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Hey y’all! Welcome to a Best Of Edition of the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast. These Best Of Editions of the show feature amazing guests and episodes of the podcast you may have missed when they first aired. If you are new to the show, these are those can’t miss episodes that we really want you to listen to. Or maybe you’re a long-time listener. We want to bring these episodes around for you to hear them again. Our goal is to bring our best content every week so you have everything that you need to build a better future for your family. So wherever you are listening today, enjoy this week’s episode of the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast.
Show Notes
After we got married (as you heard in Chapter 2), we obviously needed to find somewhere to live. Because, right after the wedding we hopped in the car and drove to West Virginia!
We lived in a tiny studio apartment about as big as our bedroom now. It was so tiny that since we only had a twin bed in there we had to buy an air mattress that we stayed on for the first few months we were together! We looked all over the place at apartments, houses, and eventually ended up settling an a townhome.
When we started moving everything in the townhome and settling in – we kind of started going our separate ways. Our work schedules were completely different. We were like passing ships in the night. College football and corporate life was all about climbing a ladder – we realized that wasn’t the life we wanted.
We started looking for alternatives. We wanted to be closer to family so we headed back to Kentucky – this is where we got into education! This is also when we realized that what jobs and career you choose also determine your work-life balance.
Then, the worst day of our lives hit us like a ton of bricks in March of 2012. We noticed a lot of changes in our son Isaac. The biggest one is that he had become deathly afraid of bathrooms and being afraid of the dark. They daycare that Isaac went to had a change in ownership at that same time, meaning they had pretty much all new staff. Isaac began getting more scared to go to daycare. We just thought it was separation anxiety.
One day, when we went to pick up Isaac from daycare I started glancing around. All the kids were in the back but one kid was sitting to himself in a corner. I just thought he might have done something and was being punished. I knew the kid and sampled asked, “hey where’s Isaac at, I don’t see him?” The kid replied, “he’s in the bathroom.” I asked if anyone was with him. And that kid said, “nope. But, he’s been in there a long, long, long time!”
So, I got and open the bathroom door and Isaac was sitting in there in the dark. At this point I knew something was weird – something was up. I asked the worker what was going on. They said, “oh, he’s not been in there that long. We just did this so he would use the bathroom quicker.” At first I just told them that was bad judgement and not to do that anymore. But then, it started to hit that this was the reason Isaac had been so afraid of the bathroom.
A little while later Jocelyn was driving around town and all of sudden 3-year-old Isaac said, “she wipes poop on my nose.” Jocelyn said, “who did?” And, Isaac gave the name of one of the workers at the daycare. We would later find out more of the crazy things they were doing to try and keep him from potty-training accidents. (Of course, we did something about it and got social services involved – these are all stories in 2020 hindsight).
After the comment Isaac made in the car I went to the daycare the next morning, Isaac of course freaking out, and I confronted them. I was just so lost. I couldn’t leave Isaac with them. There was one lady left from the old owners and I trusted her. So, I hated to but I left Isaac with her. I told that lady to not let him out of her sight and that I was going to run to work real quick and let them know what was going on but I would be back.
So, I tried to do what a good worker would do and put my job first. I went downstairs to see my interim assistant principal. I explained everything and she said, “no, Mr. Sams I can’t do that. You need to go back to your classroom. I know that your son needs you right now but you need to go back to your classroom and deal with this after work.” This was the worst day of our lives. We realized how toxic our jobs were. I’m kind of glad she said that to us. She thought she could dictate when we could be for our children.
It sent us down the path of looking at ways to make an income and never be controlled by a paycheck ever again!
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