What’s wrong with the following picture?

First post, wow, this is truly exciting (be warned that it is a lengthy one). A first page in a diary and we haven’t even embarked on our journey. Actually, you might say we already took our first steps. Eyal has already updated his workplace about a month ago that he will be leaving in six months and since then he is walking around the office corridors with a smug look on his face. We took our older kids for lunch at the Foccacia restaurant, where we told them that their next year at school will end sooner than normal – at November… Their excitement was so genuine, only that made the whole thing worthwhile.
I made my announcement about not starting the next school year yesterday. I quit the Ministry of Education. Just when all the paperwork setting my tenure terms is signed, awaiting for the next year to begin to make it official. To be honest, I thought it would be scarier. After all, it has been for eight years that I am working for this office, being laid off time after time as I am pregnant; resetting the tenure clock each time I decide to extend my maternity leave beyond the official term set by the government. Just as I am about to achieve this status where they cannot fire me anymore, I do it myself…
I guess that the feeling that this is the right thing to do is more powerful. This idea has been running in our minds for years now. We feel that the current course of our lives, comfortable and enabling as it may be, does not necessarily reflect our perception of family life. When our first daughter was born, I spent the first nine months of her life together with her at home, and then September came. I just graduated my teaching certificate studies and I was looking for a job. I found one in a kindergarten in a Kibbutz, and we admitted her to a nursery just the next door so I can still breastfeed her at noon and can take her in and out with me. Overall, this was quite a convenience arrangement. However, I had very hard time accepting this situation. It reminded me those pictures with the title saying: “What is wrong with this picture?”. I am there working, taking care of other parents’ kids while other adults take care of mine. How can that make any sense? This feeling did not leave me when I had my second, third and fourth child as well and the idea of “homeschooling” crossed my mind more often than not. On top of that was the fact that my salary barely covered the sum of all tuition fees, so why bother? It’s true – you get a day off every week and the education system is really good and it is important for a child to spend his time amongst kids at similar ages, learn and cope and other reasons of that sort. Still, at each difficult morning goodbye at the kindergarten (especially when I was at home on maternity leave), the first thought that came to mind was “Why does it have to be this way? Can’t he/she just go back home with me?”, just to be followed by all those explanations mentioned above.
So the feeling that this may be the right thing to do is present for quite some time. In addition, the affection we have for Thailand and Southeast Asia, combined with the fact we already made our trial periods there with the kids (some longer than others), pretty much made this inevitable. All that was left is to kick off, this time for something else, which is what we have Eyal for. All budgeting, planning and calculating are running through his head for years and the only question was just “when?”. When would be a good time in terms of our jobs, the house we built and most importantly – the kids? They are now at very convenient ages for moving around. The younger ones don’t need carriage or diapers anymore and they are mostly independent in many aspects. As for the older ones – even though adolescence is almost at the eldest’s doorstep, the real challenges that come with that age are yet to come. The kids are still “ours” and we are fully aware that this is only temporary. The environmental influences are getting stronger from one year to the next and revolve more and more around materialistic matters. We feel a deep urge to “clear” these influences for a while. It’s true that they need to learn how to deal with these kinds of pressures and everything, but it can wait for a little while longer. Let them just be kids for now. Having us over their heads is more than enough.
So now is our time. After this crazily intensive decade of starting a family, becoming professionals in our work, building our home and countless more duties, we decided to break our routine for a while. And then come up with a new and different one. We know it is going to be extremely challenging, but we also know that we do something we believe in and we owe ourselves and our family this experience. Because now is our time.