Reply to how many hours a week do you put in as a teacher?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP.  We were able to buy a nice little home in the Chicago suburbs for just over 150K.  So less than 2x our HHI.  We could probably swing it for me to work half time except, and its a BIG except, I would not get my full pension cause I wouldn't have enough credits.  We save 20% of our income on top of our pension contributions, but it wouldn't be enough to live on in retirement without the pension (Illinois teachers don't contribute to or get social security, so the pension is a huge deal)  The other thing is if you go half time, you have zero seniority.  This means every year I'd get riffed and not know until possibly August if I have a job to come back to.  I can't have that kind of uncertainty.

We keep our expenses as low as we can, only have one car, and don't really go on vacations.  But we want to help our kids go to college and life is expensive here like it is most places.
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[b]It sounds like you've got options but don't want to use them[/b]. You could work less but want a.) to put in all the extra hours at work while b.) earning additional money while c.) having seniority stability. As so many have said through the ages, you can't have it all. Since you clearly see your additional work contributions as more important than the extra time you could spend with your kids, why not just o[b]wn it instead of acting as if you're being forced to put in all the extra time you do at work[/b]? [/quote]

This is the core issue in this and most threads on DCUM. I chose teaching over medical school because I didn't want to accumulate (at the time) 160k in debt for a career with high rates of burn out. As a result, I don't make medical school salaries, but I also aren't dependent on that salary for debt repayment. I let go of one life so I could have another.

Here OP wants the fulfillment of putting in lots of extra hours at work (as evidenced by her repeated ignoring of suggestions to drop all unnecessary work and her putting down teachers who put in more *and* fewer hours than she does), but OP also wants to have all of those extra hours back and more with her kids, and at the same time, OP wants to work PT but also wants FT money. We don't get to have everything in life.

If OP's biggest priorities were time with kids, she wouldn't be doing all the extra stuff, and on top of that, she and DH would trim expenses so a.) the full pension wasn't necessary and b.) she could drop down to PT. If OP's biggest priorities were making more money, she could either ditch teaching completely for a higher paying career or work full time each summer (summer school, etc). But you don't get to do lots of useless extra work and then complain about how little family time you have or talk about wanting PT hours while wanting the security of FT pay. [/quote]

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