Workparent Weekly

July 16, 2021 

Are you a working parent thinking about a potential job change?  

When you’re combining career and children, professional transitions can be alluring – and daunting, and complex.  You want to make a good career decision – but you want that decision to work well for your family, too.  

So: try asking yourself the following questions.  They’ll help you see around the corners of any potential job move, cut through that thicket of concerns and considerations – and help you make best possible decision for you. (For a complete, step-by-step guide to working parent job changes, pick up a copy of Workparent - and check out chapter 13: Transitions.) 

• Reasons. Is this a push or a pull?  In other words, am I fleeing the bad, or moving towards something good?

• Necessity. Could I get what I’m looking for my current career, or role? 

• Flexibility. Does the new gig involve more hours or fewer?  Greater or lesser control over my work?  How much will I have to be connected to work during my “off” time? 

• Family future.  How would this new role map to the next stage of my kids’ development (e.g., what would it be like when they’re in school, instead of daycare?)

• Long term impact.  How would I describe this decision, and my potential new job, 15 years from now?  What story will I tell my colleagues – and my kids? 

• Identity.  What do I feel that I would have to give up or leave behind if I make this switch?

• Total-life impact.  Will this one change bring others – a housing move, change in care, my budget?  

• Timing: Is now the time – or does it make sense to take stock again, six months out? 

• Feelings: am I making a change for objective reasons, because I want to, or because I feel I “should”? 

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