I quit my full-time teaching job to be a stay-at-home mom to my child. Except the child wasn’t even outside her amniotic bubble yet.
I know to some, the route may seem extreme– because this was supposed to be the easy stage– the one when my child was extremely obedient and I never lost track of her.
I’ll admit– she didn’t cry. She didn’t fuss. She didn’t say anything, for that matter.
Even though pregnancy tends to be viewed as something a working woman must just muster through, I didn’t want to accept that for myself and my family. Here’s why I quit teaching before I had my baby:
I wanted to face the challenges (and joys!) of pregnancy on my own terms
My gestational term was a few dozen cupcakes short of cake walk. The approximate timeline of it all looked like this:
Weeks 5-13 Nausea and exhaustion
Weeks 14-33 ish were okay!
Weeks 33-37 were a hellscape of navigating some intense heat rash. (I may have plugged our bath tub drain in a desperate attempt to soak my burning skin in oatmeal!)
But you know what? I got to suffer and enjoy my pregnancy in the privacy of my home. On my own schedule. Without crowds of children possibly poking my belly.
It’s commonly accepted that if a woman wants to quit her job to stay home with children, she does so after they arrive in all their sticky birthday suit splendor. The current cultural zeitgeist seems to say to women: just bear it. Ignore all of the intense changes happening inside and out of your body and the possible carrying environment you are cultivating for one of the people you will love most on this planet– you are an employee!
You know what? I’m a mother. And I was since day one, since the formation of my daughter’s first cell.
So I said no to the steady paycheck and benefits packages. (Ouch!)
But I said yes to:
Going to the bathroom when I wanted/needed
Eating when I wanted/needed
Resting
Researching
Walking
Preparing
Nesting
Listening to my body
Preparing for birth
Preparing for postpartum
Quitting teaching was gentler on my body
The workload of a teacher gets to be pretty intense. Educators routinely work hours upon hours off the clock. A RAND study revealed that teachers reported working an average of 15 hours a week off contract time.
My schedule used to look like that– tight as a Tetris game.
Then squeeze in my long commute with those extraneous work hours, you come out with very little breathing room. And an incredibly frustrated Char.
I wanted room– lots of it– for this pregnancy.
Being holed up in a building or car for the majority of the day couldn’t have been that beneficial to my body. Instead, I prioritized getting myself out into the sunshine and taking walks.
Eating whatever convenient lunch I could scrap together, in a short and often cut-down period of time known as teacher “lunch” couldn’t have been healthy, either. Not to mention the binge sessions I’d engage in once the last of the kids were gone. That huge bag of chocolates I’d gotten for incentives? I’d be inhaling them just to cope.
Instead once out of the job, I prepared real, whole-food meals (most of the time) to eat when I was hungry. Or if I needed to get a meatball sub and carton of lemonade because that’s what my body and fetus were apparently demanding?
Unemployed, I was free to do that.
Quitting teaching was gentler on my mind
Part of the stress of teaching is mental– or at least it was for me. I’m an overthinker, and there’s just so much to overthink in this job.
You can quickly pave a one-shot route to the crazy farm for yourself just thinking about one student and how to meet his or her needs, let alone a whole class of them.
Is part of this the indirect and direct pressure on teachers to save every last student on their roster? To be that trusted parent, tutor and mental health provider for each child?
Probably. I also had no problem putting these expectations on myself. But that was an unsustainable path. And that path zips straight into burnout.
Once I quit teaching, my mind felt freer, too.
Not only did I have heaps of unscheduled time, I had an unencumbered mind. The immediate lift of worries off of my brain was drastic and left me giddy. And you know what? I slept better, too.
Navigating pregnancy appointments was easy
Finally, a big reason I chose not to teach while pregnant is the simple ability to attend appointments.
I could schedule those frequent visits without a care. No requesting the time off, no waiting for permission from anyone else. And no patching together sub plans.
This was a boon– especially if for some reason I needed to meet with a doctor suddenly. Just like teaching kids in the classroom, pregnancy can serve up its surprises. I was so relieved my schedule was clear to address any needs as they came up, without answering to anyone else.
Thinking of leaving teaching for pregnancy?
For all of those reasons, I’m a big proponent of quitting any job– especially overly demanding gigs like teaching– for pregnancy. The finances likely weigh the most in this decision. Giving up a paycheck and benefits is a substantial life change.
But if you can make it work financially, and you feel strongly that you and your child would benefit from quitting, I say go for it.
It won’t make you a hero in the halls of that school.
You’ll miss out on sharing those warm memories and traditions with students.
But what you gain is far more important, in my opinion: agency in growing this child, freedom physically and mentally, and the ability to plan for something else and much bigger.
Because no one will advocate the most for your family but you. You can start by speaking up for yourself and your little unborn child.
The choice is yours.
If you’re interested in this topic, I have other posts I’ve written about how to afford leaving teaching and signs it’s definitely time to call it quits. Leaving a beloved and identity-creating career can be a whole process— I try to walk readers through this important change step by step based on what I experienced. Just know that I am rooting for you!
Teachers, I’m curious to hear your thoughts: Would you rather quit before pregnancy or after?
