It’s Friday night; I logged on to Facebook and instantly saw 6 people going out on their weekly date night with their significant other. It looks like such fun, I think as I sit on my couch folding laundry. I still have 2 hours of solitude. My husband won’t even be home until 11:30pm. This is second shift life.
While the rest of the world is falling asleep next to their spouse, mine has just walked in the door in time for me to say goodnight to him. While the world is winding down with a cup of camomile tea, my husband is still drinking coffee to get through the night. While couples are getting together for dinner with friends or family, my husband and I are still apart.
This is the way that it has been almost since we started dating; my husband has worked jobs from 2:30 till 11 or 3:30 till midnight. I won’t even bother to pretend like this schedule has always made me happy. It truly has limited our ability to be a “normal” family; we can’t go to church functions as a couple, or see friends, or schedule almost anything in the same way that other people can.
But while this job has limited our social schedule, it has also provided us with more than we ever could have imagined! On his one income, we’ve bought 2 cars, a nice house, and everything that goes along with it. I called him “Superman” on here because Superman is the Man of Steel, and my husband works in a steel shop… and because the kind of work he does is just staggering to me.
There is a silver lining to second shift life. I get to have my husband’s help getting the kids up in the morning. We go grocery shopping together. We can go out as a family during the day. We get to spend every day together as a family. My husband even helps me with homeschooling.
I once had someone tell me that they wouldn’t know what to do without their husband’s help at bedtime. I don’t know what to do without my husband’s help in the morning! Everything is backwards for us, but there is some good to that.
Would I ever complain if he could walk into work one day and suddenly he worked first shift? Absolutely not! But after years (and yes, I mean YEARS) of being mad at him for working second shift, I realized that his work supports us and that I should stop counting all of the outings we’ve missed as a couple because he was at work and instead have started focusing on all of the blessings this job has given us as a family.
Love this! I am a nurse and I work part time second shift. I don’t always see my girls to get them to bed, since I am a single mom they sometimes do that by themselves. (I also have a son, but he is out of the house now.) BUT: I always drive my sweeties to school, they can sleep in a little and have time to make an egg for breakfast. I have some whole days off during the week, I can make a good dinner and we have time in the morning and dinner. I have time during the day to can, run errands, talk to my parents, get laundry done. I am in a good mood when I go to work at 3. It is a good time of day for me, unlike 7 am. My work fills the fridge, the gas tank, pays the mortgage, buys warm clothes. I am very thankful to be a second shifter.
I am starting a 2nd shift job and im terrified i wont see my kids enough