I miss you guys. I feel like we haven’t talked in months. Yes, there have been consistent articles posted on Discovering Dad – a HUGE thanks goes out to the incredible group of dads who are Contributing Writers combined with some great guest authors – but I miss writing 4-5 articles a week myself.

The reason you haven’t heard much from me is that I’ve started a new job, and I need to focus the majority of my mental and physical energy toward my training. After 2 years of mostly working from home (owned a business) and being the “parent-in-charge,” I decided to return to the corporate world.

A great opportunity unexpectedly presented itself, and after many long nights of weighing pros and cons with Lori, we decided that it was the best thing for our family to accept the offer. The hardest part of this process was deciding what to do about the kids. Fortunately, Lori’s parents have graciously taken on the job of watching them during the week, for which we are extremely grateful. We didn’t want to put an infant (Caitlin) in daycare, and we really would like to wait until Ty is 3 years old to put him in a preschool program.

Like most Americans, our family has begun to feel the pressures of the economic downturn. We are able to pay our bills, but the money we’re saving for college funds and retirement through investment accounts is tanking. My oldest (Chani) goes to college in less than 4 years, and the rising costs of education combined with the sinking value of 529 accounts has got to be a major concern of parents across the country.

In order to provide us with the level of longterm financial security necessary to ensure our family’s needs are met, we needed to make some changes – reduce expenses, reduce risk, consolidate investments and increase income. Sound familiar? Anyone else in the same boat?

Many families I know in our community are struggling just to get by. Some have lost their jobs. There are several foreclosures in our area. It’s sad.

In times like this, I’m very thankful that we had options. Lori has an outstanding job working for a company she loves, and my new job is really cool too. We are both working as multi-unit managers – her in retail and me in restaurant – and it’s fun being in positions that actually help businesses thrive, succeed and survive in these trying times. These businesses employ hundreds of people, so there is a lot of satisfaction in making sure the people working in our stores continue to have jobs.

Still, I miss seeing the kids every day. That’s only natural though, right? It was a lot of fun getting to see the many “firsts” first hand. My priorities have changed significantly since I last worked in the corporate world.

I used to struggle with work-life balance, and while the hard work and dedication helped me advance quickly in the past, it had a negative affect on me physically, mentally and emotionally. Why did I do that in the past? Because it satisfied a critical need for me – significance. Lori was the same way, in this regard, so you can imagine what it used to be like with 2 work-a-holics in the same house, married and working the same type of jobs. It wasn’t pretty.

Now, both of us have learned how to gain significance from each other, our kids and our family first. Work has become something that we do to live, rather than live to do. We still take pride in doing a good job, but we realize that our most important roles in life are those of husband/wife and parents. I’m optimistic that living by these priorities and striking a better balance will actually make us both more successful in all of our important roles, including work.

Anyway, that’s “the scoop” about what’s been happening in the Discovering Dad world. Now, what’s been happening with you lately? Give me the scoop!

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