The Taynors

The Taynors

Friday, January 20, 2012

The Big Decision

As my previous post hinted, I have resigned from my position as a teacher.  This was a VERY difficult decision and one I agonised over for 5 months.  There were several things we were concerned about and a few key points that made the decision so hard. Here is the break down to how Mike and I finally came to this decision.

Why I didn't want to go back:
-Being a high school English teacher is a non-stop job!  At work all day, bringing work home at night, spending Saturdays and Sundays planning and grading. 
-I was tired of working for very disrespectful kids.  I didn't want to play body guard to the fights or listen to that awful language every day anymore.
-There was a lot I did love about teaching...but the over all anxiety I felt every day was too much for me!  When I left for maternity leave last January, I was absolutely miserable.
-Now that I have my own child, I can't imagine putting all my time and energy into my job the way I have the past 5 years.  I don't know how to half way do that job, I am not the teacher who leaves school when the kids do.  My priorities have changed.

How can I make money:
Being a stay at home mom is not an option for us at this point in life (or maybe ever) so if I didn't go back to teaching, I needed to find a way to make some money.  We set a goal of what I would need to make every week in order for me to leave my job.  Since September I have been working on building my hair business and finding part time work.  As of November, I have reached that goal (and surpassed it) every single week!  I am pretty close to making the same amount of money now as I would be taking home as a teacher.

What about health benefits:
Right now we have great health insurance and benefits through Mike's job, but we were still worried about the risk factors if Mike lost his job.  This was probably our biggest concern.  But we decided that if something happened to Mike's job or our benefits we have some options.  We can always get Cobra through his company, we could get our own insurance that covers emergencies only until Mike got a new job, I could go back to work while Mike is looking for new work, or we could get benefits through my brother in laws company (who I now work part time for).  Bottom line, we have options and we could figure it out if it ever happened!

My schedule now:
After a few months of figuring it all out, I have a pretty good schedule worked out.

Monday- Work from 10-4 at the Chiropractor
Tuesday- Work every other week from  12-3 at the Chiropractor and then back at 6:30-7:30 at night for a health talk
Wednesday- Work from 11:30-3:30 at the Chiropractor and then from 4:00-7:30 at Select
Thursday and Friday- I am home with Ryan, I normally do about 5 hours of work from home while he is napping or after bedtime. 

Then I am available for hair on Monday night, Tuesday afternoon, and anytime on Thursday or Friday.  I can also do the weekends if that's the only time that works.

Then my weekends for the most part are still just weekends to spend with Ryan and Mike.

Conclusion:
Making this decision was very bitter sweet.  I am absolutely positive that its the best decision for our family at this time, but it was till hard.  I worked sooooo hard to work full time and go to school full time in order to get that teaching job.  Then I poured my heart and soul into teaching for 5 years!  So many people want my job that I felt crazy to be giving it up.  I will miss all of my awesome colleagues and I will miss the "good" kids.  I do feel sad to be giving up something that defined me over the past few years.  But no matter what, they can't take away my teaching certificates...I can always go back!

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