Another great day for the unemployed mom

Blur had another crying episode at a class, making it his third and Little Bear is turning into an all-around annoying kid.


I get angry over little things--little to the casual observer, but big to me. I yell a lot. I don't happen to think it's yelling when I am doing it. Like today. I was talking about the shitty Illinois economy and the kids don't understand that I'm mad at an abstraction. (Besides nobody tells me I am yelling when I am yelling. Why is that?)

I have been saying that if things keep up, we will have to move. This does not sit well with the kids, Blur especially. He loves it here and hates change. This talk of change makes him want to hunker down at home so when I take him to Spanish class, which is a new thing for him anyways, he freaks out and bolts for the exit. LB on the other hand, handles that stuff well, but does have anger issues when he doesn't get his way. Maybe it's just because he's 5, but maybe he's taking his cues from me.

All day the kids talk about things they want. Wii games, Minecraft, a pet, birthday parties, Hero Factory, going out to restaurants, Disneyland, California...like their friends have. I have cancelled all our dentist visits and am wondering how I can get out of taking the boys to the doctor's before school because we don't have health insurance and are expecting a big ER bill for LB's smashed finger. Our lack of revenue concerns me.

I am really racking up therapy session topics for my kids. I'm not entirely sure that is a bad thing. Maybe this is my warped mind talking, but sometimes I think I am showing them the reality of what happens when you make bad work decisions, when you are complacent and think things will just work out. The one thing I regret about my life is not having a better plan regarding work, money, and life. My message to me kids: Do better than me.

We made the decision recently to get Blur back into school. I will be at the school first day back from summer vacation to register him. We pulled him because we thought homeschool would be better and it was for a bit. But now that FT is teaching and I need to be looking for a job full time, both kids need less of me and more of other (sane) people.

Searching for a job is making me a terrible mother

I want to be a good mom, but I am not. Now that FT is teaching, I watch the kids more so there is even less time to look for and apply for jobs, to network, and to re-tool with new skills.

If I were equally efficient and clear-headed throughout the day, I believe I could manage it. But I have a definite clear period in the morning. I try and get up at 5 every morning to take advantage of that time before the kids get up, but with later nights because of that damned summer daylight, and a fan running at night because it's just too hot for me to sleep without a fan, I miss my alarm. Usually one of the boys is up between 6:30 or 7:30. This does not give me much quiet time at all.

This morning I insisted on completing a volunteer activity, a newsletter I am ghostwriting. The boys come over and want to eat. They want to eat candy they got from the night before at a birthday party. They want to talk about toys they want. They talk about the party yesterday. I cannont negotiate this and finish this assignment. So I snap and yell at them to leave me alone until I am done because a normal voice doesn't work. Then they cry. I write this entry while making them blueberry pancakes.

Being unemployed is tough. I don't know if it is tough because I have no identity apart from being a mother or if it is tough because I am constantly worrying about money. I often think that if I knew in college what my life would be like now, I would have made very different choices. Money isn't everything, but worrying about money is tainting pretty much every aspect of my life.

Hitting the job search wall

Now that we have settled in to summer, I have less time and motivation for a job search than ever before and I fear I have hit the Wall. On the heels of a long weekend, I've managed to make a few whoppers of mistakes, like completely forgetting a networking meeting with a VP of strategy at a large pharma. Yeah, not good.

As much I don't want to bring up how I am screwing up my job search and how it is so difficult to apply to jobs anymore, I do feel like I have to discuss what I think is happening is only to be able to look back and say, "Don't do that again" or on a more positive note, "It was so clear!". So here goes.

Summer is here, which means adherence to schedules is tough. We've had a string of family activities and the neighborhood kids are outside playing. My sons have also met the girl next door. They can't get enough time playing with her and the Younger will wait next to the gate the separates our houses for her to come out. Summer also means that FT is teaching a couple summer classes, making me a full-time mom.

The Younger is giving me a lot to do outside of a job search: We've taken him to the ER for a smashed finger, taken a day to replace a window he broke out of anger, and generally squabble with him daily on his dietary habits (candy for breakfast is highly discouraged, which sets the tone for the rest of the day). Every year I wonder if the next will be easier.

I've been focusing on being a Stay-At-Home-Mom. I'm volunteering with Scouts and Navigators, Tae Kwon Do, and arranging playdates for the boys. I'm cleaning the house and making meals, making sure the kids are still "learning". I'm also working on volunteering at my local hospital and staying on top of my business association activities. I have more than enough to keep me happily occupied and I am coming to enjoy the lifestyle. When I was working, I never envied the life of a SAHM, now I find myself thinking how nice it would be to have a minivan for carpooling and if we should have another baby.

And yet our economic reality is that neither of us has a job that can support the whole family. Both FT and I have to be looking and picking up part-time jobs as they come. My problem, of course, is that I am having an identity crisis. An identity crisis is very, very bad for a job search.

You can't force a square peg in a round hole. Am I a square peg? Although this current economic climate is extremely challenging, I wonder if I am suited for the corporate life at all. My last experience taught me that I will sacrifice my personal life for my job and that my ambition to climb the corporate ladder is not that strong. Is it worth subjecting myself to those forces again? So I am researching graduate school (again), this time on a path that will lead to a type of certification that would lead to steady employment with an institution that likes to see certification, and perhaps to my own business one day. Are the costs in time and money are worth it?