Friday, February 20, 2009

The Great Debate

This is my third year working at Brentwood Christian Extended Care. When we moved down here, I wanted a job with less stress than I had been enjoying as a legal assistant, and I got it with this job. Not much stress comes with a job where you baby-sit hundreds of kids every afternoon, right? *annoying buzzer sound* Wrong! With the wonderfulness of a Christian school also comes the politics of a Christian school. The parents are always right, even when they're wrong. The kids are always perfect even when you want to shake them until their teeth rattle. The crafts are never fun enough for the kids, the activities never what they want to do, the movies never what they want to watch. Then, you have these great days when everything goes smoothly, no one gets a nose bleed or hits anyone, no one complains about the craft, and you even get to enjoy playing with them, peeking into their imaginations and youthfulness.
I'm debating. Do I want to do this a fourth year? Most aides don't make it more than one or two years from what I can figure out. Directors don't do much better. It's a job where we get "stuck" wherever everyone else isn't. Even though we're supposed to have a space for a certain amount of time, if someone else needs it, we move. I feel like we get run over all the time and it frustrates me more than the kids and parents. When I took the job, I didn't really expect to have it for so long because I thought I was going to have kids and stay home with them. When I took my job with the Pampered Chef at the end of last March, I was planning the same thing. I thought the Pampered Chef would be a great way to help me be a stay-at-home mom. I just didn't expect it to take me this long to become a mom. Anyway, my Pampered Chef business does fairly well and it's starting to bring in the same amount as Extended Care. Here's the debate: do I still want to do both next year? Do I want to continue having that certain paycheck every month of the school year? Do I want to plan crafts and activities and deal with kids every day another year? Would I go stark-raving-mad not having those three and a half hours out of the house every day? And what if the medicine finally works and I get pregnant? Would I just quit when I have the baby?
I'm one of these people who likes to be comfortable. I don't like change very much. I'd rather just stay in a miserable job than to go out and find another one. That's why I was a legal assistant for two years instead of just one in Memphis. That's why I'm still working at Extended Care this year. That, and I like having the paycheck. I really stepped out of my comfort zone to be a Pampered Chef consultant, but I feel like it's a great job for me. Now, I just have to figure out if I want to take the final plunge and drop my job that's okay, but not perfect. My dream job is to be a stay-at-home-mom and a writer. But until I get to do that full-time, how many part-time jobs do I want to continue to do? Anyone have any insights?

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