A Second Job for Mom

Tonight was one of those nights that left me wondering how in the world I will return to the workplace... but, I should probably begin a couple of steps backward.  My second husband and I are raising a family under special circumstances.  We have five children -- three are from my first marriage - all teenagers - and two are ours - both preschoolers.  We also both graduated from college last spring, which means we are attempting to do the improbable -- supporting a family that takes most couples seventeen years to acquire on a single, entry level salary...

...at least, that's what we were doing.  We've learned this summer that my husband's Physics Secondary Teaching degree is already a useless thing.  He wants to teach High School, so he hasn't had enough training to be a physicist, and, due to the economy, schools need teachers certified to teach multiple subjects...for example: Physics, Geometry, Chemistry, and Astronomy while also coaching the girls' Soccer team.  Bonus?  Many of these jobs are "part-time" meaning an hourly wage and NO benefits.  My husband took one of these "jack-of-all-trades" jobs for a charter school this past year.  It was both a joy (teaching the students) and a misery (twelve hour days prepping for three subjects without any prep time at the school, plus the commute, etc.)  Now, we're looking at his trying to return to school for further accredidations while teaching (IF he has an offer) or while working a "regular job" at a limited pay that wouldn't even match our mortgage.

That's right.  We're unemployed.  We are so blessed to be okay through July, but August is certainly looking iffy on the financial front.  With all of this pressure, we've both been looking for work...for me, that would mean taking on a second job. My current employment is "unpaid".  My job title?  Mother.  This is not an easy decision.  When I was divorced...and when I thought of remarriage...I did all of the research on what these choices could mean, statistically speaking, for my daughters.  So far, they have defied every one of those negative statistics.  I chalk this up to my own passionate love for life and learning and my ability to allow them their agency and accountability while discerning the right moment for parental guidance and correction.  That ability mostly comes from being here and knowing them well...and these are three amazing and capable girls!

Networking my resume, I sent a confident sum into the Universe as well...it's an interesting number.  It would be above my husband's earnings as a part-time teacher by $600/mth, yet it would not take our family out from underneath the government's "poverty line"...and it would mean daycare for our youngest two.  Measuring the cost of a mother getting a second "paying" job is never easy.  It is more than the price of gas, clothes, child care, lunches, and dinners out when you're too tired (or too late getting home) to cook -- what happens to the home and family when there isn't an anchor in it?  This is the question I don't want to answer.  I don't want to see the danger for my daughters, their educations, their relationships to themselves and the boys who are quickly entering the scene.  I don't want to know the price for my son, our youngest child...

The bottom line is that homelessness is worse than Mom getting a job away from home.

Last night, I got a call from a Camp Leader.  My twelve year old daughter couldn't breath even after asthma treatments.  We met at the ER.  It was 2 am before she was stable enough to sleep.  She was hoping to go back to camp this morning, but cannot (her breathing is not strong enough yet).  And I wonder, what happens when I am not here to do the "behind the scenes" necessary to keep their lives stable?  To keep the celiacs fed and the asthmatics medicated, to nurture through the hormones, and nourish the flourishing imaginations?  How do working moms do doctor's appointments and life emergencies for five?

I don't know what the answer is.  We are willing to relocate for my husband -- though this is costly with a family of seven and impossible in the face of two mortgages. We are willing to work the $10/hr or less jobs while looking for other work...if only we, as "overqualified" individuals could get them. Sometimes, we're underqualified...there are people with Master's degrees hunting these jobs (but that's another post).  I learned while going through school for my Bachelor's Degree and running the undergraduate literary journal that you cannot have it all at the same time and have it all well.  Something gives.  Always.  I'm hoping it is only the housework...

Brake Lights

All right people, I know that none of us likes sitting in traffic.  I know that you don't like to waste time and that you only gave yourself just enough time to cover the mileage from your house to the office at optimal speed and you canNOT be late again or the boss will kill you.  I know that even at 7:30am you can feel the almost July heat breaching your car and making you sweat and that you have to be going 60mph for the 4/60 AC to be working properly and you don't want to melt before you get there, but come on...brake lights are there for a reason!

This morning, I had the opportunity to joing the morning commute to help out a friend who is experiencing car woes.  I really only braked, mid traffic, three times.  First time, EMERGENCY vehicles...the lady behind me refused to see blinkers or brake lights and made a dramatic pass on the right nearly causing a brand new accident for said fire truck and parametic to deal with.  The second, was coming up the hill behind a semi...again, the drivers darted around (this one is a little more understandable).  The third...an accident was being cleaned up in front of us, which led to lane blockage and a pretty display of neon green vested Utah policeman NOT dancing to direct the traffic.  Of course, we wouldn't know this for a little while longer, but, why not have the patience to find out instead of causing more trouble by jumping to the conclusion that the person in front of you is an idiot?

Thankfully, I made it home in one piece.  It's called defensive driving while she-bopping to the radio as loud as I deem necessary according to the song being played...

huggin' and a-kissin'!  dancin' and a'lovin'!  wearin' next to nothin' cuz it's hot as an oven!

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

The book has been adapted for a BBC mini-series

Falling in love with BBC's Gaskell movies, was the motivation behind picking up her books, and I'm so glad I did!  North and South was published seven years after Mary Barton made its appearence on the literary stage.  By this time, Gaskell's confidence in her craft had grown exponentially.  She no longer speaks directly to her imagined audience or preaches her own perspective.  Instead, she breathes life into well-rounded individuals, developing their characters through each new challenging scene.  Gaskell does not confine herself to one class of individuals and, in this book, tackles the challenges and prejudices that are rooted in place. 

In this story, Margaret Hale finds herself uprooted from her beloved southern farming village, Helston by her father and replanted in Milton, a northern factory driven town.  Everything here, from the class separation, to the local slang, to the handshake being used as a formal greeting is foreign to her.  She finds herself standing firm in all she knows with dignity and grace, but is taken for a proud and arrogant young lady.  This misunderstanding of character extends to John Thornton, the master of a local mill.  His hardness of character and business shrewdness is taken by Margaret to mean he is an unfeeling and unchristian individual.  Gaskell weaves the story of their love through the tension of a strike.  She is thus able to examine the labor practices of her day demonstrating how so much of the trouble is caused by misunderstandings on both sides.

Gaskell uses a far more balanced hand in her promotion of Christian morality within this work.  She has learned the art of allowing her characters to live out the pages of the work, growing with each scene.  This made for a far more convincing ending then she left us with seven years earlier in Mary Barton.  I truly enjoyed this book.  Though, as is true with all literature turned cinema, there are differences from the big screen and the pages.  Both the movie and the book are well done.

Anna Karenina by Tolstoy

The woman I imagined as Anna

Until watching "The Last Station," I had never been tempted to read anything from Leo Tolstoy.  I'd heard of his writings, but, generally, the titles were followed by a heavy, frustrated sigh.  It was as if everyone who had ever faced the 800 or more pages would rather have gone hungry for a year than to revisit them.  But, then, I fell in love with the portrayal of his life -- his wife asserting that any man who had read Tolstoy's works would know who he really is.
      A friend of mine loaned me her copy of "Anna Karenina" saying she was frustrated with it for beginning the story with "minor characters."  She had seen multiple movie versions of the love-triangle story between Anna, Karenin, and her lover, Vronsky.  I'm thankful I didn't have any of these ideas to get in the way of the story or Tolstoy's style of telling it.
     Tolstoy does a beautiful job of weaving different characters who have very different answers to the same question: fidelity to a spouse, to yourself, or to your country...all are important here.  The dichotomies in belief are illustrated right on down to the differences between Petersburg and Moscow.  Reading a work with so much depth and dimension left me knowing that "Anna Karenina" wasn't about the woman at all.  Not really.  It was a pleasure at times, heart breaking at others, and painfully...well, painful...especially when the local political system was discussed. I could almost feel Tolstoy wincing a little as he added this sequence, obviously feeling it necessary to present the full picture of Russia, but such an unpleasant irritation and so unlike his description of a Gentleman spending the day laboring side-by-side with Laborers, scythe in hand, I believe the manuscript was as much a telling of the author at the time he wrote it as it was a picture of Russia.
     One question I would ask Tolstoy is if his 'chapters' included whatever he wrote that day.  Each is limited to less than 4 pages, and, although densely worded, these don't always complete a scene.  Sometimes, they change perspective, showing each scene thoroughly from differing character's viewpoints...other times, the same character is still there, in the same place, with the same people.  Books written today follow a different set of "rules" for what is called a "chapter."  I have to say that I think I will adopt Tolstoy's arrangement in my own writing, at least in the first draft.  And, as for a reader who is also a busy mom, it was wonderful to be able to read a whole chapter in just a few minutes and get back to my household instead of feeling like I wasn't getting anywhere...Elephants really ought to be eaten one bite at a time!
      Would I recommend this book?  Yes.  I don't know if there are many souls left in our microwave world equipped for the patient pace necessary here...or who are willing to overlook the book's title and allow the author to tell the full story.  But, for myself, it was well worth the weeks to lock minds with Leo Tolstoy and feel Russia under my skin.