When I Grow Up ~ Part 2

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I hate this question. It's the twisted cousin to the benign childhood question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I started tackling that answer in this post. So now, I'm picking up where that story left off...

Ever since having children, I have really struggled with wanting to carve out a successful, meaningful career while still being incredibly involved & active in raising my children. This is a struggle for working moms everywhere & a simple internet search will turn up countless articles supporting this statement. In a perfect world, if money were no obstacle, I would stay home every day with my little ones, having learning time, playtime, field trips to the library/zoo/children's museum & just enjoying watching them grow. Jesse loves his work & is very dedicated to his ministry, so I would be content to allow him to flourish in that career & blossom in my own as a full-time mommy. However (reality check!), a youth ministry paycheck & lack of benefits aren't enough to sustain us. So, we need both paychecks as well as the health insurance that my job provides & his doesn't.

With that stark reality, I have come to the realization that if I must work outside the home, then I want to do work that is meaningful & allows me to use my education & expertise to the best of my ability. I have gone about trying to achieve this in a variety of ways...

• Using my current job as the ultimate learning experience: In this mindset, I try to make the most of my current work experience. I have attended trainings, participated in team projects & done my best to learn & build up my skill set.
• Finding fulfillment elsewhere: I recently became an adjunct faculty which has helped me find fulfillment in at least some of the work I do! However, it is difficult to be in a lackluster job for 40+ hours a week & balance that feeling of inadequacy with smaller quantities of time where I do find fulfillment.
• Seeking out other employment opportunities: For the past four to five years, I have been actively looking for another job. I have applied for countless jobs & had at least half a dozen interviews. All of this has honed my job search & interview skills, but has not actually resulted in a change of employers.
• Pray & trust that God's Will be done: I heard this type of TRUST described as True Resolve Under Severe Testing. Nearly eight years of frustrating job conditions coupled with four small children, opposite work hours with my spouse & a nearly constant job search & I certainly feel like I have been severely tested! I have continued my devotion to Mary, Undoer of Knots & offer up my situation routinely in prayer.

I'd rather not look back on all of the difficult & frustrating circumstances of my current job & job search. Quite honestly, it can be painful to feel that you aren't qualified enough for a job or didn't have what the employer was looking for. That quickly spirals into the school of thought, "I wonder if I'll ever get out of here?" So, I'd rather just look forward.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Honestly, I don't know. I'd like to be working on projects I feel passionate about, contributing to a greater good. Providing an example to my children that even though Mommy can't be home full-time, I am spending my time away from them doing good for others. That is rather vague, but given the journey I am on, it's the only answer I can give right now. Hopefully, in God's time, I will go where He leads me & find amazing things along the way.

When I Grow Up ~ Part 1

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Sounds like a simple question. And from a young age, it is something we are routinely asked & seemingly encouraged to think about. But, in my experience, it seems we have many answers to this question. At thirty years of age, I am still struggling (deeply struggling, actually) with how to answer this one question.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a vet (don't we all!?!) & wanted to work with horses. As I got older, I wanted to be an author like my favorite, Laura Ingalls Wilder. In high school, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer & even did a short stint shadowing a local attorney. Although that experience was very boring (in my high school-aged opinion), I continued on with that path & entered college as a pre-law major.

Upon arriving at college, I was greatly disappointed with the pre-law program. All the law courses were taught by the same professor who was not very challenging & didn't appear to have a passion for her students or the material she was teaching. After one semester, I visited the campus where I would be going for law school per the program requirements. Feeling less than impressed with that campus & a gut feeling that it just wasn't for me, I decided to switch majors. In high school, I had taken an accounting course & felt that perhaps that would be a better path. So, the summer after my first year of college, I became an accounting major.

Whether the change was for the better or not, I can't really say. Even though I was an accounting major, I knew I didn't want to be doing audits & taxes my whole life. A terrible internship experience in a CPA firm confirmed that decision. After completing my bachelor's degree in three years, I stayed at the same university to complete a master's of business administration. Knowing I didn't want to be a CPA, I understood the value that an MBA could have in rounding out my business acumen, rather than being pigeon-holed into accounting jobs. I always enjoyed higher education, but really loved the type of learning that the master's-level courses provided.

Upon graduation, I still didn't know what I wanted to do. But I knew I had to build up some real-world experience. So, I took a job as a financial analyst with a manufacturing company. The first six months of the job should have been an indication of what to expect. It was a newly created position & from the beginning, management struggled with finding enough projects/tasks to keep me busy. At this point, I began to develop a terrible, woe-is-me attitude about work. Looking back, I had nothing but negative experiences in job shadowing, internships & now a first job. Why couldn't I find something/someone who loved what they do & emulate that?!

Fast forward...marriage, four kids, home purchase...now nearly eight years later, I am still at the same job I took right out of college. How do I feel about that? Frustrated, angry, emotional, aggravated. I haven't moved "up the ladder" & there isn't really a defined path of where that ladder would go, assuming there was one. No considerable pay raises or leadership/management experience either. I have (thankfully!) been able to have flexibility & the opportunity to work from home when Jesse has retreats or work conferences. But, I often wonder, once our kids are all in school & we don't really need as much flexibility, what will I be doing still working here? It's a question I ponder a lot...along with that nagging question...

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Part Two can be found here.

Under Construction

For the past couple of weeks, Jesse has been doing a major overhaul of his offices & storage areas.  Since we live about 20 minutes from our parish, I couldn't have imagined that this would impact our home life in any way.  How silly of me!

Although we don't have any of the actual organization/cleaning/renovating happening here, I feel like I'm living in the midst of a construction zone!  The scope of this project has expanded beyond what I thought.  It has been very stressful to have all of this going on in the midst of our typical routine which is busy enough on its own!  I keep having to remind myself that this construction period is only temporary.  The end product will be worth it.

"Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be."  ~ Khalil Gibran

Gibran certainly has it right.  I can't count how often I find myself getting caught up in the details!  When I find myself doing this, I try to take a step back & see the forest through the trees, so to speak.  It is a good centering activity to help me focus on the greater picture and usually helps me get refreshed before jumping back into the details.

I know this office project will be over soon and then Jesse will have a wonderful, professional office (pictures to follow!).  And all of the chaos will have been worth it.  Then it will be time to focus that same organizational effort on our house...but that's another project for another day!

Work-Life Balance Introduction

At the time when Jesse was offered his first youth minister job, we were 6 months pregnant with our first child (we waited to find out it was a daughter until the day she made her arrival!).  We made a list of all the pros & cons that this new opportunity would bring.  Right near the very top of the "Pros" column was "flexible schedule."  Since youth groups happen in the evenings, Jesse would be able to stay home during the day with our little one.  Although we were a mere 3 months away from meeting our little girl, we hadn't yet discussed what would happen when my 6 weeks of maternity leave ended & I had to go back to work.  It was a conversation I was certainly putting off because I didn't want to think about the day I had to drop my newborn off at a daycare & then go into work for the day.  I understand that daycare is a blessing for parents who have to work daytime jobs, but in my heart I knew it wasn't going to work for us.  If I would have to continue working (a necessity when your job carries all the healthcare benefits as well as necessary income) after our daughter was born, I could only imagine being comfortable with her being with Jesse all day.

So, we made the decision that Jesse would take the youth ministry job.  At the time, he was working 50+ hours a week at a job placement service & wanted to remain there for as long as possible, which meant right up until I had to go back to work.  So, he continued to work there during the day & lay the groundwork for youth group in the evenings.  Needless to say, when our daughter was born, I spent most of my maternity leave by myself (looking back, this should have been a warning of things to come!).

I am blessed to be able to go to work in the mornings & know that my daughters are being taken care of by their dad.  I think it has made him a better parent & has formed a strong bond between Daddy & his little girls.  All that being said, there are very few days that I walk out the door & don't wish it was me being able to stay home with them.  Or at least be able to do this.  There are certainly times when I am thankful that I can go to work & get a break from all the craziness that comes with having 3 little ones.  But I miss them terribly when I'm away & can't wait to come home cuddling & playing with my girls again!