I’ve gone to hell and back for the blessed pleasure of being Dad. My father worked all the time and I only saw him when he’d have to pass through my room to get to his closet in the early mornings and the lateness of night. When he graduated and became a nurse I never saw him again except on Sundays, late nights with Jonny Carson and most holidays until he retired as an A.M.E. ordained minister and associate pastor. I still see him walking to the bus stop from his master bedroom window in the 100 degree blistering heat of summer to the 10 degree winter blizzard frost of Big Apple’s concrete gentle jungle.
I vowed then to never leave children for work. This innocently misguided promise would later continue to influence my life.
Today, the Jobson-Larkin family home schools by attending a litany of outsource educational providers such as: The Horticultural Society (Plant and Nature Sciences); The New York Museum of Natural History (History, Humanity, Biological, Earth and Space Sciences); The New York Chinese School on Mott St. In Chinatown (Mandarin Chinese Immersion School); Co-Op Physics and Biology (Parent Taught Classes); School for Strings (Suzuki Method); and Circus Arts & Movement (Physical Education). I share this experience with our son’s every day, as their personal Chaupair (Chauffer and Aupair).