An Educated Mother's Dilemma

These are my children.

They are cute. I know.

I recently had a mini-meltdown, though. I have a BBA in Supply Chain Management and an opportunity came up for me to take a job in that field with a GREAT company with excellent benefits and decent starting pay. I almost said yes. 

But I didn't. 

My question to myself was "Why am I wanting this job and at the same time, crying like a baby about going back to work?"

My answer was "Because I want both, and can't have both."

In a perfect world, we could separate work from family, but it just doesn't work that way. Especially when you have little kids. One always ends up winning over the other. One week, you may get a lot of family time in and feel great. The next week, work takes over your time and thoughts and the kids go to the back burner. It happens to everyone who juggles home and career. I just had to decide if that was something I was willing to do.

No money is worth my time with my kids, but I am nearly 27 years old and have zero experience in my field. I taught high school math for 2 years, so it's not exactly logistics. I feel like if I don't start now, I am going to be 30 years old with both kids in school and no one will want to hire me because I haven't worked in so long and never in my chosen field. In 2 years I could have moved up quite a bit. I many not get another chance with such a great company. So it's a lot to think about.

So I checked out a daycare. Seems pretty legit. I liked the people I spoke with and they had a good curriculum. It was also affordable. They also had before school care and after school care for my older child. If I had to leave my kids somewhere, it seemed like a good place. But even talking to the lady there, I was getting choked up. I got choked up in my interview when they asked about my kids. 

Obviously, that should be a sign that I am not ready to go back to work, but then again, I also have to take into account my future with a career. 

So I thought about it, talked about it, slept on it. Keep in mind I don't HAVE to work. My husband can support us, we just have to cut back on things so we can pay off our debt. My job would have been our debt removal. This means no fun vacations, not a lot of going out to eat (which is fine), and no more gym membership (also fine, we have neighborhood trails and Youtube videos). 

I had a talk with my dad about the job (he is in the same field) and although he was very supportive and thought it was a good opportunity, I was still having doubts. This was made obvious by me blubbering like a baby on the phone with him. My dad sent me an email about not worrying and praying about it, putting it in God's hands and he will put me on the right path. I am not very good at reading signs. But what I do know is that it makes me *literally* sick to think about leaving my children for 11 or 12 hours a day and only having enough time to feed them dinner before I put them in bed. And that is sign enough for me.

So my decision has been made. We will be cutting back. I will be working on a new budget. And actually following it this time. I will go back to school on my husband's GI Bill and get my master's degree. And I will be spending a lot of time with my girls. :)

I will just be an old lady when I start my career. And I feel okay with that.