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Aagot
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| Posted: Aug 24 2010 at 6:11pm | IP Logged
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Okay, for my first official post I have a question that my son asked me. Short background--husband leaves for work before kids get up and returns after they are in bed 9 times out of 10. If he does come home earlier, he is too tired to interact with kids. Ditto for the weekend, just to tired or has to catch up on work, always behind schedule. This is a good paying job, has had it for 12 years but a field where there are many lay offs-- stressful and you have to give all or you are gone.
So, my 11 ds asked me, "mom, what career could I have that would pay well but allow me to play with my kids and not be tired and grumpy?"
It makes me want to cry, my children don't know their father and he doesn't really know them. He does want to spend time with them. He just doesn't see any way out.
So, do you have any suggestions for my son? Do any of you have husbands with a great family friendly job?
Thanks for any advice,
Aagot
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guitarnan
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| Posted: Aug 24 2010 at 6:31pm | IP Logged
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You know, in this economic climate the employers are in the driver's seat. My husband is in the military and his time belongs to the nation, so we have very little control over our family time. Having said that, most husbands I know sure wish they could say, "You know, I'd love to stay, but my son is pitching in his first little league game," but they can't.
Teaching and government jobs used to be family-friendly (and in a sense they still are), but every state is holding off on hiring people in these fields because of budget issues.
I hate to sound discouraging, but this economy makes it hard to feel positive.
I do think it is important to tell your children how hard their father works (for all of you) and to find ways to set aside time for him to spend, one-on-one, even just for an hour at the park or pool, so they can find ways to connect with him.
One suggestion I have comes from personal experience. When my husband was standing 12-hour, rotating-schedule watches on his ship AND working his normal 7-to-4 shifts (yes, that's two full-time jobs), we matched our school days to his schedule. If he was off on Tuesday, we did lessons on Saturday and spent Tuesday afternoons with him after he'd slept off the midwatch. It did help - made things a little unpredictable, but we all felt calmer knowing we'd spent time together and made the best of a difficult work situation.
You're in my prayers...I know just how you feel, and how your son feels, too, because my father had a job like that when I was your son's age. I still have a very warm and loving relationship with my father - proof it can work out even when work schedules interfere - but I know it's a challenge when you're raising a young family.
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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JodieLyn
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So many things go into that..
What talents and skills has God given to you.. and what profession is He calling you to?
What do you like doing? If you spend all day doing a job you dislike you're more than likely to take it out on the people at home.
What area do you live in? If you want to live in an area like Seattle or San Francisco or New York or Washington D.C. You'll need a higher level of income just to make ends meet than you do in a little town in an out of the way area in many places across the US.
Homeschooling is one of the best ways to maximize family time. You CAN change your schedule to follow your dh's schedule vs following a schedule dictated by another entity like public schools.
Learning to be content with what you have and not needing the next best thing, the newest gadget, a newer model car etc. Learn to budget. Learn to shop. Find the deals, pinch the pennies, use secondhand products where possible and otherwise make the outgo less than the income.. Make it easier on yourself to meet your budget needs and you don't have to stress as much to make more and more and more money.
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stacykay
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Hmmm...not CPA's. At least, not ones doing public accouting. Tax season lasts nearly four months, and dh is gone by 4am and home around 10pm. He does take Sundays off, though, but he couldn't until he began working for himself.
Nurses have a lot of flexibility. Different areas of medicine, once residency and early practice life have passed, can be good options. I'm not sure of the working conditions of other careers, and one wonders, in the current economy, where things will go in 10 years.
I really like all of Jodie's suggestions. Coming home after working at a job you hate can make for a tense homelife, while working hard and/or long hours at a job you love can bring you home satisfied and content.
Your ds is in a great position, so young, to take this time to pray for direction in his life. One thing our local hs group did was to have career nights with all sorts of professionals who came and talked about their jobs. I think they did one a month, and many were from local churches. They were all very happy to give the presentations and talk to the kids. I know of a couple of boys who made some preliminary career decisions based on these talks.
Also, your son has the time to explore different subjects, taking rabbit trails to find that passion!
In Christ,
Stacy in MI
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Paula in MN
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I agree with Nancy - try to sync your schedules to his. My husband leaves before 6 every morning and gets home around 10 at night, four days per week. We try to do what we can on those three-day weekends, knowing that he is tired and has some things he'd like to accomplish, too. He is usually laid off every winter for four months, so that is when he really joins us in school and play.
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 Paula
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Angie Mc
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| Posted: Aug 25 2010 at 5:25pm | IP Logged
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Aagot wrote:
So, my 11 ds asked me, "mom, what career could I have that would pay well but allow me to play with my kids and not be tired and grumpy?"
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Thanks for posting, Aagot. I sure hope that you find some help and reassurance for your difficult situation.
For a simple answer, I don't believe that there are any, at least for the majority of men, especially those who are willing to support a wife and children at home. I don't mean to be discouraging! I hope I'm just reassuring that feelings of missing dad are so very common. Our family tried and tried different ways to decrease my husbands work hours to increase time at home. But God had other plans for us. My dh currently works 1 full-time that includes quite a bit of travel and some deployments as well as 1 part-time job that takes up many evenings.
Two principals have really helped us to deal with our reality. First is gratitude and the second is creative time management with dad.
Gratitude is the biggest. We focus on the fact that we're blessed to have 2 jobs. We are grateful that dh is willing to work so hard to provide for us. My dh talks about his work in positive terms but clearly his priority is us. Working so much is his sacrifice, the cross he carries for us because God has asked this of him. He is a hero in my eyes and I share this truth with my children. We're honest about missing each other and have been known to talk about being forever united in heaven,...no job, no loneliness, no missed baseball games, no clock ticking...JUST IMAGINE!
Now to the practical points:
We have a family meeting once a week to connect what we are doing at home with dad. He leads the meeting, asks questions he has listed on a paper, and listens. From there we talk about what we need for the next week. We also talk honestly about our finances - why dad needs to make money in the first place. If he is out of town, we do this via phone. If he is home, we meet after church (keep everyone dressed in their church clothes and serve a snack.)
My dh schedules in a morning meeting with me each morning. He is available by phone for the children throughout the day.
When he comes home, we greet him warmly at the door and he takes a few minutes with each of the children and me before he changes out of his uniform.
He consolidates as much of his work into Tuesday and Thursday nights (his late nights.) He does his best to be home before bedtime on MWF.
Dh and the children usually have one game going for a few weeks at a time that they play after he changes. Currently they all play cards. When the weather is nicer, they play baseball, basketball, ping pong...anything!
When dh is REALLY exhausted, he has been known to just hang on the couch with the children while they watch a baseball game or movie. They don't mind if my dh snores  .
Dh includes the children in his home chores, usually a one-to-one thing. He'll have one son help him with the pool. Another son will go to Home Depot with him. Another will go to the post office with him.
Now that the children are older, they text. That has been a great blessing for their relationships.
Snatching 5, 10, or 15 minutes together adds up!
****
The key is to find ways to show each other our support and trust, that we are each other's #1 priority  . We have found this to be hard work...purposeful work. Sure we fail, make mistakes, fall asleep when we should have played a quick game of cards. Yes, we have to regroup, say we're sorry, and show great mercy. But those moments when we're on track...when we're all in sync...worth every effort.
Praying for you and your family .
Love,
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Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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Aagot
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| Posted: Aug 25 2010 at 5:56pm | IP Logged
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Thanks Ladies,
I guess we will just have to wait and see
what my son ends up being interested in.
Right now he'd like to run a hunting lodge 
Aagot
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VanessaVH
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| Posted: Aug 27 2010 at 2:14pm | IP Logged
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Just wanted to mention that I think any business that can be run from home is more conducive to family life. My DH runs his own plumbing business, and operates from home. It means longs hours some days, but other days very little. We adjust our schedule around his. There are times when we all eat breakfast together instead of dinner. Also as our boys grow (they are 5 and under now) they will have many opportunities to learn work skills by helping out their daddy.
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crusermom
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Well not the Army! My toddlers used to call any guy in uniform "Daddy." I don't think medicine really qualifies either as it can be flexible after residency and early practice, but you are usually in your mid 30s or older by then and still in debt. Also, you might completely miss some pretty important events in the early years. I do know one or two doctors with flexible schedules, but they are rare.
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mathmama
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My dh is a college math professor. The pay is not great at all, but we live frugally and sacrifice because time is more important to us than money. Dh's schedule is flexible to some extent. He can't take any time off during the semester which can be really hard when we have a baby during the semester (with both fall babies he was back to work the next morning). But, he has few hours he actually needs to be on campus. He has lots of work to do other than classroom time, but he can do that at home when the rest of us are sleeping. Mostly that is what he does (he gets very little sleep). He rarely misses dinner and bedtime (perhaps 3 times a year) and he is off over Christmas and during the summer. During the breaks he still has work to do, but doesn't have to teach.
Money is very tight and will always be, but our children's college education is taken care of in full if they want to go to the university where he teaches (and a couple others as well). Also, dh has total job security now that he has tenure. That is a huge thing. I know it was a tremendous weight off of his shoulders.
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Barbara C.
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My husband teaches community college, which in many places only requires a masters instead of a doctorate. He has tenure (yay, job security), and we have really good health insurance.
He does teach all year round because we need the money, but he gets three to four weeks off around Christmas, a week and half in the fall, spring break, and most other holidays.
When he first started, he was gone about 35 hours per week. But since he became eligible to teach internet courses, he's gone from home about 20-25 hours per week (including commute). Then he does about 5 hours of work from home. It varies depending on extra meetings or when papers are due, etc.
They pick their schedules about one semester ahead (so he just picked his spring schedule), so we can adjust depending on our needs as a family. For instance, he doesn't do night classes in the spring or summer because of the girls ball schedule. I heard of one married couple who work at his college who coordinated their schedules to avoid using daycare.
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Barbara
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Pilgrim
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I 2nd the home business thing. And with the internet nowadays, the possibilities are even bigger. We have started 2 online businesses in the last year. One is an heirloom seed business, and the other selling camping/backpacking and emergency preparedness products. It is a lot of work, but dh is home everyday, able to pray with us every morning, and be here for those little emergency times in the day where I need a hand, and he is not a tired daddy who barely sees the kids at night. And with an online business htere is so much less overhead than a brick and mortar business. With an online business there is another added benefit of not having to be out in the world so to speak, if one is careful in their online work.  Your son can look at what he likes, and see what kind of business would especially go well in a slow economy, and with the willingness to work at it, the possibilities are in his hands. The two businesses we have chosen both happen to be areas that are successful in a down economy. Yes, things are tighter cash-wise, but God has miraculously provided, and it is so great to have dh working here.
Oh, and for a young person(or old person) who wants to start an online business we would really suggest learning the basic web-building languages of HTML and CSS, and Search Engine Optimization. There are Dummies books on all three.
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Aagot
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Thanks! you have given me some hope for my son's future family life.
Aagot
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MNMommy
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I think it might be the work environment rather than the career that allows for family friendly jobs. My dh was a military lawyer, and that was longer hours and, of course, deployments. He is now a county prosecutor making *much* less money living in the middle of nowhere. BUT....he leaves for work around 8:00, comes home for lunch, is home by 6:00 nearly every night, and rarely works weekends. We see a lot more of him and he is still in the same career field.
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Grace&Chaos
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Jennifer, I agree with what you mean. We just moved a year ago to a nicer house in a better community. With this my dh changed agencies but still in the same field. Unfortunately, we don't get to see him as much as we used too  . Luckily he does have a 10/40 (10 hours per day for four days, not including overtime, which there always ends up being) work schedule so (if he doesn't get called out) we see him three days a week straight. All of which he spends with us  .
I had to respond to you because I noticed your peanut has the same b-day as my youngest ds. And with the exception of my dd 10 we almost have the same ages for everyone else.
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Jenny
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ALmom
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There are family friendly careers - my husband is an electrical engineer. He really likes the problem solving, hands on type of things and preferably with consumer products but he has done both consumer and military.
Again, it depends on the region, and the particular company some too. It also depends on whether or not you have found a technical niche that gains respect and value without livlihood being dependent on moving into management. It depends on how much you require promotions, etc. for a sense of worth. My husband loves what he does and mostly has very regular hours and he remains doing technical work which is what he always wanted. You can certainly choose to be a workaholic - but it isn't required for a good, solid, fulfilling job that supports a family comfortably - at least not in his field and where we live.
Military contracting jobs involve more travel, at least around here and if the company is totally dependent on govt. contracts - stability is somewhat dependent on the latest political tidal wave. They tend to be a bit more of the slavedriver variety, too - making their bids assuming that there will be a large amount of OT work on part of the salaried employees. With engineering, you can take many different paths and adjust - Testing is always needed - what you test changes with the winds!
Janet
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: family friendly careers
