A mother's dilemma

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Hi friends, I wrote this several months ago, when I began my job search. I was trying to work on my writing skills... A mother's dilemma I am sitting here at my pc surrounded by a mess. Several years ago, I made the choice to put my family and children before my work. Actually, it was my daughter that helped me to make this decision. When she was born, I expected to continue working. My plan was to be a working mother and be part of a two income family, like so many people are. Well, my daughter, apparently didn’t like that plan. When she was about two years old, she was already quite good and articulating her wants and needs. She made it part of our morning ritual, to crawl into bed next to me and cuddle. Then she would say to me, “Mommy, please don’t go to work, stay home with me”. She did this every day. Well, she finally wore me down. As she approached 3 years old I knew it would soon be time for her to start preschool and I did not want to miss, what I perceived as my last chance to spend time at home with her, before sending her off into the world. I decided to quit my job and stay home with her. Of course, I thought I had it all figured out. At the time we had a positive cash flow. Our credit card balance was low and I figured we’d be spending less money on gas since I wasn’t going to be commuting and we would spend less money on food, since I would be cooking our meals at home, more often. Well, as a wise person once said to me, “When making plans, life gets in the way”. Somehow we decided that it was time to have our second child and of course a second child meant that we needed a minivan. So much for positive cash flow. Still, I was determined that quality time with my children was more important than the material things in life. Somehow, we’ve managed to scrape by. It is now 11 years later. My little girl is now 14 years old and my son is 11 years old. The child that once begged me to stay home with her is now looking around and seeing all the things that her friends have and she wants them too. She also wants to attend the private school where her friends go to school and thankfully, she does intend to go to college. Instead of saying, “Mommy, stay home with me”, she is now saying “Mom, get a job. I want to shop at Hollister and I want a cell phone and I want to go to this private school.” My son, on the other hand is not ready for me to go back to work. He likes being picked up from school. He also struggles with school and needs my supervision when doing homework. I am trying to find the middle ground here. I do want to begin contributing financially to our household. I am now looking for a work at home job. Many people will see the term work at home job and immediately think “scam”. It’s true; there are tons of scams out there. Fortunately there are some legitimate opportunities out there. After endless hours of research, I have come across a few good leads. It turns out that looking for a job like this is a job in itself.