I recently made the decision to retire from my social work practice this past April. It is something I had been contemplating ever since I left agency work and launched a private practice 10 years ago. Gaining more control over my caseload and my schedule gave me the freedom to transition gradually into retirement. It no longer loomed on the horizon as an all-or-nothing proposition.
To provide a little background, I am a life-long caregiver. I married young – in my early 20’s. I raised six children, home-schooled for 17 years, and did health care advocacy for my aging father before returning to school to complete an undergraduate degree in Family Social Science and a Master’s Degree in Social Work. My paid professional career spanned 20 years, but all the unpaid caregiving I did prior to that speaks to how core caregiving is to the heart of a social worker.
It can be difficult to give up the satisfaction derived from providing meaningful support to others on a daily basis. Anyone who identifies as a social worker can attest to this – unless perhaps they have left the field as a result of burnout. But that is a topic for another day.
So back to the original question: What does it mean for a social worker to retire? Can social workers ever really give up their mantle of caregiving? Do we ever really need to? And if we do, what comes next? Each of us either has been or will be faced with these existential questions at some point in our career. They are important questions to answer as we work to make sense of our lives.
I would like to suggest that caregiving needn’t stop for those who continue to derive pleasure and satisfaction from it. At our core, social workers remain caregivers throughout their lives. It just evolves or takes different forms, or manifests in different ways.
In recent years, I have begun to make peace with the fact that as time passes our energy declines while our personal needs increase. Just taking care of our bodies begins to require more time, and there is less we can do in a day. I had begun to notice a feeling of being overly stretched by my commitments, with not enough time for rest, relaxation, and reflection.
To be clear, my decision to retire was not a result of weariness, disillusionment, discouragement, or defeat. It was a result of contemplating my dilemma and considering what I wanted to do about it, where I wanted to go, and how I wanted to spend my time and use my energy. It was not about giving something up so much as reordering my priorities and refining my focus to the things that are most meaningful and important to me at this time in my life. As I contemplated and considered, I found my heart drawn toward deeper connections with friends and family, and more time spent caring for my loved ones.
So there you have it. I am making the adjustments needed to accomplish these goals, one of which was making the decision to retire from my professional career. My heart continues to enjoy social work. I am not leaving behind my identity as a caregiver, I am just shifting my focus.
One thing I wanted more time for was doing things like writing this essay. I wanted to share my experience with you in the hope it would be a source of illumination and encouragement – because I care.
Respectfully,
Leslie Blessing, MSW
