Vent: I work full-time at a Catholic high school that is pretty prestigious and expensive.
My daughter is in daycare and it costs about 38% of my salary. I teach a specialized subject so technically I could tutor part time (AP Macroeconomics and AP History) but I have zero clients, and we’re going into a major recession right now.
Here’s the dilemma. I want nothing more than to homeschool my kids but I feel like I’m being selfish for wanting that for these reasons:
- I would stop being a financial contributor
- I am not trained in early child development like a Montessori teacher is.
- If I leave my job, there is a huge possibility my kids won’t be able to go to this prestigious school with all the opportunities it has. If I stay, it’s more likely we could afford to send my daughter here once she’s in high school, and I could even get a discount on tuition (but nothing is for sure)
- I feel like I would be screwing us out of retirement. How do you even plan for that without a company backing you?
- We’re for sure going into a recession. What happens if the economy gets worse and things get more expensive and no one hires me to tutor?
As a teacher, I’ve always known I wanted to put my kid in private school because of the smaller class sizes, but I don’t know if we could even afford that WITH my job. Here are the pros to homeschooling for me
- Control over the environment/ content
- The opportunity to see my baby learn and provide a stable learning environment for her to thrive in
- Save money on Preschool
- Save money on a car to commute to work
- Save money on wardrobe
- It would make me much happier
Edit because people in the comments are saying the only pro is for myself, I thought it was implied that this would be beneficial for a toddler to be with their primary attachment.
I really just want to homeschool while kids are young, becuase I want to encourage a secure attachment, and I want to be there for the best parts of her babyhood. I want to homeschool because I have taught in the public schools where I live. It is an affluent area, but the schools are pretty much paralyzed by the school boards and cannot make rules to keep kids safe/cannot seem to maintain healthy environments for it's students and educators.
I will HAVE to do private school in middle/high school for my conscience. I have taught HS seniors around Southern California and have yet to teach at a public school that I would trust to keep my kid safe.
I only have one but would really love at least 2 more kids! We will see though. I can see myself justifying this easily with the cost of childcare being so high.
Ideally I would love to homeschool until kindergarten/early primary school . But idk if it will set me back in my career, or if I will be able to work at my current job; is it even worth it for a short amount of time?