With Changes Come Sacrifices

With the big changes coming to the Caveman household, it was time to sit down and really analyze my life.

When we learned of the presence of our first child, just over 2 years ago, we set about figuring out how we wanted to approach parenthood. We decided that my wife would quit her job after the baby arrived. In the end, we figured that we would actually lose money if she continued to work so it was better for her to be a stay-at-home mom for many reasons.

Money was tight for a while, but we eventually learned how to make ends meet again. And in order to bring in a little extra cash, I started a side business at the beginning of this year. I didn’t grow it much, since I didn’t want to spend all my time on it, so year-to-date I’ve made around $500. It’s been a huge time sink for relatively little money – all of which was already spent, plus some.

Now that I know I will be a father again, it has given me a chance to reflect on the last 16 months and really analyze what kind of father I’ve been so far. Like any parent, I’ve made plenty of mistakes. The biggest of which was not spending enough time with my family. After coming home from work, I would usually hole myself up in my office or sit in the living room with my laptop until we went to bed. On Saturday, I would do all the inside or outside work that needed to be done for the house, as well as run errands. And on Sunday, I would come home from church and immediately get to work on my sermon for that evening.

Basically, I spent my whole week away from my family and I regret it more than anything right now. All things being equal, everyone has the same amount of life resources to devote throughout the day and you have to sacrifice one or another to achieve certain goals. I chose to sacrifice my time for a business that was going nowhere and on other various meaningless activities. I wasted the first 16 months of my daughter’s life being a scared, selfish boy when I should have been a happy, fully-engaged father.

So, today, that all changes.

I’ve officially put my business to bed, accepting no new customers and just finishing out the open projects for my existing clients. I haven’t decided whether to “retire” after 4 years of helping lead our church’s evening service, but it is a possibility.

This will free up the time for me to play softball again this year, which is a family event. I get some exercise and my wife and daughter come out to games for 8 weeks of the summer and play in the grass with other wives and children. It will also free me from my self-imposed shackles of a dead-on-arrival business and allow me to put my laptop away in the evening and get down on the floor and play with my daughter. And more weekends will now be used for larger family outings, such as trips to the park or the zoo.

Yes, I have to sacrifice a business and the possibility of extra income, but the trade-offs in this case are far more valuable – time with my family. It’s something my father wasn’t as able to provide for me and I will always use him as a benchmark of good fatherhood, so it’s important for me to at out-do him wherever I can. I can’t wait for my new child to arrive, because I know I will be an even better father by the time he or she decides to make an appearance.

Time to start living a better life and really enjoy my family.