startups: Does it Exist?

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They call us job hoppers. The average tenure of a millennial employee is just 1.5 years to 3 years, according to various studies. If only there were opportunities to actually move up within our own organizations, we won’t be so tempted to hop. But there often is a great divide between opportunity in one’s current position versus the opportunity outside of it. Leaving becomes the only way to move up.

I’m very committed to my company, so committed that I’ve probably stayed longer than I should have given the opportunities that have presented themselves. I am just hungry for a new challenge, a new topic, a new game to win. I also have, in my deep reflective thought over the past few days, realized that at this point in my career I need to surround myself by positivity and growth, not stagnation or worse.

Continue reading Maternity Leave at Startups: Does it Exist? →

Mental Illness, Parenting & Motherhood, Wealth

Getting to Where I Want to Be, Part Who’s Counting Anyway

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Returning from a romantic weekend with my s/o, I’m tingling with happiness and love. Here is, for the most part, the man of my dreams – kind, gentle, caring, funny, and willing to put up with my shenanigans as well. We spend too much time staring into each other’s eyes and talking about our plans for the future together: getting married in 2014, trying to start a family soon after, and so on.

That’s where I hit a wall. The story I like to dream of still seems impossible. I’m pushing along as hard as possible, setting my mental health issues to the side, trying to save as much as possible without a so-called frugal lifestyle, and here I am, almost at 30, and feel so terribly far behind. I look at my friends (and I know it’s a bad idea to compare oneself to anyone) and they seem somehow more ahead and settled then I’ll be in the next few years. My Facebook newsfeed is filled with images of too-cute babies, some who aren’t even babies anymore, some who have siblings to boot, and all created by people who are my age or younger. The younger sisters and brothers of people in my class are getting married off, some who are 5, 6, 7 years younger than me, are already popping buns out of their ovens.

Here I am, nearing the big 3-0, with no clear direction in my life other than this fantasy of adulthood that doesn’t seem real at all. A very irrational part of me wants to wake up one day a mother. She no longer cares about a big fancy wedding – in fact, she’s been with her s/0 for nearly 7 years and with that practically feels married anyway. Vows are not necessary to prove love. Many marriages end before the seven year anniversary of a couple meeting in real life, what’s to say those marriages are any more real than the one that we haven’t signed documents or been stuck with needles to verify? I’ve always thought marriage was a silly concept. Either you love someone and you’ll stay with them or you won’t, but having a binding legal contract to tie you to another person doesn’t make sense (unless divorce were to be illegal. Otherwise, the only winners are the lawyers.) Continue reading Getting to Where I Want to Be, Part Who’s Counting Anyway →

Dating and Relationships, Girl Talk, Parenting & Motherhood

Marry for Love or Money?

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When I mention my boyfriend and likely future-husband-to-be is unemployed, my commenters frequently point out that I’m an idiot for dating him. “He’s pulling you down,” wrote Erin on a post I wrote over the weekend. Maybe I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life by falling for him, but I don’t think that’s the case. Here’s why:

I never knew what I wanted in a relationship until I met *Derek (names changed to protect the innocent.) I had dated a few guys before off and on, but everything felt fake, like I had to be something I’m not to be with them. Derek was different. We met performing in a local community theater. He was shy yet extremely handsome. His smile melted my heart from day one. As I got to know Derek, I discovered he was perhaps the sweetest man on earth. He cared so much for others and lacked all selfishness which was so common in my family and in myself. He made me realize that no matter how much money I had or didn’t, I could always be happy just cuddling up to him and watching our favorite TV show. For better or worse, wealth started to matter less when I met him.

Continue reading Marry for Love or Money? →

Career, Class & Wealth, Family, Infertility, Parenting & Motherhood

Forget Marriage, She Wants a Baby… or Two… or Three

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In 18 months, less than two years away, I’ll be turning 30. While 30 doesn’t feel old, it does send stabbing pangs into my head regarding my biological clock. With PCOS, it’s already ticking faster than most other women, and it may very well be too late to have my own children. Even though I don’t necessarily want to be a mom today, I don’t not want to be a mom ever.

Yes, there are plenty of ways, such as adoption, to have children if you cannot reproduce because you’re too old or infertile, but a tiny, fast-growing part of me wants my own kids. I guess ultimately I feel like the purpose of life — if you choose to believe in a purpose — is to reproduce. Not everyone can do it and it’s not good for everyone to do it because of overcrowding. If I really wanted to not be selfish (unless you ask my mother) I’d avoid childbearing and help reduce the taxing on the environment of yet another human being.

Forgetting logic, though, I really do want to be a mother. Still, I’m terrified for so many reasons…

  • Will I be a good mother?
  • Am I just attracted to the idea of children because I feel like life has no purpose?
  • Can someone like myself actually be a mom? I can barely mange myself!
  • Will I regret having children because I’m terrible at commitments and this is something that clearly you can’t go back on…???
  • What about money? How are you going to afford kids? Yes, you’ve managed to save up $180k in investments and savings, and have a stock package that has a small tiny chance of being worth enough to put you over the $1M networth mark by 40, but raising kids is extremely expensive, and with small houses costing $1.2M, can you really ever give your children the life you want to give them, instead of one that leads you to debt?
  • Wouldn’t you just be better off continuing to work throughout your life and saving money?

Then, I remind myself that there are plenty of people who make much less than I do, and heck, are probably less responsible than I am, who have a child, or a few of them. That’s not to say they should or that gives me a right to go off and reproduce, but it gives me courage that I’m probably not going to be the worst mother on earth. I already know that I have so much love to give and have been waiting my own life to have someone or someones to give that love to.

I’ve been reading a lot of posts online about mothers who regret having children. Most complain about having no time in their lives to do the things they enjoyed — travel, go to galleries, hang out with friends, read a book — and it so happens I don’t have the time for that now with my work schedule, so I can’t imagine I’d miss too much. I’m sure it would be extremely hard for the first few years of having children and I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like, but at the very least I feel pretty confident that I’m tired of freedom in my life and want something to life for.

It doesn’t help matters that so many of my friends are posting photos of their adorable first or second children — just born — with big eyes staring out at the world, so innocent and pure. I feel so confused looking at these images — part jealously, part awe, part horrified of what that means. Life is going by so quickly — I return home to my family a few times a year and each time I’m there everyone looks like they’ve aged another decade. My father is ill with termial cancer, my mother is neurotic as always yet turning into an old woman, her skin finally wrinkling as she approaches 60. My cousins and aunts and uncles aren’t who I remember them to be anymore. My family has grown up without me — which is my fault, having made the choice to move away — but I’m ready for a family to grow up with me.

My boyfriend certainly wants children. Half the time all we talk about is our future together with our kids. Other than his inability to obtain a full time job for the entirety of his 20s, he’ll be an absolutely wonderful father. I know that he’s the one — sure he’s not perfect, but he’s loving, smart, and wise, as well as more idealistic than I’ll ever be. I could (somewhat) easily find someone who has a more settled life, but ultimately I’d be too scared to live up to that person’s expectations of a wife. With my bf, I know he loves me for who I am, with all my many imperfections. And I love him in return, and despite being freaked out by the financial story of our relationship, I will always be with him.

It could be worse. He could be in debt, or have terrible credit. The good news is that he’s very smart with money, with the exception of making it. He lives in a free-standing structure behind his grandparents house and doesn’t have to pay rent, just basic electricity and internet. He’s received help for his car and covers gas and food with a part-time job, for which he gets paid to little for his role and experience. But he isn’t in debt. His parents aren’t wealthy, but they’re extremely frugal, and when the time comes both of us theoretically will have an inheritance of some sort from both sides. Today, he doesn’t have savings or a retirement account, which is concerning. Then again, deep down I feel like I’m the one who has to be the breadwinner and I’ve put all my chips on this startup where I was an early employee and – though odds are I won’t get rich from it — where I may just be able to eek out some life security without being a slave to work throughout my children’s lives.

The trouble is — what if that fantasy doesn’t work out? What is my stock ends up being worthless? Yes, I’m still being wise with my saving to some extent (I could be saving more, I bought myself a nice TV last month for $500 and managed to spend another $500 on Amazon odds and ends) but until I hit $1M in the bank excluding housing I won’t feel like I can have children. That cushion would not ensure that I can stop working, but it would make me confident that I could have the life I’ve dreamed of, and to somewhat — as a spoiled middle class person — expected. My bf doesn’t require any of the finer things in life, he’d be happy living in a tent somewhere, but I’d like an average upper middle class life for my family, and one where I don’t need to work 60 hours a week to obtain it.

But how long do I wait until I feel like this life is a real possibility before having kids? I know it is going to be extremely hard for me to have children no matter when I do it, and with 1.5 years left until 30, I’m panicing a bit. I don’t need to have children the day I turn 30, but I can easily see 30 turning into 32 turning into 40. I know I have about two years left until all of my stock is vested, so I’m commited to my current life for at least that long, assuming the company keeps doing well and I keep liking my job. After that — if all is going well — I’m sure I’ll have great professional options where my salary could increase, but I’ll be confronted with the dilemma of deciding on leaving the professional world to have a child or staying and putting off children for another few years, and likely never having them.

Ideal world, 2015 rolls around, I’ve just turned 31, I’ve been married for a year, and I am ready to take a break from the professional world to have children. And at this time, I’ve also at least saved $300k – $400k, which isn’t enough to put me at ease, but is enough where I could maybe have a child and not feel so scared about commiting myself and my family to a life of living paycheck to paycheck, or worse.