Why I Love a Job Most People Don’t Understand (or The Cost of Caring)

As I wrap up my very first semester as a high school assistant principal, I’ve been asked a lot of well-meaning questions.

“Do you love it?”

“Is it what you expected?”

“Are the kids really that bad?”

(For the record: no… and also yes… and also they are some of the most remarkable humans I’ve ever known.)

What I’ve realized most isn’t about the job itself and more about how misunderstood it is.

From the outside, educational leadership can look like rules, discipline, meetings, and emails sent at odd hours. From the inside, it’s people. All day. Every day. In their most raw, emotional, complicated moments.

It’s holding students together when their world is unraveling.

It’s protecting teachers who are giving everything they have and wondering if it’s enough.

It’s absorbing anger, disappointment, fear, and frustration, too often without the chance to explain, defend, or fix it neatly.

It’s a job that rarely gets applause, regularly gets blamed, and almost always gets simplified.

And yet… I love it.

I love this calling deeply, even when it leaves me bone-tired. Even when my heart feels like it’s been wrung out by 3:15 p.m.

Recently, my oldest told me something that stopped me in my tracks.

She said she thinks she’d love to be a teacher one day, but she’s afraid.

Afraid of financial instability.

Afraid of working endlessly and still being undervalued.

Afraid that, as a gifted kid, choosing education might look like she didn’t “live up to her potential.”

And there it was: the tension I live in every day.

On one hand, I get to do work that matters. Work that shapes lives. Work that aligns with who God made me to be.

On the other hand, my children see the exhaustion. The long hours. The emotional weight. The budget spreadsheets. The way I care for so many people that my own heart is often weary by nightfall.

They see the cost.

This is the cost of caring: carrying stories you can’t share, loving people you can’t fix, and going home tired because you gave everything you had.

Education isn’t just a job. It’s a constant outpouring. It’s carrying stories that aren’t yours. It’s loving kids who need stability when you can’t promise outcomes. It’s being “strong” for everyone else while quietly praying for strength yourself.

This year marks my third year in administration. After two years as a K–8 assistant principal, I stepped into high school and it felt like coming home. After more than a decade loving life as a high school English teacher, being back in the hallways, the bells, the energy, the almost-adults figuring out who they are.

It feels familiar in the best way. Comforting. Just right.

I still miss the classroom.

I miss the lessons that felt like never-ending book clubs.

I miss watching students wrestle with life-changing literature and suddenly realize the story is also about them.

But now, I get to do something different.

Now I get to support the teachers who create that magic.

I get to stand in the gaps students don’t even know exist.

I get to help shape a culture where learning, grace, and growth can thrive, even when it’s messy.

And through all of it, my faith holds me steady.

I believe God placed this calling on my life not because it’s easy or prestigious or lucrative, but because it’s mine. Because loving kids, families, and educators is one way I live out my faith. Because Jesus spent His life pouring Himself out for people who were hurting, misunderstood, and overlooked, and through this job I get to be His hands and feet.

This job doesn’t always make sense on paper.

It doesn’t always look impressive from the outside.

But it makes sense to my heart.

So as I close out this semester tired, grateful, reflective, and hopeful, I hold both truths.

I love this work.

And it is hard.

I pray my children see not just the exhaustion, but the purpose. Not just the sacrifice, but the joy. Not just the strain, but the faith that sustains me. I want them to see that the cost of caring is real, but so is the reward of showing up, of trusting God, and of loving the work He placed me in.

Because calling doesn’t always look glamorous.

Sometimes it just looks like going home tired, praying harder, showing up again tomorrow, and trusting that God is using it all.

And that is more than enough.