By Matt Wiggins, Founder of “The days are long, but the years are short” is a popular saying when raising children. It reflects the fact that while each day of child-rearing can be filled with heart-warming joys and gut-wrenching challenges, which can cause each day to seem exhausting, we really only have our children in our homes for a short time. As the end draws near, the years will seemingly have flown by.
My first child just graduated from high school. It was a dichotomous event, precipitating tears of both joy and sorrow. It's the ending of a sweet period of life and the launching of another . . . but this new era will be more separate than together. It’s a good, hard transition in life that everyone with children will face. So, I thought I would take a moment to share some unexpected things that this expected transition has taught me about myself, my priorities, and the last 18 years.
The Beginning
July 4th, 2006, is a day that will be etched into my memory for the rest of my life. Each detail of that day—from the preparations before going to the hospital to what I was wearing (my yellow “Event Staff” shirt that I wore to all three of my children’s births) to the first words I spoke to my newborn son (his now-favorite Bible verse: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6)—brings a huge smile to my face.
Even in those early moments, when my heart was being invaded by this fragile new life and captivated by the strength of his mother, I was learning that I would need to start thinking differently and making decisions less selfishly to experience the full blessings of marriage and fatherhood.
Early Mindshift
As a young man, I had wanted to conquer the world of business and make a gazillion dollars. As an entrepreneur, I defined much of who I was by what I was creating or the problems I was solving with my ideas and enterprise. My occupation became my identity, and I relished my professional reputation among my peers and in the industry.
And then . . . I matured.
I learned that WHO I was mattered much more to my family than WHAT I did. What truly defined me was not results as a husband or father, but instead, it was by the investment of time, love, and resources I was willing to make in my wife and kids. I began to value investing in those relationships more than my own individual success. At first, it was painful to let my desire for accolades be eclipsed by my desire to see my wife and kids thrive, but it was good.
More information here:
How Our Plan to Start a Family Affects Our Quest for Financial Independence
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Living Out Your Values
As a couple, my wife and I identified early on that we valued time more than money and experiences more than possessions (what we call “stuff”). We determined that we would make decisions based on the time cost and the experiences gained instead of the money cost or the “stuff” acquired. This mindset led us to make the radical decision to homeschool our children. This decision was not made because we thought it would educate them better (although it might); we saw that it would allow us more time together as a family and provide flexibility to travel and have shared experiences.
Homeschooling is certainly not always the best option (especially since it is a financial sacrifice to only have one income), but for our family, we counted the cost and felt it was best since it allowed us to live out our values of time together and shared experiences. As of our son’s graduation, we have been to all 48 contiguous US states and have spent months overseas in places like Spain, Greece, Costa Rica, and Peru. In each place, we combined sightseeing and history lessons with serving the homeless and seeing life through many different lenses.
Much of this traveling was done during the school year, and it would not have been possible if the children had been on a more conventional school schedule. In retrospect, determining our values early and making decisions out of those values is something I’m glad we did.
Who Gets My Best?
We all only have so much time and energy to spend each day, which means we are constantly making decisions about where and on whom to spend it. In recent years, I grew one of my businesses into one of the largest disability insurance brokerage firms in the country. We had dozens of employees, a huge budget for our type of business, and great success, as shown by the awards we consistently won in our industry. I was in high demand as a speaker, and the lofty praises we received did wonders for my ego. Most in my industry would have killed to be in my shoes.
Then, COVID hit, and we all went home for a while. While working from home, I discovered that being brought breakfast by my daughter, playing a quick game of tag with my two sons between phone meetings, and eating lunch with my family were far more rewarding than the empty praises of insurance company representatives who just wanted more of my business. I was so compelled by the rewards of working from home that I decided that I did not want to go back to the office after COVID. My business partners at the time wanted us to all be back in the office, and eventually, I sold that business. I chose to sell one of the most successful insurance brokerage businesses in the country to have more time and to share more experiences at home.
I had to choose who would get my best, and I chose to invest it with my family. Choosing to spend my best time and energy on my family is something I look back on now and realize I will never regret.
More information here:
The Importance of Real Partners
What About Finances?
Right before I spoke at my son’s graduation party, I looked around at all of our friends and family, and it struck me how diverse the group was financially. There were wealthy people and people who lived paycheck to paycheck. Yet, we were all gathered and experiencing the same joyful occasion that had nothing to do with the sizes of our bank accounts or retirement plans.
As someone whose career has been in the financial sector, I can clearly see the power that financial means can have. However, I’m also keenly aware that monetary resources without a purpose are wasted. At every step of my career, my wife and I saw my job and the resources it provided as tools to pursue our ultimate purposes.
My job and income were not the end goal but the means to experience life together. Early on, this meant $5 dates to Wendy’s (splitting the $3 junior bacon cheeseburger and fries deal it had at the time and $2 for the dollar theater in Lincoln, Nebraska). Later, it would be a 10-day tour of Greece and Turkey for my son’s graduation. In both cases, and in all of the others in between, we purposed to use whatever finances we could to pursue our values. Looking back, I’m thankful for each step and the finances we had at the time. Not because of the actual money, but because our values were clear and the money was used to achieve our goals and live out our values.
So, What Now?
As I send my first child off to college, I’m thankful for the lessons learned. I’ve learned that there is great reward in living out my values, spending my best time and energy on the things and people I truly care about, and valuing money as a means to achieve my greater purposes and not as an end goal. I hope that I have passed on these lessons to my son as he leaves our home, and I hope that anyone reading will be challenged, encouraged, and inspired to evaluate the values driving your decisions as early in your life as possible.
And for all my failures as a husband and a father (content saved for perhaps another guest post sometime), it’s the memories of quality time and experiences shared that I believe my family will remember the most. I hope the same for you!
What do you think? What lessons did you learn from raising a family? Did it all go by so quickly?
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Many thanks to Doc Insure and Matt Wiggins, one of our Platinum Level (contributing $8,000+) Sponsors for the WCI Medical School Scholarship, for helping physicians secure the best DI policies. This is the first of our two scholarship-sponsored posts for 2025. Thank you for supporting those who support this site and especially the scholarship. All proceeds go to the scholarship winners.]
This is a great article. As a mid-career family who are more or less financially independent (our base expenses are covered with real estate cash flow), with a 3 year old and 1 year old it gave me pause for how we want to structure our lives so that we can be the best parents possible and what working for more means.
E.g. I currently work full time and find my job extremely fulfilling (ED doc and hospital administrator), and my wife is a PT ED doc. Should we both consider pausing/scaling back our work to increase our home time? Should we consider more mechanisms to spend more time abroad annually? Should we be thinking of ways for our kids to spend more time with the cousins/relatives across the country?
I dont really have any answers but appreciate the article!
@Neil, I’m in the “is this all there is?” phase of retirement- spouse had computer games / TV shows to dive into full time when he retired, I was busy with my mom and moving soon after I did but now my mom is gone and we’re settled in I have a lot more time on my hands than expected and haven’t yet sorted out a pleasing routine. We were probably not FI until spouse retired but that was so early we certainly could have delayed FI, and even the FIRE. Now I’m spending our excess money trying for more quality time with my grown kids and grandkids and experiences I would have enjoyed more younger and healthier.
Guess what I’m saying is if you are confident you’re FI (and at this young an age if you’re confident then surely only total unemployment/ loss without any insurance cover would make you regret not having a bigger nest egg) please cut back and enjoy life at present more- maybe by spending more time with the kids while they want you the most, maybe to make raising kids even easier by hiring out more of the nuisance / busy work of raising a family (cleaning/ errands/ food/ missing sleep etc).
Take it from me, change “The days are long, but the years are short” to “these short years are incredibly sweet” and aim to preserve your health better than I have to aim for an even sweeter repeat with grandkids should you be so blessed.
Overall a wonderful parenting story, but as a 58-year-old female in a career (ENT surgery) that for a long-time attracted mostly males and where we had to constantly hold our ground, I’ve come to develop a pro-feminine outlook which makes me cringe when I read « I discovered that being brought breakfast by my daughter, playing a quick game of tag with my two sons… ». Why is it girls are from the start pegged as carers and boys as players? Just saying!…
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Thank you for sharing your story, Matt! I appreciate seeing your perspective and especially that you note following your values and living intentionally has a cost.
As we try to teach our toddler, you can make choices, but you don’t get to choose the consequences. Matt – your family made intentional choices with a more challenging path now (homeschooling or selling your business) to open up a life aligned with your values. And the long-term value more than outweighed those early costs.
We have an almost four-year-old at home. We had children much later in life, and our daily choices reflect our values, even though I see the immediate costs of those decisions. Like your family, we value time together and travel. It is wonderful to hear stories like yours and see how homeschooling and travel worked out for your family.
Ultimately, these are the conversations I have with my own financial planning clients – to focus on the why, instead of simply on the dollars and cents. Why are we saving? How do you want to craft and create your life to support your values? These are more interesting conversations.