Four Reasons Parents Should Choose Work They Love

Whether one or both parents will work has become a non-issue in modern families. It’s estimated that in 75% of American families both parents are working on jobs or running their own businesses away from home. Some parents are fortunate enough to be able to work from home or telecommute. Regardless of which model describes your family, how you feel about your job affects your family life and helps determine family harmony.

Choosing work you love is not just for your own fulfillment. There are four reasons a job you love helps your family:

1. You are better prepared to spend quality time with your family.

When you have a job you love, you’re less likely to seek unhealthy escape when you come home from work. Unfortunately, many people who hate their jobs spend money and time trying to escape the stress of their jobs by drinking or seeking escapist entertainment, which sometimes takes them away from their families physically, emotionally or mentally—even during their time off.

2. You are more likely to have the energy and disposition to be a fair and loving parent.

Working on a job you hate saps your energy and probably gives you feelings of failure and powerlessness. When you arrive home, it’s all too easy to try to exert the little authority you do have in an unfair way with your children and spouse.

The stress you experience on a job you don’t like will affect your emotional and physical health. A parent or spouse who has diminished health is not emotionally available. A parent who is unhappy at work is more likely to be irritable, argumentative and sometimes even violent at home.

3. Your children learn how to handle stress and life from you.

Children are keen observers. They can tell your mood from your facial expression when you arrive home or pick them up from school. Even if you help them with their homework or serve dinner, they sense when you’re miserable, and see that you’re tolerating a situation you hate. Your way of handling your life (and theirs) becomes their first glimpse of how to live life.

If you are a ticking time bomb, then your children may grow up without the ability to feel safe and trust other people. If you are so wound up from spending your days settling for a job that pays your bill, but steals your joy, then even the time with your children will be diminished. They may grow up with feelings of rejection and abandonment or believing that your sadness is somehow their fault.

4. Your children learn the connection between work, harmony and prosperity from you.

If you don’t enjoy your job, then your children may grow up thinking that work is something they shouldn’t even expect to enjoy. They may grow up believing they’re going to have to choose between doing what they love and making a living. That would be a shame, wouldn’t it?

When you have a job, career or business you love, your children can be involved and learn from your experiences.
When we had a family business, my children helped with mailings, managing the office, running the copier, answering the telephone and maintaining the building. My son still jokes about his stamp-licking days.
We are promised by many self-help books and speakers that if we choose work we love, the money will follow. This is a worthy outcome, but choosing work we love is more important for the family harmony that results.

Flora M. Brown, Ph.D., author of Color Your Life Happy: Create the Success, Abundance and Inner Joy You Deserve is the mother of four and grandma of three. She is Professor Emeritus at Fullerton College, speaker, coach, and radio host. She offers a free weekly newsletter on www.coloryourlifehappy.com