Being a husband and a father is a big challenge especially if your situation suddenly changes in a way you didn't expect. My fellow Hivers I will share with you my unique experience and struggles to conquer adversity.
I used to work for a telecommunications company in partnership with PLDT as a telecom technician when our eldest child was born.
Life was pretty comfortable when I was working full-time. When we want to buy something, we can buy it right away. If we want to go on an adventure or travel to tourist destinations, we can easily go there. But there was a change in the situation that we did not expect. Our company decided to move my area of destination to a place that is more than 100 kilometers away from my family. I found this assignment difficult because my wife is pregnant with our second child and her house companion is only our 3-year-old son.
What makes it even more difficult is that our neighbors are far enough that if we have a problem, there is no one to call for help immediately. Because of this, I worried that I could leave them for a long time because of my work. So I decided to look for an alternative job, even if it's low income as long as I'm close to my family.
After all, I found a part-time job as a monitoring network technician at a prestigious resort in San Remigio. My work at the resort is to monitor and check the condition of the internet. It will only be done for an average of 4 hours every week. Because it's only part-time, my salary is low. So, as a husband and father, how can I still provide for my family in our needs? This is the big challenge I said at the beginning.
We have to make some adjustments because of that change. The first thing we did was to adjust our lifestyle. When I was working full time it was easy to treat my family like having dinner at the barbecue park or in fast food chains like Jollibee which is a favorite one of my wife and son.
However, now that my source of income is part-time, I grow vegetables for our food, which costs less.
We also raise animals such as ducks, rabbits, and chickens. Animals that don't cost much when it comes to their food.
Even though we saved a lot, there's still a problem because rice is becoming more and more expensive, so my salary is not enough. So I'm looking for an additional part-time job because I have a lot of extra time. I tried to create content for the popular social media platforms Facebook and YouTube but unfortunately for a few months I was creating content but I was not making any money. I was dismayed and stopped creating content.
One day, sir and I met at an event that we both attended. We talked about his favorite career- writing for the Hive platform. He introduced me to his friend
. Eventually, I was guided on how to work with the platform. I am eager to join because I have been interested in this career since my school days. However, there are still challenges even though my hours are adjustable because we have a 2-month-old baby who needs attention and a 4-year-old child who attends daycare schooling.
But how did I balance my livelihood and taking care of the family?
Our 4-year-old child still needs to be accompanied to school and I am the one to do it while my wife will take care of our baby.
While I'm at school and waiting for the child's class to finish, I'll write an article so that I don't waste time waiting. When I come home, I will take over and take care of our baby while my wife does the housework.
In order not to waste time, I have to write an article when the baby sleeps in the cradle. Occasionally the baby will cry in the cradle so I have used a rope and tied it to the cradle to swing it back and forth with my foot while continuing to write.
When the baby is hungry that's the time to stop writing and time to feed the baby. These things are hard but not having money is even harder. These are just some of the challenges that will remain difficult if I don't find ways to do them. I always think that even though these are just small ideas, through them big difficulties can be overcome. When it became my routine, eventually I got used to it and it wasn't too difficult for me. What helped me to adjust was the optimism that all efforts made would certainly have good results.
My dear Hivers that's all I can share with you for now. Thank you for your appreciation of my story.