I’ve Outgrown My Career, But My Girls Are Growing Up Faster

Dear Ani,

I have a problem I’m embarrassed to admit: I think I’ve outgrown my career, but I can’t point to anything actually wrong with it.

I’m a senior director at a tech company. Good salary. Respected by my team. My boss just told me I’m on track for VP. From the outside, this looks like success.

But I sit in meetings and feel… nothing. I used to care so much about the work. I used to have opinions. Now I just want them to end so I can leave on time.

Here’s the thing: I have 12-year-old twin girls. They get home from school at 3:45. And lately, all I want is to be there when they walk through the door—not racing in at 6:30 to hear about their day secondhand. Not checking Slack while they’re telling me about something that happened at lunch. Actually there. Present.

My partner keeps saying, “You’ve worked so hard to get here, why would you leave now? The girls are fine. They’re self-sufficient.” And they’re right about the work. I did work hard. This is supposed to be the payoff.

But here’s what I can’t explain to anyone: I don’t want to miss this window. They’re 12. In a few years, they won’t like me around after school. They’ll have their own lives, their own worlds, I won’t have access to anymore.

And I’m spending these years in back-to-back meetings that don’t matter, building toward a VP role I don’t even want, while my daughters are growing up without me.

So what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just be grateful and do the job? Why does wanting to be with my kids feel like I’m failing at ambition?

I feel guilty for even thinking about change when nothing is broken. But I also can’t shake this feeling that I’m wasting my life, and theirs, performing competence in a role that stopped fitting years ago.

How do I know if this is real or if I’m just being ungrateful?

– Numb at the Top (and Missing the Afternoon)

Dear Numb at the Top (and Missing the Afternoon),

Look… nothing is wrong with you.
You’re not broken, you’re not confused, you’re not being dramatic.
You’ve hit that point where the job is still jogging along, but you have stopped pretending it fits. It’s like waking up one day and realizing the clothes you’ve been wearing for years are suddenly two sizes too small and itchy in the wrong places.

And nobody tells women this part:
Outgrowing your career doesn’t show up with loud music.
It sneaks in quietly.
It’s your girls walking in the door at 3:45, full of stories, and you’re still sitting in a meeting that could’ve been handled by a group chat and one competent intern.
It’s the tiny ache that shows up when you realize you’re giving your freshest hours to people who don’t even know your kids’ names.

This isn’t ungrateful.
This is you waking up in your own life.

That Dangerous Window at 12

You said something that made me stop:
“In a few years, they won’t want me around after school.”

And you’re right.
Twelve is a tricky age — one foot in childhood, one foot auditioning for adulthood.
They still want you.
They still talk to you.
But those moments are delicate — like catching butterflies. They only land if you’re there at the exact moment they decide to open up.

And let me tell you from experience:
Kids don’t confide on schedule.
They open up in the car.
They open up while you’re slicing mango.
They open up randomly, right before dinner, when you’re just standing there minding your business.

If you’re missing the random moments, you’re missing the whole thing.

This is not a lack of ambition.
This is ambition growing up.

The “They’re Fine” Myth

Your partner said the girls are fine.
Of course, they’re fine.
Plenty of kids grow up on three snacks and pure vibes.

But that’s not the point.

The point is: What kind of relationship do you want with them right now?
Not in five years. Now.

People love throwing around “quality time” like it’s the sacred solution to everything.
Meanwhile, every mother knows the honest truth:
Quality time only exists because you showed up so often that one of those times turned into magic.

You can’t manufacture a connection.
You catch it.

“Technically Nothing Is Wrong”

This phrase is how women get stuck for entire decades.

Nothing is wrong.
Everything is stable.
You should be grateful.
You worked hard for this.
Just push a little more.
Just hang in there.

But “nothing is wrong” is not the same as “this feels right.”

You can respect the life you’ve built and still outgrow the shape of it.
Both can be true.
You’re not betraying your success by admitting it no longer fits — you’re betraying yourself if you pretend it does.

And let’s be honest:
The job is taking everything out of you.
Your time, your evenings, your energy, your mental actual-capacity-to-be-a-human.
And for what?
Another layer of responsibilities you didn’t ask for?

That’s not ambition.
That’s momentum with no steering wheel.

Rethinking What Ambition Even Means

You asked why wanting to be home with your kids feels like failure.

My dear, it feels that way because somewhere along the way someone sold women this ridiculous idea that ambition only counts if it comes with a badge, a title, and at least one burnout story.

Maybe ambition in this season looks like designing a life where you can walk away from your laptop without apologizing.
Maybe it looks like having a job that ends at 3 PM because your daughters walk in the door at 3:45.
Maybe it looks like being awake enough to hear them when they’re ready to talk.

Maybe this is ambition with its shoes off — grounded, wise, and aligned.

How You Know This Is Real

You know it’s real when:

• You feel… nothing.
• You’re good at the work but disconnected from it.
• The conversations that matter to you are happening without you — at your own front door.
• And the idea of staying feels heavier than the idea of leaving.

That’s not complaining.
That’s clarity.

What You Do Now

You don’t have to go quit your job in a dramatic movie scene.
But you do have to stop gaslighting yourself.

Say the truth quietly, even just to yourself at first:

“I’ve outgrown this. I want my life back in the afternoons. I want my daughters. I want presence.”

You don’t need a PowerPoint for your partner.
Just truth.
This is who you are now.
This is what matters now.

And then — begin the redesign.
Not a collapse.
A redesign.

The Real Thing

Season 2 isn’t about climbing.
It’s about choosing.

Your girls are 12.
This window is small and precious, and it will close, not dramatically, but quietly — in the same way it opened.

These next few years won’t repeat.
And no meeting, no title, no “maybe next quarter,” no polite performance of career happiness is worth missing this particular season of your daughters’ lives.

You get one chance to mother them at this age.
One chance to be present for these afternoons.
One chance to build a life that makes room for joy, not just responsibility.

You know what you want.

Go get it.

– Ani