Work versus Family.

A while back our group leader asked us to post something about work and family, it’s been a while, (sorry) so here goes my thoughts about it,

Am at a point of my life where my time is balanced between doing a very tasking management research paper, doing a couple of assignments and continuous assessment tests, and the major stressing bit, applying for jobs. This has got to be the most stressing moment in my life, sending your CV everywhere until one of my good friends joked that our job should be stated as “kazi yangu ni kutafuta kazi” loosely translated to mean “my job is looking for a job”. Really hoping that I do get that job, you know THE JOB!!

I do have other dreams though, of getting married to a blah blah blah you probably know those qualities by now, from my previous story, (remember Maxwell??) and having 3 or 4 beautiful kids. The problem is I don’t want to be that woman who is getting kids way past 40 years (no offense) just cause of a career. Sure I want a fabulous career, scale the corporate ladder and run a successful enterprise, but then again at what cost??

Let me digress just a little bit and give a story about me growing up. My dad (RIP) was a banker, later got to learn he was a credit officer at National Bank of Kenya, and he was a one busy individual. He would leave very early in the morning and would come back home late in the night. Was it work it?? On one hand, money was not a problem, anything you wanted was available, food, trips, cash anything you name it, it was available. However this came at a cost, very heavy cost, he was never ever available. I rarely saw him and I missed his fatherly in my life. I was pretty young and I often asked why I didn’t get to see him as much as I wanted and why he was never there.

A friend of mine argued that we need money, but I beg to differ money is something, that I do not dispute, but it is not everything.  Money can get you a house not a home, money can get you an education but not knowledge and wisdom. I may be the CEO or CFO or those other many titles that I may possess, but if I go home to any empty house with only a cat to keep me company, then my life will not be complete in any way. I may have all the wealth on this earth but with no heirs to my wealth? It will all be vanity.

I desire that my children will get to spend one on one time with me, that I will get to play and jump around with my children. I desire to spend a lot of time with my children especially in their young and formative years.

If it means staying at home with my kids for some time as a stay at home mum, that I will do.

For me, family and only family comes first.