My Real Life...Back

Everytime there is an extended break from school---like summer in a nine month school--or now, the two weeks for "winter" break, I feel like I have my "real" life back. I have now been teaching full-time for 12 years. You'd think I'd have become accustomed to being a full-time working woman. That is what I am---actually, I usually spend much more than 40 hours on my job each week. But I spent eighteen years without a full-time paid job outside my home. I'm being so careful with that description because during that time, I had day-care kids for nearly five years, and I worked part-time a couple of years in my children's elementary school as a half-day aide, and again, as a substitute teacher. But, these jobs enabled me have essentially the same hours as my schoolkids. My last two babies were taken care of by other paid women off and on throughout the years, but never full-time, never every day. So, I consider this my "working" years. Most of my paid work before teaching was on my schedule, and didn't require me to put my kids in day-care for eight or nine hours a day. I still had hours at home each day with them.

But now when I have an extended break from school, it is such a relief to feel like "normal" again, even though I don't have children living at home. I can help with church things, I can sew, I can go to doctor appointments without a huge production. (Writing lesson plans is a 2:1 kind of activity--it is SO much easier to just teach it yourself.) I can be in my house during the daylight hours. I LOVE IT.

So I'm torn: I love teaching school. I especially love my paycheck. But I really do miss my old life of being available to help other people and do stuff around my house. However, if I had no paycheck I'd be unable to have the luxury I have during my time off to do some of the good things I get to do. So, I should just enjoy my times off, and appreciate that we both had the expectation that while we had kids living at home, I'd get to be their mom--there at home. I'm the one who decided I'd go to college and start working now.