I would like to write about a fun experience I had yesterday. The eighth graders at my school had the opportunity to participate in a Reality Town while the seventh graders were doing Job Shadow. What happened was they gave us a situation with a job, married or single, and kids. Then we had to manage our finances and purchase different things (house, car, insurance, etc). 

Here was my situation: I was an anesthesiologist making $4500 a month, married with a four year old girl. My husband stayed home and watched her, so he didn't bring in any money. I had to buy a lot of things and it was really interesting having to manage everything. I would like to share my top 4 things that I learned from this activity. 

1. I NEED to have a working husband: I know this sounds kind of crazy, but after that experience I realized how hard it is to have only one spouse bringing in the money. I mean I guess it was nice to having him "watching my child", but it would probably be better to have more money. 

2. Things are more expensive than I thought they were: I knew that cars and houses cost a lot of money, but I also had to pay for home improvements! And I didn't know that we had to pay for different insurances and they were also expensive. 

3. Child Care is Expensive: Even though it said that my husband stayed home to take care of my girl, it said that I had to pay for daycare and preschool! But this is not the only thing we have to pay for kids. We have to buy clothes, toys, food, etc.

4. I never realized how much my parents do for me: After having this experience I realized how much my parents do for me and my family. They spend so much time and money doing things for me. I hope that I can be as good a parent as they are to me. 

I really enjoyed having the experience of Reality Town. I learned many things about what it is like to be an adult and a parent. I hope that I will be able to use the things that I learned from this when I am an adult and that it can make my life better. 


Always have hope,