Whenever I've thought about writing this blog, it has at the best of times felt quite overwhelming.
Because there is so much I want to say and so much I feel passionate about in the words that will follow.
I'm currently sat on a train heading from Sydney, to Bowral. A beautiful little countryside town which is now home to a family I feel blessed to know, and be a small part of. I took care of Emily and Lucy Dorans two days a week from January 2015 to December, of the same year. These two little girls, alongside others, helped me to drag myself out of the pit I talked about in my previous posts.
Without them even realising they were doing so.
I've taken care of, educated, helped to raise little people for 13 years now. It's pretty much all I know from a job perspective.
I mean, I did a paper round for most of my early teens, speeding around on my double suspension bike, carrying my mini CD player in my hoodie, listening to it skip every time I got on and off my bike, or bumped it with my knees, delivering people their rain sodden papers, and receiving a small fortune in tips every Christmas.
I swept hair and folded tin foil in the local hairdressers for around 3 saturdays before embarrassingly fainting and being gently let go the week after.
And I've pulled a few pints, served a few dishes of grub and flirted with the regulars whilst studying for my degree.
But all of that aside, educating, nurturing, and understanding little people is what I've done since I decided at 16 it was what I wanted to pursue in the next chapter of my life.
When I think back to all of the little peoples lives I'm privileged to be, or have been a part of, It's actually pretty overwhelming.
(As you can tell, I'm easily overwhelmed)
And when I think back to how many tears I've dried, how many hugs I've given (and recieved) how many laughs I've endured, snotty noses I've wiped (or that have been wiped on my shoulder) and nappies I've changed. How many times I've been shouted at, hit, kicked, and vomited and pooped on.
I stop.
And wonder, whatever happened to the glamorous life that I was supposed to lead.
You will often find me asking the little ones that.
"Oooooh Lachlan, Whatever happened to my glamorous life?"
And routinely, he'll look up at me with a 'Oh here she goes again' kind of look.
Yes even the bubs do that.
The same thought follows without fail.
And thats, well, I simply wasn't made for a glamorous life.
In fact my effort at trying to fit myself into a fancier life only added to the anxieties I've discussed previously.
I’m not driven by money or fancy things. And its safe to safe I probably never will be.
My life has fit into a suitcase for the main part of two years, and the most expensive thing I own is probably the laptop I'm writing this blog on.
I've never earned much money. I earn enough to get by, to buy the things I need, and some of the things I don't need, but simply want.
And even though money is 'nice', its not the thing that gets me out of bed and into a job that I enjoy going to day in and day out.
I trained as a Primary School Teacher, but quickly grew to realise that teaching just wasn't for me.
Shocker, I know.
Raise your hand if you trained as a Primary School Teacher and realised you didn't want your soul sucking out of you slowly for the rest of your life with a never ending work load and ridiculously high expectations of yourself and the little people you were ‘educating’?
I knew that I didn't want to turn our precious little people into robots, to ask them 'What they wanted to be when they grew up', to categorise them, to tell them that if they didn't succeed in English, Maths and Science they would fail. That they couldn't make a career as an artist.
Apparently there are two sides to your brain that determine what kind of character you are, or how you function in life.
Possibly a load of nonsense, possibly not, who knows?
Anyways, Im a right hander.
My brain works most effectively through creativity, imagination, feelings, intuition, the arts etc.
I couldn't be any more right side brained. My brain, no matter how much I try to manipulate it to be more left sided, is just not. Its just not a logical brain, and I've given up trying.
Now, it's one thing to decide against a career you thought you wanted but another to choose an alternative. And upon finsihing Uni, I hit a big, tall strongly built wall.
I found it extremely difficult to choose a career outside of education, a career I was passionate about. So I continued working with little ones, in the ages before school. The ages deemed 'less important' by society. The age you are considered a 'non-professional' if you work in.
I mean, you're only a professional if you work with children above 5 right?
Right?
Right 😏
Society.
There is not much teachers can do with 5 years worth of bad habits, lack of respect and neglected emotional needs.
And if there is?
Id say it would take double that time to fix.
I struggled with the acceptance of not 'using' my degree. Of choosing a 'lesser' career. But I've grown extremely passionate about understanding the extra little people in my life. And there is a heavy cloud of guilt that sits over my head whenever I think back to the years where I so desperately tried to escape the work I was doing (Simply because I caved to societies expectations and deemed it not a 'not good enough' career)
There is a stigma attached to early childhood jobs, and that stigma has been attached, I believe for a few reasons
Firstly, the fact that it was, for a long time, a job in which you needed no qualifications to apply for.
The pay is extremely below what it should be.
Its full of people who do the job, because they don't know what else they want to do.
And well, you're just the 'babysitter' whilst parents go out and save the world.
Cue superhero music
Now, the idea that my job is 'lesser' because I'm taking care of peoples children whilst they go out and earn 'big money', is ridiculous. You know the main thing I've learnt in my 13 years with little people.
We're failing them.
As a society were failing our little people.
We're teaching them that success is measured in material possessions, in riches, in status. And were doing this by placing them second, after our careers.
They have all the latest gadgets.
But children don't really want (or need) that. What children really want is more quality time with their parents, they want to be listened to, and understood, they want to be heard.
The book I just finished reading was one called “The subtle art of not giving a F#%k', and I believe it is a book that should be read by everyone.
Mark Manson discusses the metrics by which our society defines success.
And the values we hold. Some that are well sought after but nonetheless 'shitty' values.
One of these 'shitty' values he states is 'Material Success”
"Many people measure their self worth based on how much money they make or what kind of car they drive or whether their front lawn is greener and prettier than the next door neighbours.
Research shows that once one is able to provide for basic physical needs (food, Shelter, and so on), the correlation between happiness and wordy success quickly approaches zero. So if you're starving and living on the street in the middle of India, an extra ten thousand dollars a year would affect your happiness a lot. But if you're sitting pretty in the middle class in a developed country, and extra ten thousand dollars per year won't affect anything much-meaning that you're killing yourself working overtime and weekends fir basically nothing"
Which means the chances are if your sitting prettier in your job than I am and you earn double my money, you're probably just far more stressed instead of far more happy.
It probably means you have less time for all of the other things that nourish your soul. If I was teaching now, I know that the time I'd spend working would eat in to all of the other aspect of my life that I love so much, such as photography and reading, and when the time comes to have my own children, it will probably mean less time with them too. And, these things are to me, are essential in leading a life that is more balanced and whole.
In 2015 I read 'The five regrets of the dying' a book by Bronnie Ware
The top five things people regretted on their death bed are as follows:
1. I wish I had lived a life more true to me, not the life expected of me by others
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings
4. I wish I'd have kept in touch with friends
5. I wish I'd let myself be happier
"The other issue with overvaulting material success" Mark continues is the danger of prioritising it over other values, such as honesty and compassion. When people measure themselves not by their behaviour, but by the status symbols they're able to collect, then not only are they shallow, but they're probably arseholes as well'
I used to measure myself on material worth, and I was miserable. I no longer do that, and when I reach my death bed, I'll know that my metrics were measured in compassion and my values were not the 'shitty' kind.
Its enough for me.
Actually when I come to think about it, most of the important people in my life, people I look up to, and admire, are not high flyers. But they're some of the most whole and well rounded people I've ever met.
My mother is one of most successful people I know.
Not because she has a high flying career, or lots of money, in fact she has neither.
But she dedicated her life to raising myself and my four siblings, which, as someone who has worked with little ones for over a decade, now (Obviously I didn't before) understands what a tremendously difficult job that is to do.
She has raised 5 children worked numerous grafting jobs, manages a house that is practically a farm, she's gone back to college to follow her dreams and is always, always there for me when I need her.
She in my eyes is successful because she has done and always will do the things that come from her heart.
In the 1990's William M. Muir conducted a chicken experiment whereby he pursued breeding 'super chickens'.
The Evolution Institute website discusses the experiment and reads:
'Muir's experiments reveal a tremendous naivety in the idea that creating a good society is merely a matter of selecting the best individuals. A good society requires members working together to create what cannot be produced alone, or at least to refrain from exploiting each other. Human societies approach this ideal to varying degrees, but there is always an unfairness that results in some profiting at the expense of others. If these individuals are allowed to breed and if their profiteering ways are heritable, then selecting the 'best' individuals will cause a cooperative society to collapse.”
I mean it makes sense really, there just isn't enough room for everyone at the top, and I'm certainly not fighting to get up there.
Somebody has to wipe bottoms and noses and clean up projectile vomit. So it might as well be me.
Because alongside all of that, I've learnt so much about life from the little people I spend my days with, and they've brought and continue to bring so much joy into my life.
They're amazing little things that understand much more then I feel we, as adults give them credit for, and I'm learning from them every day, still after 13 years.
I know it’s not what I will do for the rest of my life, because there are other passions that if life allows it, I’d like to pursue a new career in.
But I’d like to think I'm better at my job now than I have ever been. Because my struggles brought me to a place in my life where I had to evaluate my choices and actions. My paradigms shifted. My lens changed and I used little people to help me view the world differently.
I used them to simplify life, and to understand how I had gotten into the mess I'd found myself in, and instead of classing them as 'children' I began to class them simply, as people.
As people who have the same needs we have as adults, and require the same respect. The exact same acknowledgment and respect we give to each other as adults.
When I allowed myself to be fully present in a job that I feel I was made to do, I was open to understanding so much more about little people, and life.
I began to understand fully the importance of effective communication, and the acceptance of all our emotions. Which, as I've talked about previously, I feel very strongly about and will be the topic that leads me into my next blog.
Today, I left work feeling content with what it is that I do every day.
“After all, that constant pressure to be something amazing, to be the next big thing, will be lifted off your back. The stress and anxiety of always feeling inadequate and constantly needing to prove yourself will dissipate. And the knowledge and acceptance of your mundane existence will actually free you to accomplish what you truly wish to accomplish, without judgement or lofty expectations.
You will have a growing appreciation for life's basic experiences, the pleasures of simple friendship, creating something, helping a person in need, reading a good book, laughing with someone you care about.
Sounds boing doesn't it? Thats because these things are ordinary. But maybe they're ordinary for a reason: because they're what really matters"
MarK Manson, The subtle art of not giving a F#%K
Before I go I'd just like to clarify that I'm not against success. A successful career or life built on passion is something I admire greatly. It is a success that is built on material gain or status that I discuss in the above. If your job is your passion and you're successful at such passions then I believe that to be wonderful. But I have just as much admiration for people who are in extremeley low paid or rated jobs if their reasons for doing so are that it comes from their heart..
It just so happens that one of my passions is for cleaning up vomit and snot amongst other things and I can spend a lifetime trying to escape that fact.
Or I can not do that, and just accept it's something I was always supposed to do.
That shall be all for now
Stace