Weekend Journal

~ Laura

It’s been a really strange couple of weeks.

My husband almost lost his job in the Wall Street debacle. Then he didn’t. Then it looked like it was over. Then it wasn’t.

The case manager at my kid’s school finally returned my call to say that they definitely would not pay for an aide for him at the after-care program at the school. Even if I paid for the aide on my own, they wouldn’t help me find an aide and had no idea what do to with him with the 40 minutes time difference between the two schools. I launched into a rant that had been building up about how unfair it was that parents of special needs kids don’t receive the same benefits as other parents.

Then I found out that my temporary line at my school will end in June, due to union regulations. There are no job openings in my field within a one hour radius of my house.

All this was going on while I was nursing a low grade fever and a hacking cough. Things looked bad until the antibiotics kicked in on Saturday morning. With the fever gone, I could think more clearly.

After the spring semester, I’m going to adjunct one class for a year and write a couple of books. I’ve got it all mapped out in my head and am actually antsy to get going on those projects. If I’m not grading essays on federalism and Machiavelli and education policy, I’ll be able to sit at the computer without distraction. I put too much time into my course work anyway. This new path certainly solves the childcare problem. This plan isn’t kink-free — crappy adjunct money, crappy adjunct status, no benefits, oh, let’s not think about this too much.

It’s a change in direction for me. It took me about a day to get used to this idea, but now I’m eager to make the switch. I’ll have to be a bit more entrepreneurial, but the traditional paths to career success are made for men and the childless.

Published by Laura

8 thoughts on “Weekend Journal”

  1. Laura,
    Best wishes!
    I’ve got a relative who is an adjunct and (among other things) she supplements her income by boarding several foreign students at a time.

    Like

  2. “but the traditional paths to career success are made for the men and the childless”
    And for those with family money to fall back on. Nothing like starting out on third and going through life thinking you hit a homer.
    Your new path sounds great – looking forward to reading about it.

    Like

  3. Good luck, Laura. I think one of the things that having kids teaches you, if we’re smart, is to stay flexible, ’cause kids never take the straight path anywhere.

    Like

  4. Good luck! I’m looking forward to reading your books. Hopefully you can leverage them into a more enjoyable & practical teaching position once the kids are older, if that is what you want to do by then.

    Like

  5. “the traditional paths to career success are made for men and the childless”
    Hear. Hear. I, too, am trying to figure out a way to succeed and still be there for my kids, so I am looking into part-time teaching, consulting, whatever. Even though I don’t have a kid with difficult issues to be worked through, I still feel a real lack of support from the school. I just don’t have as much time as I’d like to advocate for my kids. And I’m just talking working out homework problems. There’s still an expectation on the part of the school that someone’s at home and has all the time in the world to contact 6 different teachers, a principal and work one-on-one with my kid on top of that. I want to make a contribution to the world in addition to having kids and it seems that the requirement is a 60-hour work week. I’m not cut out for that I fear.

    Like

  7. Politics, now that’s an interesting idea. I’d vote for you in a heartbeat. One of my friends (okay, not a PhD, but a Wharton MBA) is on the school board in Woodcliff Lake, which is near you, I think. (Yes, it’s Fancy Town, but my friend is cool.) Let me know if you’d like to connect.

    Like

Comments are closed.