I'm doing 43 things
Well, I’ve come to terms with the fact that as a mother of two very young children, I just don’t have the time to spare for volunteering in the traditional sense – in the sense that I used to. Nowadays I am thinking even more locally – specifically, my own family. Heck, I am a full-time volunteer! Full-time as in 24/7. Plus my outside work is largely unpaid, and even the paid bit is unprofitable. So I’m just volunteering in a new capacity these days.
The days of spending hours and hours helping out at a specific, goal-oriented nonprofit organization? They have passed me by for the time being. After a successful afternoon helping out at a Katrina relief donation site, receiving and sorting items with my newborn in a sling and my two-year-old mimicking me but still needing supervision, I realized that there’s probably a better way to model volunteerism – or at least better timing for it. I plan to introduce a new volunteering-related goal in a few years, when my sons are school-aged: I will bring them along and let them help. I intend to introduce them to the rewarding endeavor of volunteering, when they are old enough to participate. This is my compromise.
