I chose to interview my mother who has owned and operated a childcare and preschool for over 23 years and counting. The childcare and preschool is located inside of the family home, and her oldest child is 25 years old; her youngest child is 16 years old, with two in the middle. I learned a lot during this interview that I never knew about my own mother. One question that I asked her was how her work experiences influenced her marriage and family experiences and vice versa. A major influence that work had on the family is that she got to have more family time.
This was accomplished by having her children and husband help out with the childcare and preschool when they could. Raising her own children in the childcare made them more outgoing, social and confident. But, there are a few negative influences that this career has had on the family; their family dinner was always late at night or did not happen. This was due to the childcare not closing until six o’clock in the evening. Another big impact is that the childcare has caused some major stresses and conflicts within the family.
An example of this is when my sister-in-law worked for my mother’s childcare, she was not the best employee and we struggled getting her to help out during the day. My mother had to fire her due to my sister-in-law not doing her job. There are many ways that her work and family life are balanced, from separation to employees. The childcare and preschool has a separate entrance into the house; making the home and the business separated from each other. The childcare is located in the basement and the home is the entire upstairs.
This separation helps the family keep their work out of the home as much as possible. Because it is owned by my mother, she does not have to worry about when to take family vacation, she can send out a letter saying that there will not be childcare due to a family vacation. My mother employees her own children, if we want to work for the childcare, and this helps her balance family and work. Because I work with my mother, I get to see her most of the day and most nights, making me feel extremely close to my mother.
My mother knows that it is a vary hard thing to balance work and family, due to her working twelve hour days, five days a week. Along with the long hours, she struggles with the oldest child who is 25 years old. This is because he is a college student and still living at home, she believes this causes a lot of stress because of the way that the business takes the whole family working together to balance, and the oldest will not do his part. Integration of what I learned from the interview with material from the course:
A concept in class that I have learned about is that you should look for a career or job that you enjoy and will allow flexibility for family. My mother’s business completes this concept, it is a “company that is friendly and supports employees and their families” (Johnson, Miller, and Olsen, 2013 PG 57). I love this concept of balancing work and family because I believe that this is one of the most important things to get balanced. Having a job that you enjoy will make it so that you are a more happy person, which in turn makes it easier to deal with family when you get home from work.
Allowing flexibility for your family is also an important part of a job, if you have a ill or injured child or spouse you would want to be home with them. If your job doesn’t let you take days off for family issues; this makes it impossible to balance work and family, it can make you unhappy and hostile at work and home. (Johnson, Miller, and Olsen, 2013) A response from my interview that corresponded with something that we learned in class is that working long hours can interfere and effect family life.
This is because you do not have as much time to be with your family, it can also interfere with the important events of the day; for example, family dinner time, when the family can talk about how their days were and any other information that they would like to share with the family. (Brent Miller, Class Notes, Fall 2016) Plan of my future to balance work, marriage and family: I am already planning on following in my mother’s footsteps and taking over her childcare and preschool. There are a few things that I am planning on doing differently, I do not want he childcare in my home.
I plan on getting my degree in order to open up a childcare center (a separate building, almost like a school). I will try to not work twelve hour days five days a week, I know for a fact that in the beginning when I expand the business, I will be working long, hard days. I hope that those long, hard days will become shorter and easier days in order for me to spend time with my own family. I would love to keep some of the aspects of my mother’s business, especially employing family. I would love to have family members employed in my childcare, I think that this helps in my family by letting us see each other during the long hours and days.
I know that this can cause some conflicts within the family, so they would have to be treated the same way as all the other employees and understand (before they get hired) that I am running a business and even though they are family they can not get treated differently. I know that opening up a childcare center will put me in debt because I would be buying or leasing a building and having loans to pay for all the supplies needed for the children. Also, the childcare licensing of Utah requires you to pay fees for classes and to get your license before you can open up the center.
I will use the information given on how to pay debt off and managing money in chapter two of the textbook. (Johnson, Miller, and Olsen, 2013). I know that my career plan will benefit me because I love working with children and watching they way that they develop during the years. I really enjoy my work and plan on continuing and expanding my work because of my passion for children. This relates to the topic I mentioned earlier in my paper about how enjoying your job can help balance work and family. (Johnson, Miller, and Olsen, 2013).
