Commuting teaches family is more important than income

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Commuter weighs family values and salary concerns

Date published: 5/11/2008

IMOVED to Virginia with my wife in 1997. I immediately followed my dream by getting a teaching job at Stafford Senior High School.

A year later, my wife joined me, and we taught down the hall from each other. Everything was pretty June and Ward until 2001, when she became pregnant with our first child, Isabella, and the hard, cold realities of the rising cost of living set in for us.

Before I knew it, I was commuting north to the land of inflated salaries. For the past seven years, I have spent five hours a day riding the VRE, Amtrak, Metro and buses, as well as braving Interstate 95 on my own. I have left the house as my two kids were just getting up and returned home as they were going to bed.

Watching the sun rise over the Potomac through a VRE window, I would often reflect on how much of their lives I was missing as I sat in traffic or aboard the train.

Finally, a year ago, I decided that I had built an impressive enough resume to land a position with a solid company closer to home. The issue was finding the time to look for one, because all of my time was spent getting to and from work, eating dinner and sleeping.

Then I attended the recent Fredericksburg Job Fair, which was held in the evening so people could actually attend. It was there that I made a significant discovery--the salaries offered near home are drastically lower than those in Washington for the same positions.

I expected that this would be the case, but seeing the numbers made the prospect more than slightly daunting. This was a decision that would need thought, especially after a great company at that job fair made me an offer a week later.

I struggled with the decision for several days following the offer. Do I pedal backward on income to work closer to home, or continue forward? In the end, it was my family that made the decision easy for me.

Date published: 5/11/2008