It's early Sunday morning and I am the only one awake. This time tomorrow, Dawn will be leaving for work and I will be starting my first day home alone with Tina. I am a little apprehensive...I am not sure what I am getting myself into. My foremost concern is money: neither of us is great at being frugal. Then I wonder what I'll do all day: it's not so easy getting anything done with a twelve pound potato strapped to your chest. Lastly I hope I'm making the right choice for Tina: just because I want her to be happy and healthy doesn't mean I know how to make that happen.
From what I've written so far it seems I'm better suited to a job outside the home. With that I'd have income, a venue for productivity, and I could believe my daughter is being handled by professionals. As it happens, though, my decision is final for the near future. With the economy as it is right now I doubt I could find a job if it tried; and the reasons I found to stay home are too numerous to back out of without some pretty compelling evidence to the contrary.
My reasons for staying home are as follows:
1. Professional childcare would cost roughly half my income.
2. It seems counterintuitive to devote myself to helping someone else turn a profit while a third party cares for my offspring.
3. The hours I worked were often the hours Tina and Dawn would be home. I would miss an unconscionable amount of family time.
4. When I work I tend to smoke and drink, further reducing the financial return on my invested time and also depleting my health and vitality. When I'm on my own time I have much better self control.
5. Daycares are breeding grounds for viruses and bacteria. And no hired hand will be as interested in Tina's wellbeing as I am.
6. Rather than having any kind of career, I have always tended to turn from one dead end alley to another. Maybe with some time off to collect my senses I can finally arrive at a path worth pursuing.
7. With Dawn and I both working outside the home, very little gets done in the way of cooking and cleaning. Our home is little more than a cluttered cave to which we retire to escape the weather between days at work. I want something better for my children.
