The case of the disappearing career.

I cannot find a picture of a hen with its mouth open. Please use your imagination to imagine a hen. With mouth open. But no teeth.

A good friend asked me today what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. She was talking about my career, rather than whether I was planning on keeping the children. At least, I think she was — my daughter was being particularly irritating today so it would have been a valid question.

So the career. Ah yes. It was a good one. I loved the intellectual stimulation, the office banter, clever people around me (except the dim ones of course) and I loved so many of the teams that I worked with.  Until I realised I didn’t really enjoy what I did. And that I was working myself to the bone with ridiculous hours and ungrateful sods demanding clients. And I was basically miserable in my industry. All of which wasn’t really conducive to being a happy mother and wife, let alone a happy worker.  So now I find myself in the maternity leave tunnel with no light at the end.

I really need a light. I am no good in the dark. I’m fumbling for the light switch and have no matches.  Umm. Ok, yes, I have no idea where I’m going with that analogy, Let’s just say I’m in the dark.

Some days it seems easy. My skills are transferable, I’m quite nice,  I scrub up alright in a suit. But then — ah yes, the but — I am a mother. I want to work part-time. I want to earn a salary decent enough to justify nursery fees and leaving my children. I don’t want to have commuting as an extreme sport in my life. I’d like a relatively senior role which recognises the decade or so I have spent plugging away at this career lark and the number of letters after my name. I’d like my own team to manage. Oh, did I mention I want to work part-time? Yep, jobs like these are just falling off the trees, begging to be taken by lovely working mothers.

Things are not too bad for some professional white collar women – often if you leave a job to go on maternity leave, you are able to find something on a part-time basis when you go back to the same organisation (whether or not it’s what you want to do or will ever lead you up a path you wanted is another whole post). But the point is, I don’t want to go back to the same organisation. I don’t even want to go back into the same industry.  So, a new job in a new field which ticks all, or even some of, the above boxes? Hen’s teeth my friends. Every few weeks I read an article about new recruitment firms and websites who specialise in mothers returning to work. I diligently check them out – but unless I want to be a call centre operator, start spruiking on the phone (oh yes, I could earn up to 200,000 quid quite easily apparently) or hand out Bounty Bags at hospitals, the options are limited.

This ’new career’ issue is not one specific to parents — it’s hard to change careers for anyone a decade or so in. I’m prepared to give up being very busy and important to start off being pretty damn unimportant, but how low does one start? Especially one who has no idea what one might be good at being so damn unimportant at?

On days I contemplate these issues, it seems easier to just stay home and bake with the kids. I’m a good baker. Or at least a good eater of baked goods. But I don’t think I’m quite ready to take the suit along to Oxfam just yet. So Dr Jane, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? It was a good question and I’ll get back to you when I’ve worked it out.

photo credit: pslim