I sometimes like to say (well, maybe "like" is the wrong word) that we are at times a "zero income" family. Really? Well, technically yes. My employers (Gabriel and Molly) are generous in many ways. Financially generous is not one of those ways. Jono works free-lance as a television production manager. So, if he's not working, there's zero income. When people find out about this slightly loopy situation I often see a distinct look of disbelief flash across their faces. Sometimes people say "oh, you're so philosophical not worrying about your situation". I think what they really mean is "why the *&$% aren't you worried???". Truth is I am sometimes but no matter what anybody else thinks, I know we made the best possible decision for our family. Are we crazy? Irresponsible? Stupid? Perhaps. But let me tell you why I believe we are not.
So, how does one get to become a zero income family by choice? What is the thought process that would lead seemingly sane and rational adults to choose to live with such financial insecurity? Well, in our defense let me say that I have tried every variation possible when it comes to paid employment. And by every variation I guess I really mean full time and part time. After my maternity leave with Molly I went back to work full time and that felt really swell (honestly it did!) for about 2 months. And then it just started to feel really really stressful. My job as a doer of everything at a small consulting company was exceptionally time consuming and emotionally demanding. Neither Jono nor I had a 9-5 existance so almost every day we played a game of chicken to see who was going to leave work first to be home at 6 so our caregiver could leave. And it was pretty much always me that threw in the towel and headed home leaving a pile of incomplete tasks. Doing work from home in the evenings (at least checking email) was pretty standard. It felt like I had about 2 hours a day with the kids and I was rushing them off to bed so I could deal with some work issue. I felt disconnected from their lives and totally stressed out. We were all eating lot of rice and fishsticks. It was like I was doing a crap job as an employee and as mother. So with Jono working a relatively long term contract, we decided that I would quit.
In retrospect I picked a bad day to tell my boss I was quitting. Many wacky things were happening and she was about to head out of town. But she was often on the road so I sort of had to seize the opportunity when we were actually in the office together. Her response was "no, you can't quit, will you work part time?". I probably should have said "no" knowing full well where that would lead but I thought "what the heck, if it doesn't work out I can quit - again"! So I worked 2 days a week. And for a while I really did only work 2 days a week and it seemed like I'd found the best of both worlds. But not surprisingly work got increasingly hectic and more and more of my time at home with the kids was spent trying to do my job. Molly would nap and I'd park Gabriel in front of "Thomas" and I'd try to squeeze in some calls and emails. A friend started watching Molly while Gabriel was at school and pretty soon I was working the mornings of my 3 days at home.
After about 8 months it became clear things the "part-time" thing wasn't working. But things were totally crappy on the work front for Jono. So we made the decision for me to work full-time again. And of course then Jono found an awesome gig and then we were scrambling to try and sort out child care. We cobbled together this crazy hodge-podge of mother-in-law and daycare but we still had one day a week with no childcare. That day was super exciting! Every week was a fun game of "what's going to happen on Thursday"! More playing chicken over who would sacrifice work time to do childcare. Stressful is not the word. After about 2 1/2 months I was losing my mind. I was disconnected from the kids and our weekends were a whirlwind of chores and errands - not fun family time.
It was the Thanksgiving weekend of 2009 and I remember breaking down in tears knowing that I had no will to go on like this. It was clear that my job could never be part time (hell, it was more than full time!) so there was only one choice left** - I had to quit. Again. When Jono said "quit your job" and handed me a Kleenex it was like a million tonne weight was lifted off my shoulders. So, after calling Jono about 5 times to make sure we were serious, I quit. Again. My boss didn't try to talk me in to staying this time. We both knew we'd tried all the options. To her credit she'd given me a tremendous amount of flexibility to try and make some variation of my job work for both of us. Having tried so many options, I knew what was going to work best for our family - a parent at home full time.
18 months later and we still know we made the right decision. Jono's work has been pretty steady but it's mostly shorter contracts so we are constantly wondering what's going to happen next. We had some savings and well, now we don't really. I can't say it's not stressful, because it is frankly. But we like to say it's a better quality stress. We're all happier and healthier. The weekends are devoted to family. Jono's work is really crazy and me being at home allows him to use whatever non-work time he has to just be with the kids without having to worry about doing anything else. For now, this works for us. Someday I'll go back to work. But I'll figure that out later...
When I was in grade 2, my class had a "special of the week". The special person would be interviewed and our teacher filled a big sheet of lined paper with all the information about you. I remember you even got to choose the marker colour - I chose red. I also remember what I said I wanted to be when I grew up - a mother. Turns out my grade 2 self was right. But I do wonder how things worked out for the all aspiring fashion designers, marine biologists and astronauts...
**Now, you might be thinking "why didn't Mr. Freelance remove himself from the job market and stay home with the kids?". Indeed we considered that but unlike me Jono actually liked his job. His income was better and well, how shall I put this...he didn't really want to stay home with the kids full time. He's an amazing Dad and he totally could do it, but he didn't really feel he'd be satisfied by it the way I knew I would be.
No comments:
Post a Comment