Getting A Real Job – Can I Be Professional Air BnB Host When I Grow Up? Is it Possible To Be A Part Time Mother? And Other Career Related Questions…
One thing I’ve learnt recently through my insights into the world recruitment is that people these days do not like working. I’m not quite sure if it’s a millennial thing or just a Cape Town thing (I mean with Table Mountain and these beaches on our doorstep you can’t blame a person for not wanting to be confined to a desk job). That said, most of us don’t have access to a trust fund or a rich husband so we hustle and drag our asses out of bed each morning to pay our way through life and fund our doughnut habits!
Well, that’s what I thought. That was until I met ‘journalists’ that despite having not had an article published in a decade or so still refuse to work for less than R8,000 per month. I encountered ‘poets’ who like to post lyrical Facebook status’ about how their only wish would be to have a house (blah blah blah!) in which to retire (Is it possible to retire when the only work you’ve ever engaged in is reading a bit of angry poetry? Answers on a postcard!). Then the cherry on the cake…the ‘yogi’ who was lucky enough to be offered a job and after signing the contract asked whether her working hours could be changed to accommodate her favourite yoga classes. Let’s just say she lasted 3 days on the job before quitting in order to reassess her options in light of Cape Town’s water crisis. Seriously! Where do these entitled twats emerge from? Yes, the examples I’ve given you are at the extreme end of the spectrum but I’m trying to prove a point – basically people these days are averse to an honest day’s work.
The other thing that irks me is what people claim to be a legitimate job. I admit at times I have a tendency to be a bit of a degree/job snob (I learnt my lesson after hiring a fashion with questionable sense graduate to do a ‘scholarly’ writing job!) but it’s absolute madness what some people consider work. I’ve met a fair few professional Air BnB hosts in my time and I’m sorry but renting a room in the house is nothing more than a side project. Sure, it’s a good additional form of income generation but I hate to break it to you but you aren’t exactly a property tycoon darling! Then there is my ABSOLUTE worst (and the actual subject of this post). The people I want to strangle DEAD. The ones that casually drop into conversation how they are pursuing a career as FULL-TIME MOTHER !!!!!
Ugh. What a joke. Let me break this down.
Pray tell, what then is a part-time mother?
It’s possible to a part-time accountant, a kid’s football coach on Saturdays, or moonlight ….but really is it possible to be a part-time parent? Take care of the screaming baba (with the number of breaks required by law 😛 ) from 9 to 5 and then hit the bar for after-work drinks? I don’t think so somehow.
Sure, there are some parents who can’t afford to or possibly don’t even desire the required 7 years maternity leave deemed necessary by the experts on Facebook. But returning to work doesn’t somehow make you part-time mother.
So let’s be brutally honest here, being a stay-at-home mother (which is actually what you are) means one of two things a) you don’t really care to go back to work as your baba provides you with all the intellectual stimulation you need or b) you bagged your self a rich guy who could fund you to play unicorns with the kids (well done you!).
Parenting isn’t a job
Wow, if the careers advisor at school had told me that spreading my legs and spawning a child was a legitimate career option, oh how different life could have been. Well I guess some people collect children the same way others accumulate PhDs so maybe it’s just a matter of perspective.
In my humble opinion, for something to be a considered a job, it should make you CASH MONEY. Call me a horrible capitalist biatch if you will. Let’s face facts. Sure, the green stuff may not be all the drives a person to do a job – for some their choice of a career path may be driven by a desire to follow their passion for drawing unicorns or a desire to help people. But honestly, even artists dream of making millions and surgeons aren’t saving people’s lives purely out of the goodness of their hearts. If you do something without getting paid it’s charity – volunteering if you will!
Unlike, real career choices, parenting does not pay the bills. Quite the opposite in fact – ugh having kids these days is sooooo expensive. Ok, some people do think of their children as a long-term investment. There are those that justify their desire to procreate by telling themselves that if they have lots of kids/invest in their children’s education now, they’ll look after them/financially support them in their old age. I’ll admit there is some logic to that way of thinking. But by the same token, your kid could turn out to be a felon who swindles you out of your precious pension fund. Just saying.
Is being a stay-at-home parent necessarily the best option?
Yes, I’ve met women whose ambition in life was to be a mother. The only reason they were at university was to meet the right kind of husband (read: sperm donor). Even those that were super clever and highly accomplished academically, swiftly dropped everything as soon as their dream of popping out a kid was realised. They then chose to dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to motherhood.
For some people this really is the dream. Motherhood makes them complete. They call themselves a home-executive or whatever and that’s the end of that. Others soon quickly realise that as much as they love them, their kids don’t define them and they actually need to be gainfully employed (and perhaps more intellectually stimulated) to be a happy, functioning member of society (aka tax payer!).
At the end of the day. parenting is pretty much one of those things everyone messes up at some point. If you go to work you’ll be accused of neglect. Stay at home and it makes them feel smothered. You can’t win. That said, doing a legit job, doesn’t make you less of a parent. I get that being with the kids 24/7 makes some people happy but it also makes others bored. Also from the kid’s point of view, seeing your parents going off to work isn’t necessarily a bad thing. They need to learn to survive without Mummy/Daddy to hold their hand. Also, kids should learn that for most people getting out of bed and going to work to earn money is a necessity. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Seeing parents having job that gives them purpose and fulfilment might also become a source of inspiration for kids. Who knows? All I’m saying that part-time parenting (as some people would call it) may not be such a bad thing.
To conclude this essay, we live in an age where people don’t really want to work. I agree there are more fun things to do than go to the office. But we also have responsibilities in life. To enjoy a nice lifestyle, you often need money and sadly most people aren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouths and may not necessarily acquire the required rinsing skills to bag ourselves a rich hubby/wife so we suck it up and go to work. If you don’t enjoy your job, I have a secret for you….most people don’t! But just admit you don’t like working and don’t use kids as an excuse not to go out to work. If you choose to stay at home with the babies and can afford to do so without relying on handouts from the state/society/random neighbours, good for you but please stop claiming that your kids are job. They aren’t. Not by any definition. And lastly, don’t assume that people who are gainfully employed are in anyway part-time parents. They aren’t. Perhaps they might even end up creating better adjusted little humans. Who knows? The juries still out on that one.
Share your thoughts little Rinsers. Do you think parenting can be considered a job? Or is it something ‘lazy’ people use to legitimise the fact that they can’t be bothered to go to work? Do we live in a world where people don’t really want to work and would rather follow their dreams than do an honest job? Is #englishrosiee nothing more than a horrible hater of children/job snob? It’s been a while so feel free to hate me in the comments below.
There are times when your mind is filled with traumatic life issues and you need to find a trashy novel that doesn’t require too much mental capacity (maybe just a Matric certificate though!) to escape your reality and make you feel better about your sad little existence. This was one of those times.
Some people are great with the matters of the heart since they’re teenagers and they can always see through people’s intentions. Most of us, however, need some experience to learn to recognise whether the person we’re interested in is also interested in us. Others seem to never learn.
This post is going to be slightly ranty in nature. Perhaps I will express in it, however, some struggles that women deal with daily.
I will lose 20 kilos, quit smoking, stop drinking, hit the gym 7 times a week…! Sounds familiar? Perhaps you’re also one of the people who try to make radical New Year’s resolutions every year and find yourself failing in week one and giving up entirely? Is it even possible to set truly life changing goals? I think so, you just have to be a bit more patient.
