What I want

[eveglass]

Thanks to a conversation with loupdebois last night, wherein he was kind enough to let me ramble and think out loud, I had a small epiphany.

What I want from a job is enough money to build up a decent nest egg, and enough experience to have something viable to fall back on and possibly do freelance from home a few hours a week.

Because what I really want, old-fashioned as it sounds, is to be a stay-at-home-mom. I want kids, and I want to stay home with them until they're old enough to go to school.

(This is assuming, of course, that my S.O. / husband at the time makes enough money that a one-income household is possible.)

The flip-side is that I'm not going to have kids until I feel I've established myself. I don't want kids when I'm in school and not making much income; and I don't want kids if I'm on a probation or training period at work (eg: the first two years of work before getting a C.A. certification).

Thinking about things in this way have put some of my options into focus:


1. Teaching at cegep -- yes, I'd still love to do it.
Good stuff: it pays well and, once I have tenure, I could probably come back after a relatively long absence. On the other hand, there's a rather long period of uncertainty before I can consider myself "established," by which I mean "tenured." It takes 3 consecutive years of full-time teaching to get tenure at Dawson, and probably another year or two (at least!) of part-time teaching before they give you the full-time contracts. Even assuming I get hired by the humanities department after my interview on Tuesday, and even assuming it's for a full-semester contract in the fall (I'm just guessing here, and I'm also guessing it'd be for only one or two courses), I'd still be looking at 2012 as the absolute earliest I could be tenured.

One other good point is that I could probably do this part-time while my kids were young. On the other hand, I couldn't do it from home.

2. Accounting -- really, this one is looking increasingly unlikely.
Good stuff: it pays very well, and once I'm established, I could probably work only a few hours and still make good money. Many of the big C.A. firms are also making a concerted effort to keep mothers-on-leave in the loop, and happily recruit them back when they want to rejoin the workforce. On the other hand, like teaching, there's a long period before I can be "established." I'm looking at Sept. 2012 as a tentative date for getting my C.A. certification, and I'd need at least another few years before I'd be comfortable enough striking it out on my own in a part-time consultancy.

3. Editing -- the tests I did yesterday sparked my imagination for possibilities with this one.
Good stuff: I wouldn't need to do any more schooling for this one; I could start as soon as this semester ends (assuming Softitler wants to hire me). This means I could start making money right away. After a few years, it could also branch out into related editing fields that I could do at home, part-time. I think a majority of editors work freelance already, so I'd hardly be unique. On the other hand, "established" in this field isn't nearly as secure as "established" as a cegep teacher or accountant. It would be harder to get back to work after my kids are older unless I did part-time work while they were young to keep my CV current. Also, I'm fairly certain that editors make, on the whole, less than the two other options I've discussed above.

4. ESL teaching -- is right out as a long-term strategy.
Good stuff: I love doing it, I love my students, and it's relatively decent pay per hour. On the other hand, it sucks as a long-term strategy. To make enough money to begin to match the other fields, I'd need to be putting in at least 25-30 hours of teaching time, in addition to unpaid prep time and travel time (significant if you're going between companies for 1.5-hour contracts). I might be able to teach a course or two for extra cash if money were tight, but it's not the sort of thing I want to consider as a long-term strategy. There's no way to build up a nest egg without burning myself out in the process.


There are other options (there always are), but these are the four I've been considering for the last little while. Looking over the list, editing might be the way to go (if Softitler or a related company wants to hire me, of course). Cegep teaching would be lovely if I could get established quickly, but I don't think I could. I've got the interview on Tuesday, but that's no guarantee of a job, and even if it were, that's no guarantee of long-term employment.

At least now I know what I'm gunning for: 1. money in the short term to build up a nest egg, 2. experience to give me confidence that my CV could pass muster if I dropped out of the workforce for 6 or 7 years, 3. experience to gain credibility to do some freelance work from home while I'm home with the kids.


... That said, now I must go work on my teaching presentation for Tuesday.

Comments

[conscioussoul.livejournal.com]

I know how you feel about your desire to have kids. It's also part of my own big dream... one day.