I wrote a while ago about our Flex Friday schedule and how it saves us both time and money. It means long days (7:30-5), but it gives us every other Friday off.
So, when I started considering how money could improve my life, my first thought was more free time. During the fall I reduced my schedule to 36 hours per week, which is still technically full time, but means that I now have every Friday off. It’s meant that I now drop off and pick up our Big Guy on Fridays (Hubby does so almost all the time otherwise.) I’m also able to get some exercise, and a hodge podge of family tasks and errands.
I couldn’t agree more with Huffington Post editor Laura Rowley, “The company that can
create jobs where a woman can work from 8:30 to 2:30
is going to win and win really big.”
The
Huffington Post article
also discussed a
study finds that being happy at
work becomes less important to women’s overall well-being when they have pre-school children
,
possibly because this changes working mothers’ priorities.”
While I enjoy my current position and am committed to my career, I also feel like creating more of an equal balance for my family is essential. Now that I have a 4 days on and 3 days off I feel like I’m really able to make the most of my time in both places and give more of myself.
Is it worth it?
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Sustainable Family Finances
The story of a family creating an abundant and sustainable life.
Rather than continually adjusting women’s lives and priorities and the way companies do work, I look forward to the day when men and fathers juggle their lives and priorities and work to do half of the child-rearing, errands and housework. I hate studies that talk about women’s priorities shifting as if that happens in a vacuum or is somehow the “natural” outcome of being a mother. Mother’s priorities often change because there isn’t a real choice – women have to pick up the slack and do more of the child-rearing or choose to have it farmed out to paid help or family. They usually don’t have a viable third choice of having their husband do half the work, sacrifice his career, etc.