Fatherhood Factor

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Work and Family

The Fine Line Between Career Success & Parenting Failure

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Career Success & ParentingCan you really be successful in a career and in parenting at the same time?

I suppose that depends on your definition of success. Are we aiming for intrinsic satisfaction or outward achievement?

As Seth Godin might say, “Is the work an end to a means or are we concerned about the process — the art of creating something that makes a difference?”

Are we  all about the “winning” or the steps that got us there?

It’s not to say that we should treat our career like a family or our family like a career, but they are not diametrically opposed.

The challenge is nurturing a passion for your work that doesn’t suck the life out of your family.

Unless you are independently wealthy, you have to make a living…and if you are like most, I would bet that your spouse does too.

So, if work is a necessity, and likewise parenting, then the logical progression would dictate that the two should live in harmony with one another.

It sounds so easy right? We all know it’s anything but.

So much of life is about the middle. In parenting and in work, the beginning and the end happen in an instant. The real story, the meat, takes place during the transition from start to finish.

Now you’ve got a decision to make.

– Will your career cannibalize your family?
– Will you decide that professional obscurity is the only way to remain a committed father?
– Or, will you choose to do work that you believe in, while being a dad that’s present and committed?

It might be a fine line, but it’s a line that we must choose to walk.

What Are Your Priorities?

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Assuming that most people reading this post have more than one facet to their lives, I feel its commonplace to say that it can be difficult to set our priorities accordingly.

As a dad, the real question for me is not whether I need to prioritize but rather what should my priorities look like?  Having been through a barrage of professional training courses and seminars that discuss priority setting, I am always interested in what people deem a priority.

For instance, I found a cross-linked article on the National Fatherhood Initiative site that was part of their work/family programming.  The article, written by Charlotte E. Grayson Mathis, MD, originated from Web MD and it focused on five tips to a better work/life balance.

Okay, it’s not a revolutionary approach I admit, but it is the simplistic nature of the first step that really got me thinking.  Mathis contends that we must start by figuring out what really matters to us in life.  How many dads out there have actually sat down and thought about what really matters most to us?  What are the elements of my life that are the non-negotiable’s?  Not only this, but what should my non-negotiable’s be?

In the article, Mathis encourages people to perform an exercise where they ask themselves, “If there was one thing that my life could focus on and one thing only, what would that be”?  She then instructs her clients to do the same thing until they have their top five priorities.  Given this exercise, what would your top five be?  Without ordering your priorities in a way that would garner the most respect, what would your list look like?

The challenge then becomes deciding whether or not you agree with the sequence.  You may find that your golf game really shouldn’t be infringing on your family time or that your career goals may need redesigned in order to accommodate your commitments at church.

For each father there is a time and a place when we come face to face with the nature of our character.  Although we may not be defined by what we do, we certainly display the priorities of our heart by how we spend our time.

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Have Your Cake and Eat it Too (The Sequel)

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As promised, I decided to write another post that focused on the topic of pursuing career goals while remaining a connected father.


In the previous post, under the same title, I discussed the concept of not having to choose between your career and your family.  This was prompted by the President’s comments on the need of our society to develop greater flexibility in the workplace.  Although I challenged the idea of not having to choose between work and family, I was curious about the probability that an organization would lessen its intrusion on the family.  And not only that, but the concept of a company moving towards building in more time to accommodate family growth, was even more intriguing.

This is undoubtedly a tall order.  However, I have come across some instances where companies have worked towards added flexibility for this exact purpose.

For instance, NPR recently began a series on work/family balance that contained some interesting testimonials and trends.  The story initially centered on a new company start-up whose owner had experienced a traumatic disconnect from their family when they were an employee for another organization.  After years of missing sporting events, plays, and dinnertime, the owner decided to develop an organization that could adapt to the busy lives of parents.  This was accomplished by allowing employees to set their own schedules and to work remotely whenever they deemed necessary.


While I could fill a couple of posts detailing the options available to companies, the most interesting aspect of the research was how this kind of altered work environment is seeing more acceptance and finding more demand from employees.  Many organizations are embracing the home/work link as a reality.  This link proposes that if an employees’ home life is in turmoil, then there will be an adverse reaction in the workplace.  From a demand perspective, it is not only parents that expect flexibility, but the millennial’s and the boomer’s are finding it necessary as well.  This is especially true if they are to value their company’s employment long term.


My point of jabbering on about all these facts is that dads have more of these opportunities available to them than they may have known.  Apart from the reality that some industries must have a more rigid structure (such as manufacturing), the opportunity for small but significant changes are completely plausible.  Additionally, the days of suggesting that giving employees this kind of flexibility will result in a workforce of miscreants, is archaic and unsupported by current data.


So what am I suggesting here?  Should guys start jumping ship and finding jobs where flexibility is more readily available?  Maybe that would be the best move.  However, the idea here is that many organizations have the ability to evolve in to a more accommodating workplace.  Why not approach a manager or open the conversation to your peers?  You would be amazed at the influence that a motivated workforce has when their ideas carry value on both sides of the argument.  If our intent is to bring a greater semblance of strength and continuity to our homes, then we should not hesitate to alter our career to fit our families….and not the other way around.
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Balancing Work and Family

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For those dads out there that work outside the home there is a great deal of pressure surrounding the balance between family and work.

What are some practical suggestions that a dad can implement right away?  Where should the priority lay when work and family conflict with each other?  Can you be successful in a career, continue to advance, and still be an engaged father that participates in his children’s life?

Take a look at an article that I wrote regarding this matter….it may provide some practical advice and maybe even challenge your current approach to this issue.

Happy reading!

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