We've all had crappy jobs before. In my house we had to start working summer jobs as soon as we were legally old enough to do so. I also graduated college in the middle of a big recession (kind of like this one) and couldn't find work for over a year. So in my time I've been a cashier at a hardware store, a book store, washed dogs, been a liquor store clerk, a waitress, and had many, many temp office jobs. I didn't like many of those jobs, but the beauty of them was that they were temporary. I only had to work them for a while, and then I could say "I Quit!"
The other nice thing about crummy side jobs is that they give you the opportunity to work outside your comfort zone, and to discover what skills you possess. They also teach you what skills you most certainly do NOT possess. And, after discovering all that, you can say, "I am not really suited for this job. I don't have the temperament or the skills. I think I will try something else." And then you do.
But there's a job out there that many of us enter into without any training or instruction manual. There's no trial period, no formal review process with the possibility of promotion, it's not a temp job, and we most certainly cannot quit this job. Ever.
It's called parenting. And it's a job for life. You don't get training, you don't get promoted, and you can never, ever quit.
And I find myself asking, what if we as parents really feel we aren't qualified for that job? What if, after trying it out for a while, we were able to say, "I'm really not very good at this. My skills don't fit. I don't have the patience/stamina/concentration/compassion/mental stability/financial support/BALLS for this job?" Shouldn't we be able to admit that? And yes, shouldn't we also be able to admit that all of us at one time or another have desperately wanted to say, "I quit?" Because we all have felt that way at one time or another. We all have.
And of course we don't quit. But it does amaze me that parenting -- which is arguably one of the most important jobs there is on this planet -- is the one job that we are all the least prepared to do.
If there is such a thing as intelligent design, then I'd have to say that equipping human beings with the equipment for creating life, and not equipping them with a handbook for raising it, was a pretty short-sighted decision. Maybe our creator, if he/she exists, wanted to force us to rely on each other to figure that out. And we do. We do.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Displaced Persons
I was raised to work. From the time I entered kindergarten it was a foregone conclusion that I would eventually graduate college, move out, and get a job. My parents gave me luggage when I graduated from high school and a business suit when I graduated from college. The message was always clear in my home: grow up, move out, get on with your life.
I wasn't that my parents didn't love me. They loved me so much that they wanted to make damn sure I would never wind up in living in their basement and working at Target when I was 30 years old. And yet, here I am in my 40s having fantasies of doing just that. Even as I daily teach my own children how to be self-sufficient, I am finding myself yearning to jump on a plane and run home for a while. To take time to get back to my roots. To regroup. And to find my lost self-confidence. Because after a long, upwardly mobile career, I find myself out of work, and with skills that nobody wants or needs. Further, I am so completely bewildered by technology, that I have given up on trying to understand all but what I have to grasp in order to get through the day. I find technology to be a highly isolating force in my life. Most people would rather text than talk to each other. Wherever I go I see a sea of people face down in their devices, completely avoiding any real conversation with anyone. It saddens me.
And then there's the demise of my profession. In 2004 I was riding high on the crest of my professional wave. I was making good money, and on a steadily upward trajectory in my career. Then I got pregnant. I decided to take one year off after having my son, fully intending to return to work in a year. Instead, I moved from Chicago to California, which pretty much nailed the lid on the coffin of my career. When I attempted to find a job after a year, I found all I could find on the West Coast was freelance work, and even that dried up pretty quickly. I took odd jobs, but none of them paid enough to justify my child care expenses. Then I landed a good job that paid well for two years, but I was laid off because I couldn't work fast enough. I was too focused on quality, and not enough on quantity.
So now I'm facing a serious sense of displacement. I'm displaced from my family, my Midwestern home, my past, my career, and my sense of belonging. I find the current state of the world bewildering beyond measure. And while I love my kids, I am a self-admitted lousy stay-at-home mom. I bore easily, and am not good at keeping children constantly amused. I am used to either going to work, or going to a rehearsal. When there is no job or theatrical project happening, I go a little crazy.
So that's why I find myself in my 40s and fantasizing about running away to my parents' basement. Of course I won't do it. But sometimes it seems a Hell of a lot easier than facing up to unemployment and the prospect of starting over so late in life.
I wasn't that my parents didn't love me. They loved me so much that they wanted to make damn sure I would never wind up in living in their basement and working at Target when I was 30 years old. And yet, here I am in my 40s having fantasies of doing just that. Even as I daily teach my own children how to be self-sufficient, I am finding myself yearning to jump on a plane and run home for a while. To take time to get back to my roots. To regroup. And to find my lost self-confidence. Because after a long, upwardly mobile career, I find myself out of work, and with skills that nobody wants or needs. Further, I am so completely bewildered by technology, that I have given up on trying to understand all but what I have to grasp in order to get through the day. I find technology to be a highly isolating force in my life. Most people would rather text than talk to each other. Wherever I go I see a sea of people face down in their devices, completely avoiding any real conversation with anyone. It saddens me.
And then there's the demise of my profession. In 2004 I was riding high on the crest of my professional wave. I was making good money, and on a steadily upward trajectory in my career. Then I got pregnant. I decided to take one year off after having my son, fully intending to return to work in a year. Instead, I moved from Chicago to California, which pretty much nailed the lid on the coffin of my career. When I attempted to find a job after a year, I found all I could find on the West Coast was freelance work, and even that dried up pretty quickly. I took odd jobs, but none of them paid enough to justify my child care expenses. Then I landed a good job that paid well for two years, but I was laid off because I couldn't work fast enough. I was too focused on quality, and not enough on quantity.
So now I'm facing a serious sense of displacement. I'm displaced from my family, my Midwestern home, my past, my career, and my sense of belonging. I find the current state of the world bewildering beyond measure. And while I love my kids, I am a self-admitted lousy stay-at-home mom. I bore easily, and am not good at keeping children constantly amused. I am used to either going to work, or going to a rehearsal. When there is no job or theatrical project happening, I go a little crazy.
So that's why I find myself in my 40s and fantasizing about running away to my parents' basement. Of course I won't do it. But sometimes it seems a Hell of a lot easier than facing up to unemployment and the prospect of starting over so late in life.
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