Choices

Dropping the kids at school this morning I looked around at all the working moms looking so pretty and done-up while I had on my workout clothes and a scrunchy hair tie around my wrist and it got me thinking; how many moms work because they need to make ends meet and how many work because this is what they're meant to do and what they have always desired to do?  How many get up in the morning, do their crazy morning routine of getting all the kids fed, dressed, and out the door while doing the same for themselves...not to mention preparing lunches and snacks?  How many do this and are happy to fulfill their ambitions and how many curse their financial needs to have to put them above their wants of staying home with their kids keeping the home-fires burning instead of having to re-stoke them when they get home after a very hard albeit satisfying day’s work?  I'm the latter mom; I'd be cursing all the way through my morning routine, all the way to the office, all the way to the coffee machine... Come to think of it, I did this even before I had kids!!  

You see, my career picked me, not me it.  I was in staff recruiting and sales for 12 years.  I made a very good living at it and had great people working with me.  But I didn’t wake up every day looking forward to the work day.  There was a lot of “cold calling”…that’s calling strangers in high positions and trying, in the 30 seconds they’d allow you, to win them over long enough to allow you an additional 2 minute sales pitch.  If you got through that without hearing a “no thanks” or, worse yet, the ominous click of the call being ended, you would lay out your hoops and begin jumping through them with the hopes that if you do it well enough, the person or people you’re peddling to the manager will get their turn at the hoops (interviewing).  In the beginning of my career this happened once every 10 or 15 calls and more often than not, at the end of the process, I’d get contracts signed and staff placed.  Toward the end, though, in the late 90’s and early 2000’s when things weren’t so great in the country, that number was more like 20 or 30+ calls before I’d get the courtesy of the two minute pitch and that number climbed significantly for hoop-jumping opportunities.  Because I was in the ‘contract’ business, once a consultant was placed I then had to make sure everyone was happy doing their job and everyone else was happy paying them (and me) for it.  Sometimes I’d get yelled at…by everyone.  Sounds like bliss, yes?

It was never a “sexy” career; even at its height.  People didn’t have a whole lotta interest when I told them what I did for a living.  They’d either nod in that polite, “good for you” kind of way or wrinkle their noses and say, “oh, so you’re a head hunter”. Ugh!  Anyone in staffing hates that expression!  “Um, no, I’m in staffing”.  “Right, same thing.” Aargh! “Yes, same thing.” [jerk]  Not many high school seniors dream of one day becoming a staffing sales consultant.  Human Resource executive?  Maybe.  But “head hunter”?  Not likely!

But back to the topic at hand!  If the timing had been different and I’d become pregnant with my first child while still working (I was taking some time off using some of the unemployment money I’d been storing up) and the industry was like that of the early to mid 90’s, I’m sure I would have been a working mom.  I never even considered otherwise.  Many, if not most of my friends were so it was basically a no-brainer.  I thank Heaven that the timing worked out the way it did and that we were financially able to survive on one income because I’ve been very happy being with my kids this far.  But it wasn’t a hard decision for me to make.  Like I said, I wasn’t living the dream doing what I was doing; I didn’t go to school and log in umpteen hours learning a skill that would be wasted staying home.  I never felt like I was wasting my education or my skills staying home though understandably, I think many women would and do feel that way.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.  On the contrary, I think staying home and feeling like you’re doing yourself an injustice is doing yourself and injustice and in turn, an injustice to your family.

So because you all need my permission, I grant it!  You have my permission to MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY by donning a business casual outfit and heading to the office, or scrubs, or a fire helmet, or a police badge, or an apron.  Make no excuses for your choice; if you have an excuse or feel you need to make one, I’m thinking maybe you didn’t make the right choice so take another look.  I’ve never regretted my choice.  I’ve got plenty o’ regrets, but choosing my current career path is and never will be one of them.

(So how many of you have a scrunchy hair tie on your wrist right now?)

~Eileen Cassidy Bishop

I feel kind of the way I did when my dad died; like I'm part of a stage play and it's not real.  It will be over soon and everything will be the way it was.

It wasn't the reality of February 25, 1983 just like it's not the reality of December 14, 2012.  Babies were murdered as well as their caregivers.  I keep telling myself I'm pushing it back to think of later when there's peace around and I can give it the attention it deserves.  That's not really true though.  If I could, I would erase it from my mind altogether and live my life just as I would if I'd never heard of those innocents.  That is incredibly selfish, I know.  Like all the other mothers and fathers out there, this one hit just too close to home.

The media and social networks show pictures of the victims as they are released by their families.  It's lovely.  They are all beautiful and cherub-like; healthy and happy.  Thanks to my faith, I believe they are even happier now.  They are beyond happy; they are living in a perfect Utopia with a Father who will take care of them and comfort their parents if those parents will allow it.  They are safe and without fear or pain.

But not their parents.  No, their parents have to stay here on Earth and endure imaginable pain and anguish.  They have to open their eyes every morning and try and make sense of the fact, the FACT, that their precious babies won't be at the breakfast table.  Won't be whining about what they have to wear or how far they have to walk to the bus stop.  Won't be giving them a quick kiss before running into school.  I pray they take solace in their faith and know that although their world is falling apart in giant chunks around them, their child is safe and sound.

But will they?  Can they?  Could I?  I pray almost as often as I take a breath that I'll never have to find out.

My prayers have shifted from God embracing the children and welcoming them home to embracing their parents and awarding them some sort of peace and some sort of Heavenly magic that will allow them to heal the gaping holes in their hearts.

~Eileen Cassidy Bishop

Second Time's a Charm?

I'm lucky enough to say I'm locked into a happy, loving, fun marriage with two cherubs as a result.  So many are not so lucky.  Some perhaps didn't try hard enough when the going got rough or were the victim of an extra-marital affair or drug use, etc. So many reasons to break up and when they out-number the reasons to stay together, well, then that's that.  I know I would get a tut-tut from many a mature reader who held fast to "death do us part" no matter, but I wonder had they to do it all over again, they wouldn't have chosen a different path for themselves and their children or their friends and their children.  I know too many people who would have benefited from their parents breaking up, but 30 and 40+ years ago, "it just wasn't done"...or at least not very often.  Yes, it's much more acceptable now and that may not be so great, but again, when efforts have been made to no avail...

I have a high school friend who married her high school sweetheart.  They had two beautiful kids together but a rough marriage.  Finally enough was enough and the marriage ended.  I don't think either one of them took the divorce lightly with children involved, but you do what you have to do, even if it's hard, for the sake of the kids' well-being.  I don't have a lot of details but I don't think it was pretty.  But it's over and though she still sees him from time to time and sometimes, when he's behaving exceptionally well, she's reminded of why she married him in the first place and perhaps beats herself up a little less.

She's definitely not the only friend that I've watched end a marriage.  Too many, to be sure, have decided to end it but none that I can call to mind did it without incredible difficulty, guilt, shame, and pain.  Most have children, even though some are grown, and some take complete blame for the breakup to protect not their spouse, but to keep their children's hearts from breaking over what really happened.   When a friend of mine told me this was the path she was going to take I was angry that she was taking the fall and, as predicted, her kids were so upset with her that one even turned his back on her and "sided" with his father.  She said even though they were both grown and leading their own lives, it wasn't fair to shatter what they had and have with their father; that they could reach their own conclusions in time.  Well, she was right and both her children are back in the fold and love and respect her even more than they did before...who says Mama don't know best?!

So back to my first friend, she is now happily divorced with one grown child and one just about to graduate high school.  She is still stunningly beautiful (I'm guessing even more so since she doesn't have a stress monkey riding on her back any longer) and has been lucky enough to find love again.  She managed to find a great guy who shares the same passion that she has...if I mention said passion she'll be found out immediately and she might get mad at me so I ain't sayin' nothin'!!  Suffice it to say, he lives and breathes it probably more than she does...if that's even possible!  He loves her, he tries to take care of her (as much as she'll let him), and he's great looking to boot.  I take it back, it's not luck, it's fate.

As for the second friend mentioned, she's still struggling to find real happiness again.  I think it will come but patience, as they say, is a virtue and must be practiced.  That, and you've got to kiss a lot of toads before you find Prince (or Princess) Charming.  

Happy searching! According to my husband, there's a lid to every pot.  And to further that sage wisdom, sometimes I think you find out the lid you've been using all this time belonged to some other pot in the cabinet and never really fit right in the first place.

~ Eileen Cassidy Bishop