NS February 11th, 2010

I knew it was coming. It wasn’t a surprise. So why did I still feel like I’d been knocked sideways by the news I received today? Maybe I had been in denial.

But I can’t deny it any longer; my childminder, J, the one who is so wonderful and affordable and resides so nearby, is moving. She’s moving back to the area she is originally from, which is hours away from here. And while I am happy for her and appreciative of all that she’s done for us, I can’t help but feel a twinge of ‘It’s not fair!’ about the whole thing. We only started with J at the very end of October, just over three months ago. It was only two weeks ago that my son stopped crying when I dropped him off every Thursday (he goes one day a week). I loved knowing that he got some playtime with two other children his age (J’s own little boy and another girl she cares for) and many trips to the playground just across the road. And TNC will be gutted, she really will. Her key worker and favourite teacher just left the pre-school she attends a couple weeks ago, and now this. The only two other women (aside from family) who I’ve ever trusted with my girl and have seen her bond with have gone or are going.

Obviously, this is just the way things are. This is life. It’s nothing to get worked up about. People change childminders and teachers all of the time. Children grow, circumstances change and other aspirations beckon. Sometimes it will be them leaving us; sometimes it will be us leaving them. But I will still find it difficult when I have to explain to TNC that J is leaving and why she won’t see her again. It will tear me up to have to go through the process all over again with my little boy — the crying, the clinging, the arms reaching out and the little voice calling “Mama! Mama!” as I shut the door to a stranger’s house and walk away, leaving him, and my heart, inside.

That is, if I do have to do it again. Now that this Good Thing is ending, I’m not sure I have the energy or inclination or even a reason to find a replacement. As it is, I’m only bringing in just enough income to cover the costs of the two-day-a-week childcare, at J’s lower-than-average fee for this area. I simply can’t afford to pay more than I am now and I need someone who also lives nearby, is willing to take each child for only one day per week, with a view to taking them on in a more full-time capacity if/when I start back to work this autumn. I was incredibly lucky when I began my search to find someone so quickly (indeed, the third person I contacted), who shared my views on childcare and who fit all of the above criteria as well. I can’t help but feel that I won’t be so lucky next time around.

The other thing this has made me confront is the fact that the freelance thing hasn’t exactly taken off. I got so busy with creating Fertile Feminism and making noises and notes about a corresponding book idea that I haven’t had much time for trying to establish some paid work. I’m no closer now to earning money from writing than I was before I began this childminding venture. Granted, I said I was going to give it six months and, if J doesn’t leave for another 8 weeks, it should give me just about that. I somehow doubt, however, that I’m going to get a successful freelance career up and running before then. And if I go back to no outside childcare (or just can’t find any that suits), I will have even less time to pursue it than before. Does that mean it’s hi-ho-hi-ho, back to work I go? The thought simultaneously excites me and fills me with dread.

There’s also the small matter of me losing my marbles if I have to give up my two days a week to myself: to write and think and run errands or drink a cup of tea without children demanding my attention and needing me with all their needlessly endless needs. Since I hired a cleaner and a childminder, I have been so much happier. I’ve been full of energy, getting more sleep, getting more done. My marriage has improved drastically. My self-confidence is (was?) at an all-time high and my tendency towards depressive episodes low. And now, I feel as if I’m watching it slip away like a kite string tugged from my fingers by a strong wind, until all I can do is shield my eyes from the bright, burning sun of reality and squint at the receding shape of The Way Things Were as it tumbles and twirls through the sky, flying further and further from my grasp. Can I get another kite up in the air, or will it land with a resounding thud on the ground of some barren, muddy field over yonder?

I have 6-8 weeks to find out.

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• Career , Family , That's Life
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NS January 8th, 2010

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I asked The Noble Child a couple days ago.

“A princess! A horse! Or a doctor. Ooh, I know, a fire fighter!”

“Fantastic! All great choices.”

“And what do you want to be, Mummy?”

If only I knew, my child. If only.

I’m 30 and rapidly approaching a fourth full year of unemployment outside the home. For the past year I have been doing  a small freelance job, every day for about 1.5-2 hours in the afternoon, but aside from that all my child and house-related work is done pro bono. Aren’t I charitable?

So it’s time. 2010 is the year of Returning To Work, I’ve decided. Certainly by the time TNC starts primary school in the autumn, I will either be employed in some capacity or actively searching.  Line up childcare, get job, forge new career, meet new people, be intellectually challenged and pull in some extra cash so my family can do things like go out for the occasional meal or take the odd holiday without it being a bank-balance-busting exercise in stress and futility. Sounds simple, right? I wish.

Because as ’simple’ as it might be to just go out and get a job working for someone else, I’d still like to give working for myself a try. Working for someone else won’t allow me any time to develop my writing skills or run my websites or work on my book proposal. Working for someone else, on their terms and schedule and pay scale, is a daunting and almost frightening prospect after all these years. Interviews, commuting, office politics, office gossip, Christmas parties where you get drunk and embarrass yourself (or is that only me?)…these are things I haven’t done since I was in my mid-twenties, footloose and fancy-free.

Mostly, my apprehension is because I know what people say about working mothers behind their backs and sometimes even to their faces. I know that even once I’ve gone through the arduous task of getting a job, made all the more difficult by my gender and parental status, many of my non-parent co-workers will grumble and roll their eyes and think it highly unfair when I have to take the day off to care for a sick child or leave early once a week to pick them up from childcare. I know that I will likely be passed over for promotions and special projects because I can’t commit to the longer, extra hours. If I were to decide to have another baby, I’d have to deal with sorting out maternity leave, time off for antenatal appointments and the inevitable physical ailments and discomforts of pregnancy, knowing that my risk of being sacked or made redundant would grow along with my belly, plus the feeling of being a ‘disappointment’ or a ‘liability’ to the company’s bottom line because of my reproductive choices.

The stress of working somewhere else all day and then having to rush around to pick up the children, get them home, fed, bathed and to bed before I could even begin to think about doing anything for myself, my other interests, the household or my marriage makes my blood run cold. I see and hear and read about tons of other women doing it, and incredibly well to boot, but I suddenly feel incapable, inept and insecure when I contemplate doing it myself. I then accuse myself of being pampered, lazy and cowardly, despite knowing full well that staying at home with my children and running one or two independent businesses concurrently has its own special set of hellish stresses and responsibilities that perhaps women who work outside the home would view with the same mixture of dread, jealousy and awe with which I view theirs.

Does it all have to be so complicated?

More options begin running through my head. I could spend this month and next launching my new website, get everything up and running smoothly and work on getting myself back into the blogging groove after my long Christmas-period break. Then come March, I could really give freelance journalism an earnest try, despite the warnings from more seasoned pros that I probably have a better chance of being struck by lightning while driving an SUV to a Miley Cyrus concert (i.e. highly bloody unlikely). It couldn’t hurt to try, right? But again, that little voice in the back of my mind whispers: But what if you fail? What if you’re not good enough, or experienced enough, or can’t even get your foot in the bloody door (the editor’s inbox)? How will you justify all that money spent on your two days of paid childcare, just frittered away on a hopeless pipe dream? How crushed and humiliated will you feel if you don’t sell a single article in those few months? How will you face your husband when he comes home after a 12 hour day and you’ve not made a penny? How long can you keep kidding yourself that you’re ever going to become a successful journalist?

That voice is annoying. And pessimistic. And horrible. I know this. But still, it comes, usually at night when I’m lying in the dark trying to fall asleep and a thousand thoughts and worries are racing around and colliding in my head.

Then I tell myself that on the positive side, if by June or July the freelance thing looked like it might bring in some income, even if not substantial, I could go ahead and do the doula and childbirth educator training I’ve been thinking of doing for the past couple years so that I’m ready to begin teaching classes and attending births (and earning money) by the end of the calendar year. That way I’d have two different careers, both done independently and from home, one of which would hopefully pick up the slack when clients/jobs were lean. This would allow me to stay at home, even if I needed to pay for part-time childcare, and a) be more present for my children, b) earn some money for our household and c) keep writing and working on my personal projects while pursuing my career ambitions until I’m ready to return to the kinds of jobs that require so much more of me than I think I can give right now.

Just to complete the wishy-washiness trifecta, I then waver back the other way and think that I should just forget about all of this freelance and doula malarkey and just get a job when TNC starts school and have the stability of a steady, known income and someone else to worry about covering for me when I’m sick and figuring out how much tax I owe. If I knew I could get a decently-paid and interesting job at an activist organisation doing something that I’m passionate about, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I’d be competing for the kinds of jobs that usually go to graduates fresh out of university, willing to do unpaid internships and work until the job is done, no matter how late, and to attend parties and functions to woo clients and donors or persuade MPs. Who is going to hire a 30-year-old mother of two who has been out of the workforce for 4-5 years and who only has as much work experience in her field as someone who was born a decade later; someone willing to work for less than the living wage just to get their foot in the door because they’re still living with their parents and aren’t paying a mortgage, bills, school fees, pension plans, etc..?

See? It’s never-ending. Each pro has two cons and vice versa. I can’t seem to make up my mind what I’d like to do most, or what is most realistic. And I struggle with focusing on one choice and going for it instead of considering three or four and never doing anything about them because there are too many options.

This is why I pour a large glass of red wine every Friday night and fold myself into my cosy armchair, full of dreams, fears, possibilities and uncertainties. I usually reserve these thoughts only for my personal wallowing sessions, but tonight, in desperation, I’m pinging it over to you. If anyone has any light to shed, experiences to share or suggestions to give, I’m all ears!

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NS December 16th, 2009

Though I know all about the recession and that unemployment is scarily high (7.9% in the UK and 10% in the US), I’ve been lucky in that no one close to me has lost their job or their house or anything like that. Sure, everyone is downsizing and being careful and cutting back and worrying, but it hadn’t had a personal, possibly profound effect on me until Monday. Because two days ago, while I ran between my bedroom and bathroom in the midst of a violent and unforgiving stomach virus, The Noble Husband (who had the same virus, on the same day) came to inform me that his boss had just called and told him that his role had been terminated at the company he is contracted out to and that after Christmas he is to report back to his employer’s offices where they will “try to find him something but there are no guarantees.”

No guarantees. In January, the worst month of the year for lay-offs, in what is the worst time for jobs in the UK in 13 years. And we are told this while being violently ill and 11 days before Christmas. The timing was impeccable, let me tell you.

I rolled around in bed, writhing in pain from the hot knife of pain in my stomach, while hot tears rolled down my face. I would’ve sobbed if I hadn’t thought it would only make me sick again. I wouln’t have ordered that last set of gifts from Amazon, only hours earlier, if I had known this was going to happen. I wouldn’t have had my hair cut and highlighted, wouldn’t have gone for lunch with my friend on Saturday, wouldn’t have stopped into Costa for all those lattes. Couldawouldashoulda, as they say. What’s done is done.

As I lay in bed that night, drained and exhausted in more ways than one, I began calculating in my head. Even if TNH’s employers were able to keep him on at their offices, he would go back to his base salary and there would be no overtime. Without overtime we only barely (and I mean barely) make it from paycheque to paycheque. The little amount of money I earn each month (a couple hundred quid, at best) pays for our cleaner and childcare, only recently-begun endeavours that were supposed to free up some of my time so I could write, and have some time away from the children to be myself again. It was a luxury, I know, but I felt that after years of living bare bones I deserved it. I deserved a shot at a career too, didn’t I? I deserved a few hours a week without the kids hanging off my legs, whining and crying and with snot crusting onto my trousers, right? And at the time, I really convinced myself that I did. I thought I could write my book proposal, set up a new website to go along with it and kickstart a freelance career, all with the 11 hours a week I had to myself.

Who the hell was I kidding?

Don’t I know that this is the stuff of delusional, pampered houswives with no control over their own financial destinies? Isn’t this exactly the kind of head-in-the-clouds, puffed up thing a writer thinks of herself, especially one with no other discernible way to support herself or her family if crunch time came? I mean, sure, I could go out and get an admin job in some office somewhere, like the one I was in before I left to have my first child and to which I never returned, but it wouldn’t pay the bills. It wouldn’t even come close to paying the bills, let alone food or clothes or anything like that.

Because the reality is that writing this blog doesn’t earn me a single goddamn penny (nor do I want it to) and I’m  sinking my pay into childcare and for someone else to do my cleaning  so I could pursue some half-arsed pipe dream that couldn’t buy us a loaf of bread at the moment.

But while a part of me feels that I was just kidding myself that this good thing could last and that I’d be able to do all I’ve ever aspired to do, another part of me is so incredibly angry and sad. If (and it’s a very likely ‘if’) my husband doesn’t find another job that pays more in the next couple months, we’ll be back to living hand to mouth again and I will have to use every scrap of whatever we’ve got to buy necessities, not niceties. So goodbye childcare, cleaners and coffees…it was nice for the whole two months that it lasted. And I know that sounds so incredibly fucking privileged and middle class and entitled, but god damn it, I had waited for it and worked for it and longed for it and I’m afraid that if I go back to absolutely no time to myself, no time to write, no time just being me, that I may seriously lose the plot. I was only hanging on by a very thin thread as it was — now that thread feels like it’s being wound round my neck and pulled tight.

To make me feel even more like a whiny little princess, when I asked my neighbour this morning if there’s any way I could dry one load of towels in her tumble dryer because we’d all been sick and I had laundry coming out of my ears and my sister arriving tomorrow for her three week stay, she looked at me uneasily and said “Sure, if you can hook it up to your electricity.”

I looked at her, puzzled and said “Sorry, what do you mean?”

She nodded her head towards her husband, who had just gone inside the house, and said “Well he’s not been working in ages, has he? We’re skint. It costs too much money to run the tumble dyer so we stopped using it. Maybe try the launderette up the road?”

I  apologised profusely and told her I hadn’t even thought of the cost of electricity to her and wanted the ground to swallow me whole. I went inside, shut the door and had to fight back tears. Right before Christmas and people can’t pay their electricity bills and others are losing jobs or have been out of jobs for months, like my neighbour. And here I am worrying about having to go back to caring for my children full time and having to scrub my own toilet again and staying up late to write instead of doing it during the day. Boo fuckin’ hoo.

I’ve got my ticket, waiting to see if it will be stamped; waiting to see if we’ll climb aboard the Unemployment Train or merely have to downgrade to Economy Class. Lots of people are already on the train, it will be crowded. People who have lost their homes, their cars, their possessions, their dreams — they’ll all be there. Those of us who haven’t lost anything but stand in limbo with fingers crossed will be there too. But whereas before I didn’t think I’d ever have a reason to ride, I now know that all of us, any of us, could be called aboard at any time.

Welcome to the recession, bitches. We’re in for a bumpy ride.

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• Career , I Bitch Therefore I Am , In The News , That's Life
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NS October 29th, 2009

Did I tell you that I found a childminder? That starting next week I will have two childfree days in which to do my own thing? No? Oh, sorry. I must’ve been too busy simultaneously fretting about it and jumping up and down with ecstatic joy to get round to blogging. You know how it is…

So yes, we’ve decided that I won’t be returning to full-time work just yet. Too expensive for two kids to make it worth the time and trouble. Once TNC starts school in September, we can more easily afford childcare. But there was no way I was going to be satisfied with waiting another 10-11 months before I did anything for my career so I decided to use the money I’m earning with my freelance job to pay for childcare two days a week. With a commitment from my mother-in-law to have each child one day a week, I only needed someone to look after TNC for one afternoon a week, after pre-school, and TNB for one full day (from 9-4). Luckily, I found someone straight away and we met last week. She was absolutely lovely, her house was lovely and we clicked straight away. She has a little boy TNB’s age and also looks after a little girl the same age. So two playmates his own age and no older children to run riot ’round him? Result!

After two afternoons spent at her house and my three pages of questions met satisfactorily, “Jane” and I signed the contracts and I handed over the month’s fees in advance. And this morning I walked the children to her house, where after a brief chat and settling in period, I had to kiss the top of my crying son’s head, trying desperately not to cry myself, walk out of the house and shut the door. It was the heaviest door ever, I tell you.

My mother-in-law was outside, ready to take TNC back to her house. I swallowed the lump in my throat, kept my hands busy loading her things in the car, and after TNC had been driven away and I could hear that my boy had stopped crying inside, I stood, all alone, on the pavement. All alone, for the first time in so very long. All alone, for two whole hours. I should’ve been ecstatic, according to some. According to others, I should’ve been bereft, and beating myself up with guilt.

Instead, I was a mixture of the two. I walked slowly away, my bag heavy on my shoulder but a smile slowly coming to my face. I felt like skipping and crying at the same time. Finally, the time to write. Finally, the time to realise my dreams. But still, the self-doubt crept in. Would he be okay? Would I?

The leaves on the ground and the sun in the sky reminded me that seasons are ever-changing. We are ever-changing. This is simply a new season in my life, in all of ours. It was inevitable. It is necessary. But damn it if it doesn’t also hurt a little.

• Career , Family , Parenting 101 , Squish Squish , The Noble Baby
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NS October 21st, 2009

Things are a little quiet here. I’m feeling a little quiet. Introspective, even. It’s no big surprise, really. I think most bloggers go through short periods of time every so often in which it seems better to be taking things in that churning them out. I’ve taken breaks before and I’ve always come back. I ain’t quittin’ you, Internet, and this isn’t an official ‘break’, but I’m just not going to force myself to blog about nothing if that’s all I’ve got to say. Though…isn’t that what I’m doing right now?

Maybe it’s the change in season or my decision to start looking at going back to work and all the planning that is going into that, but I’ve been finding myself crunching numbers for our childcare budget and reading in bed with cups of tea more appealing than sitting in front of the computer getting angry at all the douchebags, numbskulls and ignoramuses out there.

Like the guy who wrote the book pictured above. I picked this book up at a secondhand shop on Sunday whilst out for a boozy lunch with my good friend, H. We’d had two bottles of wine over a gorgeous Turkish meal and had left more than a little tipsy. Seeing as I’d been for my bibliotherapy session earlier that morning, we’d stumbled over to the bookshop on the premise of finding the book I’d been ‘prescribed.’  Lo, we could not find The Last Samurai and had to settle for the ridiculously titled Sperm Are From Men, Eggs Are From Women: The *real* reason men and women are diferent to amuse ourselves with as we went off in search of another pub. At least twice per drink, H would shout out a page and paragraph number and I would do a short dramatic reading of that passage while sloshing my drink around as I gesticulated wildly.  Another bottle of wine and a couple of gin and tonics later, I was reading passages out loud to people on the train on the way home.

What can I say, I’m a literate drunk. I’m sure the other passengers were thrilled.

At one point, while gesturing with the hand holding a lollipop I’d found in the bottom of my handbag and which I was happily licking between bouts of indignant gesturing, I dropped it on the floor near my seatmate’s shoe. Charming.

At least I wasn’t dropping atomic bombs on anybody because, apparently, I am responsible for that as well, as one of those evil American types. Or at least, so sayeth a man in the park earlier that day who, upon hearing my accent, launched into a diatribe about it and demanded I give him some answers. Seeing as it all happened 34 years before I was even born, I had none, sadly.

Ever since Obama came into office I’ve seen a sharp decline in the amount of anti-American encounters I have, which were at their height during the Bush years, so I was taken a little more off guard than I normally am. From 2002 through most of 2008 I wouldn’t have blinked an eye if someone wanted to shout at me about bombs, though usually the diatribe was aimed at the variety being rained down upon Iraq and Afghanistan, not The Big One during World War II.

Still, this is something I’ve just gotten used to the longer I’ve lived here. Having an American accent will, for the moment, always mark me out as different, as privileged and (usually) as either a bit off my rocker, slightly stupid or ragingly arrogant. Such appealing stereotypes to face on a daily basis, no?

Conversely, having a British accent in America marks one out as exceedingly intelligent, humorous and polite, if a little stuffy and prudish. It’s not surprising that I had little sympathy for The Noble Husband when we were living in the States and he would complain of being teased for the way he said ‘water’ or ‘pawn’  or ‘tuna’. Most of the time people were falling all over themselves to hear him speak and thought he was the epitome of class and charm. Repeat after me: poooooor widdle thing!

Anyway, that concludes my inane babbling about breaks, budgets, books, booze and bombs. Hopefully, I’ll get my blogging mojo back soon. Until then, I’ll be curled up in my duvet thinking about one of the aforementioned Bs.

• Banal Breakdown , Career , Expat Life , Londonista
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