How I feel about quitting my teaching job (again)

If you're new, you can find the links to my previous teaching jobs on my about me page. The only time I ever intentionally quit a job to stay home was in 2018 when Wells was born. 

This year, since I was pregnant when school started in August, I knew I likely wouldn't be back for a second year. I stayed home for two full years with Wells. I couldn't fathom sending him to daycare; I was too anxious about his well-being. I read horror stories at one point about babies and daycare and, well, that was enough for me. 

This time, the logistics involved seemed like too much for me to handle. I know moms do it. I end up doing most of the day-to-day parenting because of Scott's work and travel schedule. And since we don't have family around to help, I would have to seek out strangers to assist me and I am not up for that. 

Logistically, this past school year, I would leave the house with Wells around 7am. I would drop him off at preschool before-care at 7:15-7:20. Then it would take me anywhere between 10 minutes and 45 minutes to get to work. I say this because my work was about 4 miles from his school. Since it was on the military base, the line to get through the gate was unpredictable. I can't tell you how many times I was late. Kids arrived at 8am. Usually I was getting there 5 minutes before them. It would, most days, take about 30 minutes to go those 4 miles. That is completely nonsensical. No one needs that kind of stress in their life. In order to go back this next school year, I would need to find a daycare for Sutton and add a second drop-off to that time schedule. You might say, you should've left the house earlier. True. It was really hard to get out the door with a 3 year old who fought me through the entire getting-ready-journey in the mornings though. I could not make it happen before 7am. Sorry. Plus, you weren't supposed to drop them off before 7:00 at preschool. So, theoretically, I could've left at 6:45am, but that only ever happened a few times when the stars aligned (literally, as it would still be pitch black outside at that time). 

So logistics are the biggest reason I'm not going back. I can't deal with that kind of schedule in the morning just to pay about $1400 a month total to have someone else take care of our baby and teach Wells. 

Secondly, my school wasn't enough to draw me back. Sorry. It just wasn't. Details aside, I didn't feel like I was getting what I wanted and needed there. If I had been going to go back this year (like if a baby hadn't been a factor), I would've tried to move to another building anyway. I could not go through all of that up there for another year. Add in all the extra teacher responsibilities too...I want to want to teach, so it's really unfortunate that I didn't want to try to make it work. 

Now, if we are here for another year, and Wells is getting ready for kindergarten and we decide to send him to the local school, maybe I'll try to work there. Maybe, at that point, we could have someone come to the house to watch Sutton, like we used to have for Wells. It just really depends. Basically, I refuse to pay for more than one child to be in childcare at a time. It's not worth it on a teacher's salary. I have a contact in the local district who really vouches for it, so maybe that would be an option in a year or so, for both me and for Wells. 

Until then, I'm good with being at home. Being a military spouse means you are truly the manager of all things in the household. I totally floundered mentally this past school year with Wells and working. I truly didn't have a lot of fun with my job either. I always have in the past, more or less, but teaching was not fun in 2021-2022. I went over that in this post and in this one, so I won't re-hash it here too. But while I wanted to want to go back, that's not where I'm at for 2022-2023. It was a pretty easy decision to choose to stay home for a bit.