What is your legacy if you don’t have kids?
There seems to be a belief, or a conception, that a parent's legacy is their children.* If so, what is the legacy of the child-free?
As I began to consider this question, I consulted the dictionary to determine precisely what legacy means. According to Google, a legacy is “the long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past or of a person’s life.”
I am deeply dissatisfied with the idea that my life's “long-lasting impact” could be based on anything other than my actions and their outcomes. I’m sure many parents feel the same way.
Is your legacy going to be your career if you are child-free? In How to Leave a Legacy, Tony Robbins considers building a legacy as an entrepreneur and business leader. Robbins writes, “... from being a standout leader to nurturing a vibrant organizational culture. It might mean teaching others to refine company processes, train new talent or manage business finances. When you’re gone, your legacy will live on in the employees you mentored, the leaders you inspired and the lives you influenced.”
In Forbes, Glenn Lopis writes, “Legacy represents your body of work at each stage of your career as you establish the foundational building blocks and accumulate the required wisdom to contribute to growth, innovation and opportunity both in and outside the workplace. Your legacy grows with each new experience, with each previously untested idea and bold ideal that you are courageous enough to deploy, and each time you inspire others to see something through to fruition.”
These are far from the only influential voices supporting the possibility that your career can leave behind a meaningful legacy. I work hard and hope that when my career concludes, I will have left a lasting impression. I try hard to be a leader from whom people can learn and to inspire and motivate others.
But just like the idea of a legacy tied to children disappoints me, so too does a legacy tied to my career.
The child-free are no more limited to their work being the source of their legacy, any more than parents are restricted to their children being the source of their legacy.
I challenge you to consider how you will act to define your legacy. Given the nature of a legacy, its definition is somewhat out of our hands; how much can we really determine how people receive or remember us? However we are regarded, it will be an artifact of our actions and the people we touch. The presence or absence of a child in your life and the career you devote your time to should not be factors in setting your legacy.
Upon reflection, I want to be remembered as having lived a life that nurtured happiness in myself and others.
* I can’t recall where this topic for an article came from – it was in my notebook where I jot down ideas for content for CFW2. So, if I should be attributing the idea for this piece back to someone, my sincere apologies.
Alysia Christiaen
Creator of CFW² and a child-free woman.
