Choosing a Career That Aligns with Your Values as a Parent

*Collaborative Post

Parents sometimes have a complex relationship with work. Naturally enough, when you have children, you also have a higher level of expenses.

This, however, does not necessarily mean that maximizing your earning potential is the best way to prioritize career options.

While it’s appealing to work in a way that ensures your family’s financial needs are met—and that you can provide additional experiences in the form of travel and enjoyment—you also want to be present.

Are there careers that allow you to strike an ideal balance? Absolutely. Every family’s needs are different, and there are jobs available to reflect the wide range of considerations that go into career selection.

In this article, we take a look at how you can pick a job that makes the most sense for you.

Decide on Your Priority

First, it’s important to figure out what actually matters most to you. Generally speaking, there are several considerations that a person can make:

• Maximize salary
• Maximize flexibility
• Maximize work-life balance

Unfortunately, it’s rare to find a career that fully takes all three factors into account. As a parent, it’s important to determine not only what makes the most sense for you, but also what will best suit the needs of your family.

Many working moms and dads find that while money is nice, the old adage holds true: it’s not everything.

You want to provide opportunities, but one of those opportunities should be a steady and consistent relationship with you.

In the next few headings, we take a look at careers that can provide a rewarding blend of competitive compensation and balance.

Nursing

While nurses work very hard, they have more flexibility than many people on the outside realize.

For one thing, a nurse’s work week is usually 36 hours or less, which is slightly below the average 44-hour work week.

The shifts are also divided across three days instead of five in many cases. Yes, that does mean your shifts will be unpleasantly long in certain circumstances, but it nevertheless provides a strong opportunity to ensure stability in your household while earning a reasonably competitive salary.

Some nurses even work in schools, giving you the chance to match your schedule exactly to that of your children.

Social Work

Social work is not necessarily flexible in the same way nursing can be. Social workers typically work 40 hours or more per week, often during the daytime.

However, it’s important to remember that there are many different types of social work positions, and within this variety, there are options that may better suit the needs of a parent seeking balance.

Some social workers may take evening shifts or work in school environments like nurses. Just as importantly, they do meaningful work that provides pride and satisfaction. Why does that matter?

These qualities are two of the biggest predictors of retention. In other words, if you want to choose a career you’ll actually stick with, you should prioritize qualities that genuinely matter—compensation included, but often ranking below flexibility, personal satisfaction, and impact.

People want jobs that make a difference in the world, and social work certainly falls into that category. To that end, it’s a strong career for providing stability and consistency within your household.

Self-Employment Opportunities

Self-employment is admittedly not for everyone, but it’s a more accessible option than many people assume—especially now. You don’t need to take out a $600,000 business loan to get started.

Many people work freelance, operate online, or create small businesses with nothing more than their phones and computers.

Self-employment is certainly stressful in several ways. Your income may be small to nonexistent at first, and unpredictable afterward.

You may also need to work irregular hours, particularly in the beginning. Nevertheless, if you can make self-employment work, it is arguably the most flexible option available to parents.

Remote Work

Remote work is admittedly vague and could even include any of the careers we’ve already mentioned, but it’s also an increasingly common option for jobs that were once strictly brick-and-mortar.

For example, many high-pressure business roles that required daily office presence can now be performed from home.

If you are interested in being able to pick up your kids from school or show up when the nurse calls to say they have a fever—something that happens with serious regularity—remote work is an excellent way to make that possible. The flexibility it provides can be invaluable for parents.

Remote work is still a job at the end of the day. You’ll most likely still work 40 hours a week or more, and you may experience the unique challenge of navigating work-life balance while working from home.

Even so, the overall experience is typically more flexible than working in an in-person office.

Deciding on a Career Path That Makes the Most Sense for Your Family

Ultimately, the job you choose will depend primarily on your priorities as a parent. There is no objectively right or wrong way to approach this decision.

Instead, you need to determine what makes the most sense for your family. It is undeniably helpful to have someone who can flexibly meet the constant and often unpredictable needs of a child—school drop-off and pick-up, classroom volunteer opportunities, chaperoning field trips, responding to calls from the school, which will happen, and managing less predictable tasks like weekday pediatrician visits or finding a Walgreens with amoxicillin in stock during strep throat season.

These needs are constant and difficult to plan for, particularly when you have a job with very little wiggle room.

That said, many parents are in this exact situation, and not all of them work in highly flexible careers. The key is simply to make sure the full scope of your children’s needs is being taken into account.

Perhaps you have a partner who can handle those unpredictable situations, or maybe the two of you can split them. Maybe you lean on an extended support system—grandparents, aunts, uncles, close family friends, and so on. Everyone has their own way of making it work. Find the one that makes the most sense for your family.

*This is a collaborative post. For further information please refer to my disclosure page.