My darling daughter is here, in my arms. At my breast, actually.
I’m so happy and yet I’m shivering with anxiety, too.
Dear reader, I need to find a job.
When Kyd arrived, I couldn’t wait to get back to my desk. Parenting was rough. I was clueless. Returning to my office meant handing off my son to a childcare center where people knew what they were doing with a newborn, and going back to a place where I knew what I was doing, full stop.
Don’t get me wrong – I wanted a child, couldn’t wait to start a family. I cried the months we tried and I wasn’t pregnant. But I had no idea how tough it would be to go from being out in the world to being cocooned at home with a tiny, defenseless, utterly dependent and not terribly responsive infant.
Newborns take. And take. And take. It can be shocking, especially in this era of children-as-fashion-accessories.
Nearly four years later, I adore my son with an overwhelming mother love that sometimes scares me. And my newborn daughter? What I feel for her defies words.
We had a plan – a tentative plan – about how we’d handle baby #2. I left my job when we moved back in the spring of 2006. It’s now been nearly two years since I earned a paycheck. For the first few months, it was impractical – our new house wasn’t finished, our son was still waiting for a space to open at his nursery school, our life was in boxes. And then I was pregnant. And now, now I have this fragile little life in my arms.
The thought was that I’d take some graduate classes, maybe earn a second master’s degree. It’s a pricey proposition, but not out of our reach. The challenges were more around finding enough childcare to cover the classes, which were offered only in the evenings. Jimdear would keep his demanding Big Law job a little longer, until I was finished and our second was walking.
Then Wall Street started to unravel.
With things going from bad to worse, it’s pretty clear that Jimdear’s job is in jeopardy. Nothing’s written in stone, of course, but even if he holds on through year’s end, we just don’t have enough confidence for me to contemplate beginning a graduate program.
And that’s okay. Really. I don’t need the degree. And I’ve felt guilty long enough about not bringing in an income. It makes my normally cheap tendencies go into overdrive. I feel guilty about every latte, every tee shirt from Old Navy, every … well every little thing.
The good news is that even if (when) Jimdear loses his Wall Street job, we’re not in New York. We’re in Washington DC, and odds are that new regulations will create enough careers that he can find a spot in the government. Given his background, it’s a natural transition that he’s contemplated long before the downturn. For him, a layoff would be scary, but exciting, too.
For me, however, this job search has me on edge. Will anyone hire me? Will our combined salaries actually cover the costs of childcare for two, our mammoth mortgage on a modest home and the associated expenses of living? Because the government might hire, but the pay cut could easily be 50%. Our hard=won financial stability could vanish in a matter of months.
Even if we clear the practical hurdles, will my life go back to the blind slog that it was before we moved, where I was always working – a playyard in my office, waking up at 3 a.m. to send an email because I couldn’t get a work related issue off my mind. Arguing with my husband about who got to go in early/stay late and who had to take the kid to the doctors/stay home on a snow day. And will I continue to carry the burden for all of the housework? Jimdear thinks my standards are too high and doesn’t much trouble himself with them, but I remember the grit and grime and disorder of our old life.
And most of all, how will I leave my little girl for eight hours a day? It sounds crazy coming from my mouth. I’ve always wanted to work – believed that I’d be a better mother if I worked, really. But right now it just feels so soon. Too soon.
Practically speaking, Jimdear doesn’t expect me to look until January when she has a part-time spot at our childcare center. And it would be crazy to try to juggle a job search with caring for a newborn. She’ll be twelve weeks in January. That’s old enough to be apart for twenty hours a week, isn’t it? It still leaves so many hours in the day, in the week, in the life.
And yet every day I don’t look for a job, I fear that I’m letting it go too late. That I’m risking my family’s financial security by failing to try to find an income. Or worse, that I’ll have to take the first job I’m offered because I’ll have to.
When Kyd was born, I kept my heart hard. I had an armadillo skin inches thick, and it kept me sane. Sort of. But I missed so much. Now I’ve misplaced my shell, and I fear I need it right now.
I’m scared. Scared I can’t take care of my family financially without abandoning them emotionally. I want more time, but we don’t have it.
Somewhere, my inner optimist tells me I’ll look back and it will all be better. It’s fear of the unknown that’s holding me back. Moving and leaving my old career behind had me in knots, too, and I now admit it was for the best.
It’s just not making this moment any easier.
