Dear Bubby,
I really like your website, and you seem to have some genuine wisdom to offer. So, here is my story: I am a husband and a father of seven children. I really love my family, so I got the very best possible job I could to support them. We live in a very rural area where jobs of any kind are hard to come by. My job is in the city 40 miles away and I work in a medical school.
My problem is that I really hate my job. There are a lot of reasons why, but no matter what reason it is this week, the one thing that doesn't change is how miserable I am to work there. I want to quit, but I know that I won't be able to find another job that pays as much money. It bothers me that I come home tired and angry, and that I'm no fun for my family to be around any more, to say the least.
So, which would you say is more important: to be happy myself or to do the best possible job of providing for my family? I have worked a number of other jobs before, and while there were certainly some I didn't like, none of them made me this consistently wretched.
--Overworked Dad
Dear Overworked Dad,
I have always said that the worst thing that could happen to a person is to get up in the morning and go to work to a job that person hates. So I can understand how you feel - and riding 40 miles to get to it. Is that driving 40 miles each way? And all that gas to boot!
I know it takes a lot of hard decisions and soul searching before one gives up a job that feeds 9 people. Still there should be a way out. You should give up your job and find something closer to home. You should take stock of your abilities - talk together with your whole family -- surely you must have one or two who are in their teens or close. Supporting a family is a family job.
Why don't you think about opening some kind of store or service place where the whole family can help. The older children can devote some time to doing neighborhood jobs like mowing lawns, baby sitting, etc. Are you trained for anything?? Maybe you could find something closer to home.
I know it is not easy at first but it will work out. But you must give up this job that you have now so that you can devote yourself to do the proper research. Speak to your present employer about how you feel and perhaps he can give you some information closer to your home. He might fire you and then you could have money to live on until you settle on something you like. I don't know in what part of the country you live but I think you are industrious enough to either make a job or find one close enough to home. And the whole family will be happy.
Good luck. ♥, BUBBY
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Whether Bubby is reminding us that boyfriends do not substitute for warm jackets in the winter, or that it's
better to receive a compliment than a brick, she always has 
Hopefully this will be as much fun for new readers as it will surely be for her.
And if not, well, as Bubby says, it will all come out in the wash.
♥
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