Professional and Family Considerations
change management, passion, presentations, professional development July 26th. 2009, 1:39pmI am about to celebrate 4 years of Connecting Librarian and its interesting that it is coinciding with an interesting time in my life, when my professional and personal balances are concerned.
Since I attended the Aurora Leadership Institute in February this year, I have been thinking more seriously about my profession and where I want to go with it. I absolutely love being a librarian and love my job. I also love my family with all my being. I have been able to balance these two passions quite successfully by working part-time for the past ten years – since my eldest was born.
But now I find I want to do more with my profession. Not that I have been quiet or anything (lol). I have presented at lots of seminars, a few conferences and am starting to get a few things published and I’m enjoying all that immensely and have made a lot of professional contacts and good friends out of that. But that’s feeling like its not enough anymore. I want to do more as a librarian, see if I can make more of an impact on our profession and in a library service and I can’t do that as well as I would like, working part-time at a lower middle-management level position. So that means going back to full-time work and all the impacts that would have on me and my family.
I love what I do, let’s make that clear. So I guess it seems a bit selfish to want more. Maybe that’s one of my struggles.
The other is my family, in particular my kids. I made a decision after Aurora that I would start looking for full-time employment, at a more senior level in 2010. That would give my husband and I time to adjust to the idea and for me to help get the kids ready for the change. The problem is that they’re already keen for the change (although I’m sure they don’t understand all the implications), its me that’s struggling with the concept.
We have been getting the kids ready by letting them take some more responsibility – in the main, in getting to and from school by themselves. When I don’t work, I had been dropping them and collecting them from school – they in now doing that for themselves (with a lot of checks and balances in place of course – I’m still a neurotic mother 
). They are loving it. They keep asking me when they can go to the next step.
I’m the one who is holding back, because I’m going to miss this so much. I know its going to change anyway as they grow older and become more independent, but I find that I am trying to hold onto this moment in their lives as long as possible. Again, what you would expect from a mother, but not what I would have expected of myself.
Although I have the greatest respect for stay-at-home mum’s, I knew early on that it wasn’t something I could do. By the time I had been home 6 months with my newborns, I was going stir crazy. Working part-time has given me the best of both worlds and allowed me to be a better mother as a result. For that I am truly grateful, to both my husband and my workplace for giving me the opportunity to do this.
So 10 years on, its time for a change and time to deal with all the struggles it entails. I know I can make a difference in my profession and I know there will be differences at home, I just hope that we can all adapt to it as we have done in other situations before.
Anyway, as ever, this blog has been a place to help me get my thoughts straight on something I have been mulling over. If you have gone through a similar process, I would love to hear how you have managed it and whether it has worked out for you and your family – both personally and professionally. An encouragement or a caution if you please – either way they would be much appreciated.
July 26th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I was going to say “getting the balance right – it never happens”, which was my inital thought. As much as people (mainly women) say you can do it all, or you can balance it all, it’s never balanced.
Thinking it through some more, I think it’s exceptionally hard/almost impossible but we still try anyway.
You get the professional life working well, and the family life slides. You get the family life right and your professional life takes a back seat. I feel you can do both but it will never be balanced (not that it necessarily has to be balanced).
As one who has recently gone part time, after 20+ years of working full time as a librarian, the last 18 months with a toddler at home, I will say you can’t have it all. Personally it took me a long time to make the decision to go part time, and I’m happy I’ve made that decision but there are times when I wish I’d either a) stayed full time and maintained a management role (unfortunately that was one of the things I had to consider when going part time) or b) not gone back to work at all (not really a realistic choice for me as I would have gone nuts) or c) tried a different field/profession altogether (something I’m toying about since I’ve been working in the family business).
One of the reasons I decided to work part time was to try and get more quality family time, but it has been at the expense of my professional career. I also wanted to continue in the library world, because that is part of my identity, separate to my family, husband and friends and it is a profession that I also love. Ultimately, like most other working women, I’m trying to have it all – working time, family time and building a business.
I know you have managed to create a great balance for yourself and your family so far, and all the measures you have put in place are fantastic. All I can say is that it is exceptionally hard work, and usually something has to give, and usually its the person trying to make it all happen (you).
An eighth day wouldn’t go astray for yourself……
July 27th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I shifted to permanent part-time after my first child was born. There still isn’t enough time to do everything!! On the work side, there are some things I can’t do because I am not there every day. On the other hand, I have more time to reflect on what’s happening and develop special projects — but this probably depends on where you work. If I moved up a rung, I’d have a lot more form-checking and such to do. That’s the down-side of having power in my organisation. The question is: do you want power, or influence? I’m going for influence.
On the family side, you might want to consider things like school and community involvement, your children’s after-school activities (use of Mum’s taxi service), the likelihood of older family members needing care of various kinds in the next decade, not forgetting (gulp) disposal of deceased estates. We can cope with long work hours when everyone’s healthy and so on, but throw in a crisis of some sort and things can get very difficult. In my case, I was involved in a car accident 18 months ago, which has given me minor but persistent back problems. I have really noticed the difference in my ability to juggle roles since. And did I mention the renovations we’re planning…?
July 27th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
As a full time library manager with 4 daughters I can tell you that it is hard to do everything and do it as well as you would like! I am often torn between conflicting demands from home and work and I have to fight to get time for me. I need to be incredibly organised with meals, shopping, transport to school, work and sporting events. Even our youngest, at 9 years old has a daily calendar so she knows who is collecting her from school each afternoon. The weekend is never long enough and I am always tired but I do love my work, my family (in small doses) and spending time with my friends whenever I can. I would like more time to read, sleep and relax with my husband. I guess that is what retirement is for:)
July 29th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
[...] work full time and find a more influential position and the impact this may have on her family, Connecting Librarian: Professional and Family Considerations : …now I find I want to do more with my profession….I want to do more as a librarian, [...]
July 29th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Such a hard one. I studied and worked part time for years and loved it when the children were small. The study was only one unit a semester at times and the work was minimal. I have been working fulltime for six years- and it is hard. My children are now 13 and 16- but luckily I have a reasonably flexible workplace that lets me work from home at times and I live five minutes away from work, home and schools and that all helps a lot. School holidays are hard. I resented hardly ever being on holiday when my husband was as we were always taking holidays separately to cover all the weeks. I am always talking about working less hours- ideally 3 days a week- but can’t at present for a range of reasons.
If you go for fulltime work try and negotiate extra leave – 8 weeks or so?- and that will give you a break and get you through school holidays.
Really hard – it’s def. made our children more helpful around the house- they both cook weekly, although now they are deeply into teenage-hood- they need help in so many other ways!!
And of course you can plan and plan and plan – and then someone gets sick and throws the whole schedule into disarray!
Best of luck