Standing on my Soap Box

Good day to you all.

Seeing as this is my blog post, and it is called “Standing on my Soap Box”, I am going to, (are you ready for this?… I am going to stand on my soap box.

First, I am going to give you a little bit of history. When I was in grade 9 (back in the 80s) I needed to sign up for Sr. High classes. I had the option to sign up for “00” courses which were university entrance, or “01” courses which were for those not planning on attending university or those like me who thought they were dumb. So, I signed up for the 01 courses, for two reasons one was I didn’t think I was smart enough to go to university and two, I was planning on getting married when I was 20 and would stay home and raise babies.

Lo and behold guess who didn’t get married until 26 – yep that’s me. However, I was very fortunate when I was 18 that I started working at Great-West Life in Winnipeg, I married my husband who while he did have issues with arthritis, he was healthy, and a year and a bit later baby boy 1 came, three years after that was baby boy 2 and two years thereafter was baby boy number 3 (also know as baby number last, as I wasn’t sure that I was going to get baby GIRL one OR baby 3 AND 4 as twins run in my moms family.) A year after baby 1 was born, I started working evening positions in order to be home during the day with our children while my husband worked during the day and could stay home in the evening.

That worked great, until I was 40. My husband got ill, and could no longer work. I needed to go back to school and got a certificate in Human Resources. I needed an education and I needed to become the main bread winner while we tried to find out what as wrong with him.

Why do I tell you all this? I could have avoided a lot of financial issues if I had gone to University got a degree and could have stepped back into a job quicker than I was able to. I am not saying that being home with my boys was a bad thing, and I would have still done that, however furthered my education when I was younger would have given me the ability to get back to work sooner.

So, with all this said, please tell the young girls in your life that they need to prepare themselves for the future. The husband may not come along when you think he will, or the guy that you are dating now, may not work out in the end, or like me, you may need to re-enter the work world to support your family because you never know what life might try to throw at you.

With that being said, I will not get off my soap box. Enjoy your day…