Investment banking: can banker parents have it all?

Dear DMD,

You’ve articulated a dilemma that almost every professional faces once family life begins: the tension between providing for those you love and actually being present with them.

I wish I had a formula for resolving it. The pain cuts deep, because both sides of the equation matter hugely to you. I can tell you care about your family and your career, and it’s precisely because you care about both that you feel so conflicted about it.

Unfortunately, there’s no version of this story where you get to have it all. Trade-offs lie at the heart of every decision about work and life, and finance tends to magnify them. You can’t be fully available at home and also fully available to your clients and colleagues. The dream of somehow having both — of cakeism, if you like — isn’t any more realistic than it was for the Brexiteers. Something has to give, and the only question is which compromise leaves you feeling most content and least regretful.

You’re right that the money and status of investment banking are not easily replicated elsewhere. But what, exactly, is that income buying you? Is it a means to eventual freedom. or “FIRE” (financial independence, retire early); or is it keeping you trapped in a life rhythm that leaves you missing the moments that matter most?

I will be the first to admit that it’s often worth tolerating short-term sacrifice, provided that it leads to a clearly defined goal — e.g. financial security, a future change in role, or a planned exit. But if the sacrifice has no end point and simply turns into a perpetual treadmill, then you may find out too late that the trade hadn’t been worth it.

No one can tell you what balance to strike. I think you have to be unsparingly honest with yourself about what will make you happiest and most fulfilled, not just what looks successful from the outside or what you think other people expect of you.

If the job still excites you and you can see a path to progression, it may be worth enduring this stretch. If, however, you sense that you’re losing something you can never regain, you should rethink your definition of success. Money can create choices, and we shouldn’t glibly dismiss its importance in an increasingly expensive world. But time with your children is finite and precious. In the end, it’s about choosing the trade-off you can live with — because every option, including staying put, entails a trade-off.

Neil Diamond put it best:

One last thing, maybe a slight cautionary note before you pursue your dreams: if you are working in finance and you have the weekends free, you’re already ahead of the game. Most non-finance jobs require 9am-6pm workdays and when you include a commute and general fatigue and children’s homework, it means you’re mostly a weekend parent anyway.

The real tragedy, in my view, involves the bankers, lawyers and other professionals whose weekends are swallowed up by work. That doesn’t mean your current role isn’t asking too much of you, but rather that a new job outside finance may offer little improvement for your personal life and a substantial downgrade to your compensation.

Like I said, adult life means making trade-offs. You have to understand them before you can decide.

Forever in blue jeans,

Craig