This time of year always reminds me of school and work, which for me have always been synonymous, until this year of course. I started working as a babysitter (gulp) 23 years ago, as soon as I turned 12, and it was a significant source of income for me for many years, helping me pay for travel in high school and work my way through college. It has been so long, in fact, that some of my former charges now have kids of their own. I started my first "real" job four years later, working at a local apple orchard in their retail store w/my sister E for three fall seasons, which I'm also always reminded of this time of year.
I remember being so excited to start babysitting as soon as my mother would let me. First for neighbors, then co-workers of my parents (half the drs. in town), teachers, and referrals (including the couple who owned our local athletic club, setting me up for a summer getting buff and working in their day care). I literally worked for dozens of families before I got out of high school. I've always loved kids and it was undoubtedly great experience for someday becoming a mother myself, and also for experiencing first hand how other households were run. I ended up continuing in college, almost by accident, when it came time to decide what to do for the summer. When I decided I wasn't going to NYC to intern on Wall Street, I lived in during the three summers w/two families in Hyannisport and also worked weekends during the school year for the same Boston area families. Exactly a decade after I started, I "retired". Had I been more entrepreneurial at the time, I would have started a business, like fellow babysitter extraordinaire/college classmate Genevieve Thiers, a fellow Chicagoan who founded sittercity.com. She's quite a dynamo, and is now ironically expecting twins herself.
So now for over a decade, after as long immersed in all things kids, I've been shaping my adult life and grinding in the corporate world in preparation for when I would finally become a mother myself. Sadly, the last three years we have also been immersed in the world of infertility medicine, but we are obviously thrilled to finally be planning in real terms for our kids/family to come this fall. Like most women, I always considered staying at home, but I don't ever think I ever really thought I would. IF (and now bed rest) definitely ended up forcing my hand, which like when I got sick w/mono at the end of that last summer in college, forced me to cull the unnecessary out of my life. Though I couldn't be more thrilled to be solely focused on our family, for now anyway.
Though the more I think about SAH long term, the more I think that I will end up going back to work at some point, either for myself or back in the corporate world. While it is certainly an honorable vocation, it seems many SAH either because that's all they've ever wanted or been able to do and/or because paying for care for their children is just more than they would make in the workforce, making it less of a choice. From my experience, I think it is really important for children to have positive interaction and myriad role models outside of the family, thus making room for mom to have other interests. And obviously the resources that are brought to bear by working, provide their children opportunities that those living more simply to SAH are not privy to.
So after all this time, it is so wild to think that in ten or so short weeks, I will have my very own kiddos. :)
I remember being so excited to start babysitting as soon as my mother would let me. First for neighbors, then co-workers of my parents (half the drs. in town), teachers, and referrals (including the couple who owned our local athletic club, setting me up for a summer getting buff and working in their day care). I literally worked for dozens of families before I got out of high school. I've always loved kids and it was undoubtedly great experience for someday becoming a mother myself, and also for experiencing first hand how other households were run. I ended up continuing in college, almost by accident, when it came time to decide what to do for the summer. When I decided I wasn't going to NYC to intern on Wall Street, I lived in during the three summers w/two families in Hyannisport and also worked weekends during the school year for the same Boston area families. Exactly a decade after I started, I "retired". Had I been more entrepreneurial at the time, I would have started a business, like fellow babysitter extraordinaire/college classmate Genevieve Thiers, a fellow Chicagoan who founded sittercity.com. She's quite a dynamo, and is now ironically expecting twins herself.
So now for over a decade, after as long immersed in all things kids, I've been shaping my adult life and grinding in the corporate world in preparation for when I would finally become a mother myself. Sadly, the last three years we have also been immersed in the world of infertility medicine, but we are obviously thrilled to finally be planning in real terms for our kids/family to come this fall. Like most women, I always considered staying at home, but I don't ever think I ever really thought I would. IF (and now bed rest) definitely ended up forcing my hand, which like when I got sick w/mono at the end of that last summer in college, forced me to cull the unnecessary out of my life. Though I couldn't be more thrilled to be solely focused on our family, for now anyway.
Though the more I think about SAH long term, the more I think that I will end up going back to work at some point, either for myself or back in the corporate world. While it is certainly an honorable vocation, it seems many SAH either because that's all they've ever wanted or been able to do and/or because paying for care for their children is just more than they would make in the workforce, making it less of a choice. From my experience, I think it is really important for children to have positive interaction and myriad role models outside of the family, thus making room for mom to have other interests. And obviously the resources that are brought to bear by working, provide their children opportunities that those living more simply to SAH are not privy to.
So after all this time, it is so wild to think that in ten or so short weeks, I will have my very own kiddos. :)
