If only it were only money!

Blogs and articles like this one (be sure to read the comments as well as the blog itself) TERRIFY me even more than I already am scared of this recession. I was laid off January 2nd and my husband is a contractor/realtor so our shit hit the fan a while ago.

Amazingly - we are making it. Also amazing, we are not killing each other or the children despite the fact that two workaholics have never had so much time at home on their hands. As scared as I am, we do our level best to enjoy this weird downtime.

I AM that girl who is UNABASHEDLY stalking recruiters and hiring managers who give me their business card at the close of the interview that I just dumbed myself down for. AARGH! At least that article let's me know they understand.

I am in this horrible kind of donut hole and as evidenced by the recent growth in the size of my ass, I'm apparently trying to eat a tunnel through the donut that is trapping me. There are no jobs in my field or at my level in my area. I am far too qualified for the few openings that are out there. Oh, I get interviews and I nail them, but it feels sorta crappy to under-sell myself, to scratch and claw for a job I can't afford to take. Employers in my area are laying off en masse and the few available jobs will be absorbed soon.

With acquisition and new hire training costs per employee starting around $25,000, I don't entirely blame these employers who have statistical data compelling them to doubt my commitment.

So, I'm panicked alot lately and I calm myself by saying "It's only money - I can live in a soup can and eat cardboard as long as I have my family and my health." I firmly believe this. It's not some mantra that I aspire to. It's at the core of me. I KNOW THIS IS TRUE but...

The problem with this sentiment is that I cannot surrender today and just go back to zero. If we could sell our house or car and not be upside down - we'd do it tomorrow, no TODAY! If we could press a button and be in a shitty but affordable rental with everything in our lives scaled down to what is appropriate for our "present budget", I'd be grateful, relieved, and happy to be there. I would not feel one bit resentful. No part of me is afraid of rebuilding, of working hard to get back up there. But it doesn't work like that does it? What I do fear is working so hard and losing it all despite that. So sure, it's only money but how do I give it back? I can't, so I strive to make every day work fighting the one idea that will save me... It's only money...

So, in an effort to spread positivity rather than just war stories, what are you doing in this economy to keep things positive?





0

I'll trade money for happiness...

I mentioned in a previous post (Did you just call me a statistic?!) how cutting back on work to be home with the kids had a huge impact on our marriage. I've been thinking alot about that....

Justin and I have always done all the household chores/shopping together. It's not because we're some disgusting, hyper-organized, efficient couple who cannot be away from eachother. It actually started as this quirky habit while we were dating. The quirky habit is rooted in Justin's love of meandering the aisles at SUPER stores. He does it artfully, there is no timeframe -just browsing and shopping and checking stuff out. Never the mall, only SUPER stores. It's a study of pop-culture or something. It's soothing to him. Anyway, he has always done his grocery shopping on Sundays. I would join him when I spent weekends at his place. Eventually we were living together and it just became this thing our friends laughed at us for: "Oh, nevermind, can't do the cookout on Sunday, that's SHOPPING day! Hahahaha!".

Once we moved in together, I took over the laundry and most of the cleaning - Justin can't do either one for shit and I find these tasks cathartic and theraputic. Justin still contributed in ways that were a challenge and a risk for him. He (sort of) made the bed, he put laundry in the correct baskets, he took trash out, and made every attempt to embrace a whole new concept of not making a mess and leaving it. And most importantly, Justin knew that being inept did not exempt him from participation - he was always respectful enough to linger and keep me company until I released him. In a perfectly unplanned trade off, he took on most of the cooking duties. So, we were a modern couple from day one! We liked to make eachother's lives easier and play on our strengths. It was nice... until I went part-time at work.

Justin and I always agreed that if we were going to have kids, one or the other of us was going to be there with them as much as we could afford to do it. There was a time when we half considered Justin being that parent.

I knew before I tried to transition from career girl to mom, I knew that many women struggle with it. I was braced for it, and we tried to approach it realistically knowing that I very much define myself by my professional success and my career. Many people think it's a vacation to be allowed to stay home with kids. For me, it was a "sacrifice", but it was something I would absolutely do for my children. There is nothing I wouldn't sacrifice for myself to give to my children. Now, DO NOT tell my children that, they'll get a big head! They'll realize it all in good time. In fact, that's how I'll know I did a good job!

In that previous post, I mention the tangeable shift in power when I reduced my work to part time. I did this power shift thing to myself. Justin never made me feel less important or expendable, but I definately made myself feel that way. Nobody pats you on the head and says "Good girl! You got all the laundry done with two sick kids underfoot!". Being at home did a number on my head. Nothing to qualify or quantify me? How will I know I'm doing it right? I was a validation junkie...

A few years before our first child, Justin's business started generating sustainable profits and that had alot to do with deciding I could work just part time. Since that time, Justin has been working 6 days per week and is often gone for more than 12 hours per day. His days normally start at 6am. He is dead tired by the time he hits the door and eats my crappy dinners. He can barely stay awake past 9pm. Most nights, he follows the kids to bed.

On the plus side, when he comes in after work, he immediately cuddles and loves all over the kids and we all kick it in the kitchen while he helps with dinner. On the minus side, when bath / bed time arrives he is ready for a break and wanders off to something else, leaving it all to me just as my breaking point for the day is approaching. After several months of this, I finally started dragging him back by the ear to help me until he got the hint. Incidentally, this dragging by the ear of a tired man by a frustrated woman adds sich a nice, warm feeling to the kids' bedtime routine.

"Hint" was the problem. He is so tired, he deserves the break. For a long time, I did everything myself. I did it in the hopes that at alternate points, he would do the same for me. I was forgetting that he is a dude. He cannot read my hopeful-ass mind, I know this (sometimes).

I felt too guilty to ASK him so I hinted... Oh my god! I became that girl. I hated to burden him to stay involved in the routine just a liiittle bit longer, that way we could both get to our downtime faster. I felt guilty asking him to help around the house, even on weekends. I felt guilty about asking him to unload the dishwasher. I felt petty about feeling so rageful that this man who I'd coached so well for 10 years was reverting back to dropping his dirty clothes beside the bed or the shower. I let all this crap load up on me, all while taking over the bookkeeping and office duties for his business, in addition to my own part time work.

I felt that standard "lonely for adult interaction" feeling. I eventually came to appreciate the evenings, when they all went to bed and I had a few hours to myself, but I was lonely. With him working so hard, I made a point to take over the grocery shopping, take over the cleaning altogether, and many other little tasks like this that we used to share. I did this so that when he was home, we weren't rushing in different directions trying to keep up with it all. So that he could hang out with us, so we wouldn't drift and develop different lives as so often happens.

The more I took on, the more my expectations of him lowered and lowered. He had less and less responsibility and was not at all engaged in the household. He became spoiled and irrelevant and uninterested. I did that to him. I thought I was doing us all a favor but really I created a monster, and I resented it. By last summer, I wanted to run away just so he would know how much work I did. I knew it was childish to want to "prove" something, but how else would he know to appreciate me?!??

In the past few months, his business, like so many, is way off - in fact, the damn thing is nearly shut down. Justin has been around alot more. It's an adjustment for all of us but if there is a silver lining to the economic downturn, it's that we love having him around AND his appreciation level for what I go through at home is way back up to where it used to be.

When he walks around dusting the living room, he can see for himself how badly the walls need to be painted. When he sweeps the floor, he can see how much damage Lucy has done to the wood floors. He cannot believe how many times per day you have to sweep the kitchen, so now - he remembers, without fail, to take those mud caked boots off so he won't poop on his own hard work. He knows the kids and their moods more intimately. And my personal fave: Sometimes I get to be the good cop now that he is around so much that he actively disciplines the children too.
I forgot about the importance of pride in ownership. I forgot that you own a thing more when you build it yourself. You care more when you stay involved. We feel more like ourselves these days and I am way less stressed...




O

Did you just call me a statistic?!

In a previous post , I told you my adult life/work history story and in it, I mused the fact that I am a statistic in that I earn less now that I have children. I dislike it. I don't "feel" like a statistic. I've never given a shit what the Jones' are doing or even what the Jones' think of what I am doing. I'm more inclined to do the opposite of what my peers are doing. So I don't readily cop to it, but if only coincidentally - it's true, I am a statistic. Ugg!

I referenced "experts" who say things and here is a succinct quote from Penelope Trunk (http://www.blog.penelopetrunk.com/), CEO of Brazen Careerist who I follow and normally agree with:

She said in her most recent blog:
"There is no gender disparity. Women earn more money than men in their 20s and when they have kids, women choose to downscale and men don't, so why don't we all shut up about the pay disparity and talk about the parenting disparity?"

Oh Goody! Can we? Can we please talk about the parenting disparity?!

Call me a statistic all you want, I know the truth.

There was a time, before I actually carried my first child and gave birth, that we seriously considered Justin being the stay at home parent. Either way, we wanted one of us mostly home with the kids and I'm eternally grateful to family (specifically my mom) for always filling in the gaps and giving us this time with our kids. You never get these 0 to 5 years back. You can't do that when they're 15, once you finally find time. But....

There was a verifiable shift in my household when I went from earning big and being gone alot to being home more, earning less, and letting my husband provide. Yes, I said "letting my husband provide", and before you tear me down for being a femi-nazi, I say it that way for a few reasons: 1. Right about the time that I started taking it slower, he began earning very decent money in his self-made business, and 2) I had to talk myself down from the career ledge a more than few times and I still have to give myself permission to slow down and focus on home.

When I started to allow myself permission to be home, I did relax somewhat but I also I felt less power in the household. Justin never made me feel that way, I made myself feel that way. I felt less important, I felt expendable, I even felt less attractive (that was F'ed!). I was the one who lost sleep to be up with kids in the middle of the night. I was the default parent 24/7, even when Justin was home. It would never occur to him to breeze right out into the garage and spend an hour just screwing around, assuming I had the kids covered. I felt like I could never get a break. I felt dumped on at every turn with never a thank you. I ran errands and made lunch and wiped asses.

I know, waah! waah! waah! I also became my husband's back office (a part time job in itself) along with working a minimum of 20 hours a week at my own job. Basically, you feel like you shouldn't complain or expect help or respite from the children and household if you're being afforded the luxury of being able to be home, even on a part-time basis. Maybe my problem is that taking care of home, children and husband can be a busy (if not intense) full time job of it's own and then I added two part time jobs on top of it.

I always say, it's not hard work to be at home, but it is emotionally more work than having a career. This is because the work is mind-numbingly dull yet constant. Nothing defines you. Oh, they'll tell you that your children's good manners are a real testament to your hard work, but seriously?! Nobody pats you on the head for finishing the laundry and keeping the dishes clean. You break your day into 30 minute segments and you build your schedule around naps and meals, and you never truly get anything thoroughly finished. It's much more intense to have a full time career but there are peaks and valleys there. You usually get evenings and weeekends off, vacation weeks, and down time at holidays. And that down time gives you the energy and perspective you need to be a productive, meaningful contributor when you are at work. As your primary employer, Parenting does not give a shit what day of the week it is, when it's time to projectile vomit in the car - it's time. No matter that your last trip to Mexico was over 5 years ago.

I am a worker, I long for the challenge and the meaning it brings to parts of me that I rely on alot. Sure, my kids bring me more joy than I ever imagined and I've never loved so deeply - but I (me), I get something out of working that I will never get at home. I will have difficulty retiring.
But Penelope made me feel better about being a "statistic". A while back she finished a scathing blog (What women can do when they're young to be happy later on) with this sentence:
"But then, that's the trouble with all research—when it suggests a change you weren't already excited about, you decide that it doesn't apply to you. And I'm no exception."

Hells Yeah!





O

I'm not embarassed to admit..

It is one of my beliefs that good parents never necessarily wanted babies, they wanted a family. People who wanted "babies", meaning those sweet smelling swaddled bundles of warmth and peace, and those women to talk about lullabies and rocking chairs... I worry about them. I worry that they'll lose interest in their kids once they are no longer babies.


I think the 0-5 years are the most difficult, the most dreaded for me. I long for each new sign of independence. I wanted a family and that lifelong committment to people you love no matter what. I wanted to nurture, love, and build strong healthy individuals who I am so interestered to see what they accomplish in this life. I knew the sweet smell of a baby would turn to stanky diapers and spit-up before I could imagine it. No, I never did crave babies, but I was sure willing to do the baby years to get a family.


Maybe you're saying that I don't know what I'm talking about because my kids are 3 and 1. I'm basing this on having sisters born when I was 17 and 19 years old and having a very active role in their upbringing. I'm also basing this on my parents taking in foster babies, and mostly medically fragile ones for most of my teenage years. It was a family effort, we all loved it and pitched in. It was my mom's full time work, and she felt very strongly about this work and it showed. She got many accolades for her dedication and committment to these kids. My parents made a point not to "adopt" but to keep these babies until they went into adoptive risk homes (hopefully their last stop in the state foster care system). It was also a fabulous birth control method for teens considering sexual activity. Even my horny guy friends were more cautious. I did learn how lovely babies are but I also grew an awesome respect for the amount of work they require.


As a parent, I'm more interested in each new age. I want them to walk, and talk, and potty train, and argue with me, and tell me they want "Daddy!" because I know that means a small person is forming right there in front of me. Holy shit! I have contributed to the creation of a person with an identity of their own who might someday have my voice in their head. Doing the right thing never held more importance than when you have children. They see how you sit on the toilet and they see you roll your eyes when your mother is on the phone AGAIN that day. They know all your deep dark secrets, if not by name, by feel.


That said, I make every attempt to be real - I am not a parent who puts on a happy front at all times for my kids, but I do very much try to keep the negative burdens manageable for them. I disagree with parents who feel that your child should never feel that you're disappointed in them or mad at them. Hell yeah, I'm mad! You just bit me you little fucker! I'm pissed as hell and it hurts! I don't want to see you now. Go away. There is nothing wrong with this. If I approve of everything my kids do, how will they know the good from the bad? I will not raise one of those kids. That is how the real world works and I'm doing my children a disservice to purposely spare them of that notion until they go out there on their own?!?




O