A new guy started work at my day job yesterday. I found out during the interview that he and his wife homeschool four kids, ages 4-11. They use a lot of the same materials we used: Sonlight, Teaching Textbooks, Singapore Math, etc., etc. What made it more interesting was that, after the interview and before he accepted our offer, he wrote me an email to ask if this job was amenable to the homeschool life. I was glad to say that it was. We are engineers so, of course there are hair-on-fire periods of two or three weeks a couple of times per year to hit a schedule or solve a hard problem, but I think that is just the nature of the beast for jobs in general, not just engineering jobs.
My new friend told me his wife does 80 percent of the homeschool work while he fills in the rest. What people do not often understand with homeschooling is that it does not matter which parent does the homeschooling (usually both help, but one–usually the Mom–takes the lead), the other parent has to fill in the cracks with everything else. I managed the homeschooling and most, but certainly not all of the outside work (mowing the lawn, etc.) while Lorena had to handle plenty of things I would normally have done–most of it involving getting in the car to go do something. I often get more credit than I deserve for the work we did in our homeschool.
When Kelly and Christian were his kids ages, I worked at a company that is a competitor to my current employer. I worked a lot longer week at that company than my current one–probably 50+ hours per week on average with three or four weeks per year at 60+ and even 70+ hours. Still, it did not have an inordinate impact on our ability to do homeschool. On the upside with that job, I had about a 12 minute commute. If it would have been even a half an hour each direction, it would have been more difficult to spend the time I needed with the kids. So, I was able to tell my new friend he could homeschool quite well with this job, but his long commute was going to be his biggest burden.
The upshot is that where there is a will there is a way. I am glad my new friend took the job. He is actively looking for a way to move closer to minimize his commute. I think he will do great, both at his new job and in his family’s homeschool.
Betty Blonde #416 – 02/18/2010
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