Family or Career? Why Neither Is The Right Answer.
5/28/21
Hello everyone!
So this week we are digging into something that has been on my mind for a while lately. This topic is pretty nuanced and what I have to say may not be quite what you’d expect, so let’s get into it.
Family or career? Relationship or travel, independence, freedom? In at least American society, these things are often treated as oil and water. If you have one you cannot completely have the other. But why do we subscribe to this reality?
I remember discovering the tension of this as I was growing up. It all started with having two very career-driven parents and lots of long-term baby sitters. Between my parents starting and running their own company and my dad touring America as a Country artist on the rise, I was used to having busy parents. I can only remember so much about that experience growing up; I don’t know how many times they took me with them or left me in Florida with my younger sister. All I know is that when I look back on the overarching feeling I felt during those years, it was that I missed them.
I don’t say that to guilt my parents or to infer that they did anything wrong, but that is just the thing- balance is hard and when it comes to things of that nature, it is very hard to find and maintain. And the notion of that stuck with me.
As I’ve imagined my own career one day out in the future, I kept that feeling much closer to heart than I initially realized. I kept it so close that I kept everyone else away. If a friend checked out of my life I didn’t have to worry, it was just preparing me for the lonely future of being a touring artist. If a boy broke my heart I was okay, I had more content to write songs about and an ultimate sense of relief for my independence. I struggled fitting in as a kid and after enough time, I realized that I had become more afraid of fitting in one day than I was of being alone. Fitting in meant caring about people which meant people having access to my heart. Fitting in meant inevitable goodbyes would be just that much harder.
I was mentally preparing to live a life where I could trust no one, where I would never have a romantic relationship, where I didn't depend on any friendships, where the possibility of creating a family was obsolete. But why? Why did my desires for a career send me so deep into isolation from the world?
It all comes back around to this idea of family or career. And at least for me, being a woman makes this feel heavy in a unique way. This idea about women being stronger and more successful when they are not distracted by love/family sat painfully on top of seeing many people in my life sacrifice all of their personal potential to sustain family units. I saw for my dad how having a wife and two small children closed doors for his career. I discovered how my Nana wasn’t allowed to go to high school and was illegally married off when she was 16 to a man she didn’t want to be with simply due to the society she was raised in.
No matter which way I looked at it, things could never turn out right for me. I either had to choke the life out of my dreams to be a singer who traveled all over the world or choke the life out of my deep desire to have community, a partner, deep friendships, and a sense of stability. How in the world could I possibly be created for both things? And for all of you out there wrestling with this same question, what is the answer?
For the sake of time, let’s look at it like this: Is it possible to find true love and partnership with another human being, with all that that may grow to entail, while also reaching your fullest potential in the career of your dreams?
YES! IT IS!!!
Well, in theory it is.
Actually, I would dare to argue that being with the right person enables you to achieve even greater heights in your career than you would be able to achieve otherwise.
So here is something that I have been discovering in an entirely new light as of recent - if your idea of love is incorrect, the answer to the question I posed above is a firm no. You cannot have a life partner and achieve your dreams if you are with the wrong person and have the wrong mindset. We are all told that good things take work and this is true, but let’s clarify the right and wrong types of work:
Right type:
Life throws curveballs at you
Health struggles
Family issues
Financial complications
Wrong type:
One or both partners having a selfish outlook on life in general
Greatly struggling to compromise/communicate
Life goals/morals that don’t compliment each other at all
Unbalanced relationship - for example, say you have a strong physical attraction to your partner but your best guy friend is the only one you can emotionally open up to. In essence, having a partner who isn’t filling all the spaces that they should be in your life.
Now don’t hear me wrong- every couple will struggle to some degree with things like communication and decision making. This is natural. But where you’ll find the biggest trouble is where the relationship begins.
To give you an example, I once fell for a boy who was still in High School when I had just graduated and was planning to move out of state for college in just a few months. On top of this, our friend groups could not have been more starkly opposite. From a moral standpoint, I was pretty secure whereas he was experimenting with some pretty harmful things relationally and physically. This on top of countless other things basically meant that we were doomed from the very start. But I had this false idea that maybe time would change things or maybe at some point things could work between us. It worked like that in movies and TV shows all of the time, so why wouldn’t it work for me?
Needless to say, three years and lots of heartache later, I finally gave up and put an end to things. I learned that relationships are supposed to be hard, but in an ultimately rewarding way- not a distracting, draining, emotionally damaging way.
I mention all of that to say that you need to be looking for the utter opposite of that and refusing to settle until you find it. Because choosing the wrong partner is much worse than choosing none at all. And chances are, you already know deep down that the thing you’re chasing isn’t right.
I am 22 and I don’t have all of the answers just yet, but I have been deep into God’s word on true design for partnership. And it turns out that our culture is promoting harmful things to us whether it is in the form of independence or of romantic love/families.
While that is a conversation that I could probably write an entire book on at some point, here is what I am on the verge of personally learning right now:
I am currently in a relationship that is blowing my absolute mind and here is why:
We didn’t have to uncomfortably insert ourselves into each others lives or friend groups, we both fit pretty seamlessly in each others world right off the bat.
We have nearly identical values, thoughts on the world, ideas of fun, morals, and priorities. And it was that way from the very beginning of our friendship (that eventually led to dating lol).
We both function in the same career genre- the music industry. We have different loves within it that actually compliment each other. We have unique talents that both aid and enable the other person.
We both have a sense of partnership. And by that I mean we consider each other in our communication styles, we are open to saying sorry when necessary, and we actively work to become better together without the other person having to spell out obvious specifics.
We easily became best friends. There is no topic we can’t talk about, no secret we have to keep, no judgement or hiding between us. Even though we grew up in different places, we never run short of fun in each others company. Whether we are making a Walmart run, cooking dinner, or discussing the deeper meaning of existence, we are solid. No boring, awkward, or uncomfortable moments. Even silence is peaceful with him.
Those are just a few things I am experiencing in my relationship. And I mention them simply to encourage you that it is possible to find someone who instantly gels with you. In fact, it is what you should expect to find. What I described above should be a bare minimum, a normal standard. But so often that is not the experience people have.
You may think you’re just compromising in a healthy way when really, you’re leaving dreams to die that will build resentment in your relationship later on. And if you never allow love into your story in order to chase a dream, you are building resentment towards that entire lifestyle to unpack later on as well. If you deeply desire both things, then you are likely created to have both. Allowing yourself to get caught up in the narrative of either/or is not only going to harm you, but your future and all who will be a part of it. Don’t let that be your story. And if you’re reading this as someone who already feels that it is your story or it’s about to be, I promise you it is never too late. I can’t see what you’re going through, but I firmly believe that God has a plan and purpose for all things and desires to restore all that has been lost or broken.
I believe that if your heart deeply desires love, then love is going to be a part of your story. But you want to make sure you are praying for and waiting for the person that is created to enable your dreams as much as you are created to enable theirs. The point of joining your life with another persons is to become a new creation together; to do things as a unit that neither of you could have ever done alone. Obviously, a family can be one of the most tangible forms of that. But your dreams and your career are absolutely designed to be a part of your relationship as well! Why else would God create us with individual talents, passions, and desires? Maybe you are meant to foster together or maybe you aren’t meant to have any children at all, maybe you are meant to travel the world or maybe you’re meant to plant your roots deeply in one city. That’s the beauty of it: it is up to the two of you and God to determine what your lives together can become.
If you have questions, thoughts, or want to share your experiences with me in regards to this topic, I would be honored to hear about all of the things rolling around in your mind. I know that this is a journey I am just starting out on post-college and due to that, I will hopefully be gaining more wisdom and experiences to share as I go. Stay tuned for that in coming months/years! Haha. Thank for for sticking with me this week!
See you next Sunday,
-Lexi Cummings
