Best Advice

Sometime ago, I was blog-lurking, and the question of the day was "What is the best parenting advice you have ever received?" I've been thinking about it, and I believe it was this:

I was in a dilemma about work. I had been offered a job which would give us more financial freedom. The problem was about the hours. They were after-school hours and would have to be worked into the schedule I'd already set up. Although I wouldn't be working full-time, I would be away from home in the after-school time. I went back and forth about whether or not to take the job. I made a list of pros and cons. All of which could be balanced against one another.

• I wasn't sure about the actual placement - whether I would be welcome at this new facility and be given professional leeway to do my job the way I knew how. But on the other hand, I'd started at new facilities before and my experience was that I am pretty good at making the best of a situation. And besides, it would give us some breathing room.


• The kids would have to come home to an empty house. But on the other hand, they were older, and could technically be at home without me.


• I wouldn't be working full time. But the timing of the hours was not great as far as family life was concerned.

I wrestled with it for quite a while. At about that time, I talked with an acquaintance - a gal who I was only beginning to get to know. She listened to me for a while, and then pinned it down with this statement "Marni, you can always get another job. But your kids only have one mom. "



That was it. I called the director, and thanked her for the job offer, but politely turned it down. In a few short years, they would be gone. Right then, my kids needed their mom.