Sometimes ones decisions in life will lead others to ask questions, and the one question I get asked a LOT is: “when are you going to get a ‘real’ job”?
No one has been able to give me a definite answer to what qualifies a job as ‘real’ … Is it ‘real’ when you love it? Is it ‘real’ when you’ve studied for it? Is it ‘real’ when you get paid a lot of money or have a lot of responsibility?
If it is all of the above then I definitely DO have a ‘real’ job. So then why the question?
Me (right) and my two best friend in New York. The tiny baby is actually the one i looked after, her name is Hope. FYI, she's 8 now!
I find it interesting the attitude people have toward different jobs. If I were to be looking after 20 kids in a specific, educational building, that’s perfectly fine. However, looking after only 1 in a residential area disqualifies it from being ‘real’?
Perhaps it’s because people don’t know that I’m doing the exact same thing that a nursery school would do. We sing songs, we draw and paint, we read and count, we rhyme, we climb, we’re learning french together, we have music class and physical activities, we play with balls, sand, water and any other substance you can put in a bowl (or on the dog’s head) we do arts and crafts, naps and meals, and in between all this physical fun, there’s the emotional aspect as well.
Tanzia's little chicken hands
Kids, and especially toddlers (Tanzi is 2) are learning EVERYTHING from the people around them. I have to teach Tanzia what to do when she’s angry, impatient, sad, confused. How to handle disappointments, share and make friends. She needs to learn that when she falls she can get up again, when she thinks she can’t she actually can. she needs to learn the behaviors and habits that move one forward instead of ones that get you stuck. That some behaviors are acceptable and encouraged and others get you nowhere. She needs to learn social skills and manners. What to say when someone sneezes or when someone gives you something.
Now if I’m spending the majority of each and every day with her, do I not have the responsibility, as part of the team who’s raising her, to teach her these things? And then on top of it all encouraging and fostering independence, developing her EQ and nurturing her own individuality as well?
This is Jodi and Jason, i was with them for 4 years!
It often boggles my mind that some people will pay decent, livable salaries to the person answering the phone, jotting down notes and getting them coffee, and not do the same for the qualified person that’s helping them raise a child.
I feel blessed to have a backyard or a park as my ‘office’. To have a happy and fulfilled child as my incentive, and to be part of a team that’s responsible for raising, teaching and growing one of God’s precious little miracles.
Tanzia, fast asleep after a rough day of play
If this is everything a ‘real job’ isn’t … Then I don’t want one anyway.
Your Heart Sing's Blog 
Awesome article Jo! Really. You make such a great point. I’m sending it to my sis. 🙂
You tell ’em, Jo!!! There is no one better equipped to raise other people’s kids than you (and maybe me – hee hee). xxx
I totally agree. And as the person who relies on you to do all of that while I am doing my ‘job’ to secure a stable financial future for her, I appreciate you and your willingness to do that for me. Whilst I would love to do what you do daily with my own daughter, God has also given us different roles to play in each others’ lives and I acknowledge that you are the best person, other than myself, to do what you do. And I am the best person to do what I do in order to secure that financial future I have planned for her.
So, to those people who don’t understand what your ‘job’ is or who like to critisize working mommies – I believe somebody once called us ‘money loving mothers’ – for doing so, I wish for them to one day have their own little ones and to experience this most wonderful opportunity to have a child.
Thanks Jo, you are the best my money could buy! 🙂