The Self Employed Mom

When work is intangible, how can kids learn its value?

When I was six years old my father worked as an auto mechanic at a place called Check Car Care Center on Long Island. To this day I remember the striped shirt he wore and how I loved that it bore an oval with his name inside. I remember the smell of oil that always accompanied his return from work, and the grease smeared on his hands and arms.

There were certain things I equated with daddy’s work. Leaving the house, wearing a uniform, coming home dirty from other peoples’ cars and producing a tangible end result – the fixed car itself, all played a role in my father’s story. The consequence of his daily journey to and from the shop was clear. Work meant money and money meant everything. It was simple enough for a first grader to understand.

Is it work or play?

It’s difficult to explain the nature of work to my own six-year-old because what I do is so intangible. Unlike me, she has no frame of reference to qualify (or quantify) my work. I wear the same clothes for work and weekends, I don’t leave the house to “go off to work” and there’s no tangible payoff for the fruits of my labor. At the end of the day, no one drives away in a car that I fixed. That makes all the difference in a child’s mind.

Children are literal thinkers. Even though my daughter is beginning to grasp some abstract concepts (e.g., medicine makes our bodies well), she’s still unable to fully realize how the work I do translates to the things we buy. When I tell her that I need to work so we can eat, she has to take my word for it. I’ve definitely seen some skepticism in her blue eyes.

After all, my work day consists of sitting in front of a computer screen. This is the same computer she uses to play games online, watch fun videos on YouTube and chat over long distances with grandma.

I think bearing witness not just to fruits of my father’s labor, but to the labor itself, helped shape my adult work ethic. My children lack this frame of reference, and so I wonder how they can possibly understand how hard I work, and how this directly translates to the things we want and need.

–

This article was originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, March 1, 2008 under the title, “To daughter, work looks like play”

Getting by on one income – the tradeoff for family life

Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if my husband and I both worked outside the home and made consistent salaries, with full benefits and a steady chunk of income set aside for a 401(k). It’s tempting to daydream about that path, and how much greener the grass could be, when money is tight.

But I’ve been down that road before, when my oldest daughter was a year old. Back then my work weeks were dominated by hectic commuting, tearful good-byes, exhaustion and the ever-present feeling that I was somehow selling my both my child and my colleagues short.

The current arrangement, e.g., me working full-time and my husband extremely part-time – both of us from home, is a much happier one than my previous life as a harried, commuting, basket case.

But the flip side is that we’re constantly struggling to survive and thrive on what amounts to one income. Outwardly we have the illusion of success. We have ipods, cell phones, video games and high speed Internet access. We send our oldest child to private school because of her atrocious experience at public school, and we own more than one computer.

On the flip side we only have one decent car, our refrigerator is rarely full and we rely on credit cards way more often than we should. Some months are so tight that spending an extra $10.00 on a toy or book is a big decision.

It seems absurd when I think about it. We’re caught in a middle class paradox of creature comforts and luxuries on one hand, and impending financial disaster on the other. I don’t think two incomes is the solution right now. My earning potential is too great compared with my husband’s. The trick is finding steady work.

In the meantime, we’re all learning to be happier with less of just about everything. Getting rid of cable (an $80/month bill), shopping for food more frugally (which saves us an estimated $150-$200/month) and keeping the heat down during the day (even though we’re home) are just a few ways we’ve become more efficient as a family.

We live with less because of the decisions we’ve made but we’ve also gained a lot from the lifestyle we’ve chosen. Above all, we have a strong sense of family, and that means a lot more than money.
–

This article was originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, February 23, 2008 under the title, “Preferred work style takes sacrifice”