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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