25 Jan 2015, 09:33
I had 3 children in 3 1/2 years, and needed work that I could do while having them along. Paying for daycare for 3 kids was prohibitive, and my now ex-husband refused to babysit if they even had a cold, and was very unreliable even when they were well. All of my kids got potty trained in the car, they all learned to fold newspapers, the oldest would get out and deliver the ones that had to be put on the porches for the elderly. This was in Salt Lake City, UT, where in the winter the snow was often as deep as the hood of the car before the streets got plowed in the back neighborhoods.
The kids learned responsibility, not to fight, which people took the morning, evening or both papers, who was friendly, etc. One of our elderly customers lived in a 3rd floor walk up apartment, and I noticed she had not picked up the papers for the last 2 days. I knocked on her door, and she said to come in. She had fallen, and broken her leg. While we waited for the ambulance, I learned she was one of 42 children born to her mother; all of the births were at least triplets, and all of the babies lived! Remarkable for the late 1800s to early 1900s. She was a really neat lady, and the kids and I visited her often when she was released from the hospital.
I am not much of a people person, but we did get to know a lot of interesting people in those years of delivering papers.
One thing I did have to be careful of was not to spank the kids; my arms and hands were (and still are) too strong. I do give an outstanding massage though!