As I head off to help out in my daughter’s class today, I’m giving thanks for working at home. It has been just about 10 years since I held a full-time job. After getting out of the Army, I went back to school to finish my Bachelor’s degree. I worked full-time hours for an internship one summer before deciding that I wanted to move to a different career field, so I continued my schooling so that I could earn my Master’s degree.
While I was working towards that, life happened. Over the next 3 years, we had 3 beautiful children. With my career field in education, there was no way we could afford to send them all to daycare while I went to work. It would have cost us more than we would have made. So, we made the decision for me to stay at home with the kids until they were all in school. That was 7 years ago!
In the meantime, I have picked up work here and there and I have volunteered at our church and in our community. Mostly, I have taken up the opportunity to work at home through blogging. The greatest thing about this is that it has opened up the potential for an entirely new career field. I have found that I love photography and that I have a decent eye for it. What a bonus!
The most important reason that I am giving thanks for working at home, though, is that I have had the most incredible opportunity to get to know my kids. We have a great bond and we have worked through lots of issues together. I am not encumbered by filling hours and, so, my kids get the best of me, not the leftovers. The best testament to this was my daughter’s Father’s Day note in her classroom last year. They had to answer the question, “Why do you love your Daddy?” Her response, “Because he loves me.” She could have said, “because he makes me pancakes” or “because he tickles me”, but she loves me because she knows that I love her. How amazing!
Do you work at home? Are you giving thanks for working at home? Tell us your story and make sure you follow along and see what else I’m giving thanks for.
This is a great reason to give thanks! I was lucky enough to be able to stay home when our kids where young. I have so many wonderful memories from all those years of just being around.
My main concern about retiring is that I will get bored and start working again just to fill the time. It is hard to go from working 40 hours a week to 0.