this woman’s work

Julia and I were talking homeschooling the other day (a big discussion/gentle debate) and she said, I like to think gently, that maybe I liked being the odd parent out and this had something to do with our homeschooling choice. You know, that much of my identity comes from going against the grain.

I’ve been thinking on this. It’s a charge I’ve had leveled at me before especially when I was a disgruntled teen with bad punk rock hair and questionable taste in clothes. It’s true that when I was a teenager that I reveled in my weirdness but that’s just it — I didn’t like to be weird; I was weird. And when I was a teen and grappling with my identity, I wanted to be very in people’s faces about it as teens will be.

So see, it’s not that my identity is wrapped up in being weird like a status symbol; it’s that I am who I am and I’ve learned to be proud of it as opposed to defensive and worried about it. Am I proud of being a homeschooler? Sure. I’m proud that we’re living out our values even though homeschooling has added to our challenges as a family (financially for the most part) and I don’t need that celebrated although it would be nice to have it accepted instead of questioned.

Back to being weird and how it relates to our homeschooling choices. I was an odd kid and pretty early on I figured it out as odd kids will do. It seemed like I usually wanted to do things differently than my friends or had interests that they didn’t share. I’m fortunate that I wasn’t the kind of kid who got harassed much and I’m sure part of this is that my mom (and I think my dad) like me an awful lot and told me so. What made me weird, I learned early on, was also what made me special so I never wanted to pretend to be something I wasn’t.

I think when it comes to intrinsic weirdness having confidence is what saves you from getting harassed. Also as introverted as I am (and this introversion certainly contributed both to my weirdness and my school misery), I do like people and my social skills were always good. You know, “plays well with others” and stuff like that. I’ve always had close knit friends and generally get along with people and my unhappiness with the social world at school had to do with the way I saw it and experienced it and not with how I was treated.

There are two bullies that stand-out in memory — one being some random kid in Chicago who used to follow me home from school and wash my face in the snow. I don’t know how it started or how it ended but I remember the feeling of trying to get across the wide open field between the school and our house during the blizzard of ‘78. The snow was too deep for me to get across quickly, so I’d struggle huffing and puffing and praying he didn’t catch me. The other bully was in middle school, one Eric Bielke who was a big, dumb, mean guy and who had it in for me for reasons I still don’t understand. He’d wait for the Home Ec teacher to leave and then threaten to strangle me. But mostly I had my friends and things were fine as long as I was comfortable with feeling awkward, which I learned to be. Which is to say, again, that my misery wasn’t social misery.

Some weird kids, they have charisma and can wear their weirdness to the top of the pack (my first boyfriend, Joaquin, was one of these). But the rest of us have to make some choices:

• Pretend to be normal as best you can and hope it sticks (it never does).
• Be weird and say screw ‘em.

(more…)

I’m home with the kids today while my husband is at work just like how things used to be but totally different. Brett started today at a Home Depot for three reasons:

1. Possibility of getting help with our insurance;
2. Learning to do some of the things around the house that need to get done and learning with an employee discount;
3. A break from the kids.

Seriously — a break from the kids was a big reason he wanted a job. I hear that.

Meanwhile it looks like my on-site gig, (which amounts to about five days a month across two weeks), might be regular which is what I hoped. At least they’ve already assigned my time to come next month. Perfect! It’s a big chunk of our budget right there and a big relief. Plus it’s fun. I mean really, really fun.

We think we’ll be able to swing the scheduling so that one of us is with the kids while the other is at work but there will surely be times where I’ll have a client meeting when Brett is gone so we’ve got a few back up plans. My sister is always good for some childcare and I volunteered Abby (without speaking to her first but she was game) and there’s Noah’s friend L’s family and the inlaws are back in town, at least for now. So that’s all good although Madison has been periodically showing up in tears to remind us that she never, ever, ever likes to have playdates when one of us is not with her. She says that when she is a mommy she will never, ever, ever leave her kids.

“I hate [job site]! Do all mommies have to go to [job site]? Or do some not go?”

I told her not all mommies go there and she declared that she certainly will not then. I told her this is fine.

I was having some stress earlier this week because someone sent a marketing this or that my way and it was all about getting out there and making zillions of dollars and I looked at it and thought, “I can see a way to market myself with these tools” and I could see how it might work but I could also see that to do it I would have to kinda push and shove some other people who are dabbling in the same sort of thing. And also there’s this marketing tone that’s very, “How much money have YOU made today???” that doesn’t resonate with me AT ALL. In fact, it’s something that kept me leery of marketing communications as a career and I still duck and cover when I show up at a networking meeting and there’s someone at the door glad-handing everyone and saying, “I made six figures in the last six months! How badly do YOU want success???”

The truth is I want some success. This past April with the two missing checks? That’s made me feel a lot less down on the whole money-money-money credo. But — not to be corny — I would be happy with money-money; I don’t need money-money-money. (See, first money covers the bills and the second money puts cash in savings.)

When things were feeling very bad last month, Brett and I sat ourselves down and said, “Can we really do this?” Because it looked like we were on our way to failing. Should Brett go back to a full-time desk job? Would I have to go back to scrambling for nickel-and-dime jobs while the house descended into chaos behind me? We put it all out on the table and decided, “No. We’ll make this work.” (Part of this was because we knew there’d be some very “I told you so” types if we threw in the towel, which made us want to kick freelance ass because we are contrary like that.)

Way back at the beginning of this thing Julia asked me what I wanted from this. Last week she reminded me of this after listening to me angst about not wanting to take over the world. She said, “Dawn, do you remember what your goal was? It was to make enough money to support your habit of being with your family.” (Is that a great line or what?)

This past April scared me so I was thinking, has it scared me enough to head into the dog-eat-dog, high-enthusiasm, take-no-prisoners world of hard-core marketing communications marketing? To elbow my way to the front? To make enemies in the name of getting more work and higher pay-outs? And Julia said, no. Because I don’t need money-money-money when money-money will do.

She also reminded me that I’ve come a long way, baby, in the past year. I know a lot more now and I know which marketing groups seem worth it and which didn’t do much for me so I’m wasting a lot less time smiling stiffly at events. I’ve made friends and contacts and colleagues. I’ve added a whole lot of work to my portfolio. I’ve learned the lingo and how to use it. I’ve learned to listen more than I talk. I’ve got a work wardrobe for the first time in my life and I’ve gained so much confidence that everything feels a lot less hard.

Other accomplishments:

• I’ve had several public speaking gigs and have three more upcoming;
• I’m no longer nervous about returning phone calls to perfect strangers;
• I’m not afraid to turn down work that doesn’t suit me;
• I have people who come to me with work.

That last one, that feels great, lemme tell you.

If this on-site gig sticks around awhile we’ll be in the clear even if someone loses a check (or two) for four (or six) weeks. If Brett likes Home Depot (and I think he will), he’ll be able to get some of the work done around here that’s making him crazy. (Like refinishing our oak floors that weren’t sealed and so are getting trashed; like finishing the basement; like building out an office space for me; like replacing more tile in the crazy bathrooms; like fixing the solar panel thingies on the roof; like rescuing the house from its 50+ year old landscaping.)

And we can support our habit of spending time with each other and with our kids. I know — how selfish are we? But yesterday I worked all morning and then Brett watched three sets of kids for the afternoon while I went thrifting with the moms and then the families all went out to dinner together and Noah sat laughing with the big kids and Madison giggled and fell off her chair with the little kids while the dads talked budgets and the moms talked kids and I thought, “This is what I’m in this for. Friends and family and time enough to work.”

Like everything it’s a balance. I’ll work a zillion hours a week as long as I can do it on my terms — with breaks to eat a sandwich with my husband or watch Noah play lacrosse or give Madison a foggy bath for her runny nose. I’ll hustle and hustle and hustle if I don’t have to sell-out to do it. But I have to stop sometimes to reassess — am I where I want to be and on my way to the next right stop? Today I am. Next week I’ll check again. And on and on and on.