#decision-making processes

YOUR THIRD TENTPOLE

This occurs around the age of 45. At this juncture, you may have been working for 20 years.

If you have children, they could be in high school or just starting college. It might be that you’re committed to pay for their education. It might be the first time you have the house to yourself, or the first time in a long time you have your partner to yourself. You may have a certain amount of freedom and a moment in which to reflect. At this moment in your life, you may have the chance to change directions, downsize, relocate, expand your social circle, go back to school, or rededicate your efforts to your work. If your career has been a priority, the coming period between ages 45 and 65 could be your most productive and rewarding, both personally and financially. You may have climbed the corporate ladder or be in private practice.

You may have secured your credentials. You may have mastered the fundamentals of your profession and even its finer points. Your network of colleagues could be welldeveloped. Your position in your industry and your community might be established. You could have credibility, perhaps influence, perhaps affluence.

During this time, you can mentor. You can teach. You can write. You can impart your wisdom, bootstrap other women’s and men’s careers, give to charity, or start a charity. This is a moment you may have the freedom, resources, experience, and vision to soar in any direction you choose.

Where do you want to be? What position do you want to be in career-wise? Financially? Personally? Is this the time you’d like to jump ship and start a second career? Go into business for yourself? Take that ‘gap’ year off and live in a foreign country? Volunteer in your community?

All these things may seem very far away and almost impossible to attain if, right now, you’re a college senior with a mountain of student debt and shaky job prospects or a 30-something mom with a desire to do more. But I will tell you this: time flies. I will also tell you quite honestly that you can do almost anything you want to do. What is required most often is that you:

get the idea in your head;

figure out what needs to be done;

organize your resources;

develop necessary skills;

work toward your goal consistently;

learn from your mistakes, and;

never quit.

Again, set a tangible goal. Know what’s required to achieve it. Get your ducks in a row. Do the work. Improve. Persevere. Achieve one goal. Then the next. You’ll astonish yourself.

YOUR FOURTH TENTPOLE

This occurs around the age of 65. You may have been working for 40 years, longer than some people you work with have been alive. You’ll think of them and may refer to them as ‘kids’. They’ll refer to you as ‘ma’am’, and this may be irritating.

You may have the inclination to retire from the workforce. Your boss, if you have one, may invite you to lunch and subtly or not so subtly mention that you’ve had a great career and that you’ve made a great contribution to the company. Regardless of how successful you’ve been, how much money you’ve made, it might sting a little bit when someone directs you to the exit.

Another scenario is that you may voluntarily scale back your hours, work part-time, or quit completely. ‘Retirement’, I will tell you from the many friends I’ve known who’ve done it, is great. For about three months. Then boredom sets in. Even those with all the money and resources in the world choose to work even as they age. Music icon Rod Stewart, who has sold over 100 million records worldwide since he started singing in 1961, mentioned not too long ago that he gets ‘anxious’ after sitting around the (obviously very comfortable) house for a couple of weeks. As a person who can buy or do anything, or go anywhere and meet anyone, he just wants to go back to work, all these years later. That should tell you something.

Remember: time flies. I would suggest that you have some sort of vague idea right now about what you might like to do from the age of 65 to the age of 85. I would also suggest that you start right now: work hard at something you care about, live wisely and below your means (read ‘The Old Money Book’ for guidance on this). Save your money, invest astutely, and be in a position to do more than survive. You’ll also want to exercise, eat right, and be happy now so you’re healthy in your golden years.

THE LONG VIEW

Now, let’s take a moment and take a deep breath. You can’t know all this stuff right now, or ever. You can’t plan all this stuff. You can have a plan, though, and start to work on it. You can be aware of the span of your life and appreciate that it is finite. You should always try to maintain Your Perspective on Your Life as you meet people, set goals, accept or reject limits concerning what you think you can or cannot do, what you will or won’t do, what you can or can’t be.

If you’re 18 years old and you think you’ve met the Love of Your Life and you’re ready to get married, start a family, and be a mom and wife for the rest of your life, take a moment. Look at this piece of paper we’ve just drawn out together. Is that really the best choice you can make right now?

18 to 85. That’s a long time, but it goes by quite quickly. You can learn, grow, and change tremendously…in just a year or two. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt. If you’re 30 years old and single, or just married, gaze toward the horizon and imagine where you’d like to be in 15 years. With children? Without children? Different city? Different country? If you’re 45, or 65, or at any point along the way, you have the chance to examine where you are, reflect upon the choices you’ve made, consider the goals and dreams you have and have had, and assess the resources you have at your disposal to make them a reality. If you have made a choice you’re not happy with, give yourself the opportunity to make new choices. As you implement these choices into your daily life, you get to experience the rewards or consequences they bring.

Note: if you feel like you don’t have options, then you aren’t sufficiently aware of your situation, or you are not willing to change your habits, or both. So take a moment and get some perspective.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

Brief fairytale: once upon a time, a young princess was lost in the woods. She came upon a frog who wore a small gold crown on his tiny green head. ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ said the princess, ‘but I was walking in the woods, and now I’m lost. Can you help me get back to my castle?’ ‘Certainly, your highness,’ said the frog. ‘Do you know where your castle is?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the princess. ‘It’s near the river, on the highest mountain in the land.’ ‘Do you know where you are now?’ asked the frog. ‘No, I don’t,’ replied the princess. To which the frog replied, ‘Then you can’t get there from here.’

The moral of the silly story is this: in order to get to where you want to go, you have to know where you are. Otherwise, no one, not even a prince of a frog, can give you directions. The ‘18 to 85’ chart and our review of life’s common tentpoles will help you determine where you are so you can decide how to get to where you want to be. (We’ll go into more detail on ‘direction’ in a later chapter.)

Another concept to keep in mind and apply to many of the issues we’ll discuss in this book is B.A.S.I.S. In this case, the acronym refers to the following:

Budget—budget or limit your focus to where you think you are right now in life. Think in the short, narrow term to get started. Then broaden your field of view later.

Acquire—acquire the necessary perspective to determine what the next big tentpole is for you and how you can make the best choice.

Save—save your energy and apply it to competently and thoroughly executing the choice you make for your next big tentpole.

Invest—invest in resources that can help you make the most of your choice.

Spend—spend time in quiet reflection in order to acquire and maintain perspective on your life and to firmly establish the tentpoles that give your life shape.

YOUR SECOND TENTPOLE

This occurs around the age of 30. This is the time you consider whether or not to have children and to be a parent for the rest of your life.

Please note that I say ‘you consider’ whether or not to have children. This implies that you have a conversation, first with yourself and then with your partner, about being a parent. You think about it. You discuss it. You weigh the advantages and disadvantages. You search the midnight of your soul, as the poets say. Then you decide. Then you plan.

Let’s say you have spent ages 18 to 23 getting an education, and ages 24 to 30 working and experiencing life as an independent adult. You have found a partner in life. You are in a committed relationship or married. You are financially stable, if not financially independent or wealthy. Now, you feel that you may be ready for children.

Much undue social pressure can be bought to bear on young women during this time. They are often expected to get married and have children, even in this quoteunquote modern age. Be aware of this pressure and have the courage to make up your own mind about when, if, and with whom you start a family. There is no stigma, and often much more freedom and many more options in life, love, and work, for women who do not have children.

To have the most choices in life, it’s important to avoid so-called ‘accidents’ that can disrupt or destroy your plans, hopes, and dreams for the future. With regards to pregnancy, there are no ‘accidents’. Unplanned pregnancy is a consequence of ignorance, carelessness, bad decision-making, or a combination of the three. Sperm plus egg equals pregnancy. It’s that simple and, for the unprepared, a harsh reality.

In charting your own course as a modern woman, it is important to understand that the responsibility of birth control should be shared. However, the harsh reality in most instances is that it is completely your responsibility. Unless you want to be a parent, make sure you take precautions yourself. When a pregnancy occurs and you decide to be a parent, the responsibility of raising that child will be primarily yours, regardless of what your partner says or how well-intentioned he is.

Unfair? You betcha. Inaccurate? Hardly. Likely to change in your lifetime? Doubtful. Best to know it and plan accordingly? Bingo, Ringo. Understand that the planet is overpopulated as it is. If you want to live your life for yourself and/or your partner, don’t have children. I’ve heard it’s very thrilling to be pregnant, exhilarating to give birth, and joyful to care for a newborn. Family members and friends offer congratulations, celebrations, and support. You, as a new mother, are the center of attention.

Then, not long after that, family and friends all go on with their lives and you get to wake up at 3 a.m. and change a diaper, feed the growing child, and comfort it when it cries. Don’t be resentful if this life shock puts the brakes on some of your goals and plans, hobbies, and interests. Don’t be surprised if you dream of just sleeping 8 hours in a row, forget starting a new business.

The decision to become a parent is so critically important that I must take a little extra time and ask you to do something for me, and for yourself, at this tentpole. Do a little research. Assess statistics that correlate teen pregnancy with limited economic and educational opportunities for women, with poverty, with complications involved in childbirth, and with childhood diseases.

Ask women you know who are parents to confide in you: of course they love their children, but, if they had it to do all over again, would they still be a parent? Would they have had children as early as they did? Would they have the same number of children? Ask women with infants. Ask women in high school who have children. Ask women with adult children. Listen carefully to what they say. Listen even more carefully to what they don’t say. And be sure to ask the women, the mothers. The men may or may not have their careers and lives impacted by the birth and raising of children. The woman certainly will. The women certainly do. Be honest with yourself and be honest with your partner before you get married. The question is not: do you want to have children one day? The question is: do you want to be a parent for the rest of your life?

Don’t think that when a child turns 18 or 21 years of age that your job is done. They will turn to you when they are 30, when they are 50, and even when you are 90. They will need your emotional support, your guidance, and may even need your financial assistance. They may have children of their own. You may help them parent. You will be a grandparent, but it is possible that you may become a parent to your grandchildren, willingly or not.

I know couples that absolutely love being parents. They are loving and fully engaged raising their children, committing time and money, prioritizing and planning. Other couples don’t have the energy and commitment to be really good parents. Some start off overwhelmed, but then grow into it, finding the discipline to meet their responsibilities. Others, disinterested, unprepared, and soon defeated by the demands, do the bare minimum or not even that.

It’s perfectly fine to be the barista at the neighborhood coffee shop while you’re studying and working toward your goals. It’s much more challenging to be the barista who’s working and trying to figure out how to afford day care, orthodontics, and soccer uniforms for your child. A happy, healthy, and productive life requires a plan. A plan is to have a career, probably two, and some money in the bank that will be sufficient to care for yourselves and address the needs of your child. A plan acknowledges that somebody’s career is going to have to take a backseat while raising the child for a period of time, and you never know how long that’s going to be. A plan is realistic: if you look at your situation as a couple and don’t see how you could afford a pet, how the hell do you think you can afford a child? If you can’t afford to raise a child, don’t have a child. ‘We’ll figure it out when the time comes’ is not a plan.

Being a parent has always been challenging. Children’s access to the internet and social media makes the job even more demanding today. The world is a minefield. Children are miracles. Know this. Consider this. This period, ages 24 to 30, can be a great time in life, full of opportunities to travel, have a career, enjoy financial freedom and great relationships. Keep your options open, your possibilities growing. You have choices. I’m not telling you what to do, but I am telling you what to think: think about everything, over a lifetime, before you make this decision. It is irreversible.

By waiting to approximately the age of 30 to consider having children, you have given yourself several advantages. Here are just a few:

You’ve given yourself time to grow up.

You’ve given yourself time to get an education.

You’ve given yourself time to get on your feet financially.

You’ve given yourself time to enjoy life as an adult, on your own.

You’ve given yourself time to meet and develop a solid relationship with another person who will, most likely, share the joy and challenges of raising a child.

Source: Bloomberg.com

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