I applied for a job. Make that two jobs. Both library positions in the local school district. One of them is 30hrs a week at the junior high as a technical assistant who is basically that lady who used to shelve books, check out books and fix AV equipment when she wasn’t reminding you that she was merely there to assist and not do the actual research for you. The other position is even lower on the library food chain. Part-time assistant. That would be somebody’s mother shelving books and reading to the kids who haven’t learned how to yet. For this I had to rewrite and reformat the resumé I mailed to my Google docs last year when I was hurriedly saving anything of importance off my work station before the school district deleted me without another thought. I also had to dig through a mountain of badly filed papers to find my transcripts for Rob to photocopy as I am not sending originals.

It would be interesting to see the face of the Human Resource person who realizes that the person applying for these classified positions could just as easily apply for any one of about a half-dozen or so open teaching positions they have at the moment. Probably not every day in this neck of the desperately seeking a warm body woods that someone with a Masters applies for what essentially is a job that can be learned as one goes. You know they are desperate though when they are not only willing to train you but give you five years to earn your credentials.

I am less than joyful about stepping back into the education world even in such a minor role, but Katy will be in school full time next year and the working woman in me can’t justify a SAHM gig when she will not be around for 8 hours at a crack.

Until this past school year, I haven’t been without employment for more than 3 months since I was 15 years old. I was taught a work ethic in a very hands on manner and it stuck. Never really occurred to me that working was optional or that mothering couldn’t be done while holding down full time work.

And it wasn’t easy. I was a single mother from labor on really. Due to the nature of my late husband’s illness, I had no help, and so I juggled baby and job and care-giving. What choice was there? We needed my paycheck as I was the higher wage earner and my job carried the health insurance.

After I was widowed, nothing really changed. There was no life insurance. Who thinks of that when they are just 28 as he was? Sadly, too many people.

Marrying again and moving to Canada forced my hand when it came to the stay at home mom gig. It’s not something I would have chosen had it been my husband Rob moving to the U.S. I would probably have continued to teach. Why not? Katy could have attended a full day kindergarten program (there is no such thing here) and having recently completed my masters, I was earning much more – more than I ever will again perhaps. As an immigrant however I had to apply for residency and wait for approval before I could work, and as I waited I rediscovered the thing I loved to do more than anything else – write.

Now I am weeks, or less, away from permanent residency, and next September will find me with a whole day on my hands. For writing? Well, I could do that. Money isn’t an issue but another paycheck, even a small one, would speed us to where we really want to be a bit faster.

I also feel guilty. I am not used to being “kept”. Rob doesn’t see it that way. We have discussed numerous times that I am making a valuable contribution. It just doesn’t feel that way to someone who was raised to believe that she should work outside the home.

And how did that happen?

I am not like the women who do playgroups and sit in Starbucks sipping lattes while their babies sleep in impossibly expensive prams or snuggly strap on’s. Am I? Or am I buying into a non-existent stereotype? I do see women at the gym and here/there over the course of the day who clearly aren’t being kept very busy by motherhood.

My friends in college would speak disparagingly about those we knew who longed for or actually chose the stay at home life. Children of the early 80’s, we knew the new order’s drill. Go out into the world and establish ourselves as independent women before marrying and having a baby, who would be fine in daycare; we were sure of that. Why? Because we were told that it would be okay. That we could have it all.

Frankly, I didn’t enjoy “having it all”. I felt like crap and was sure that I wasn’t the mother, wife or teacher that I could have been if I wasn’t so divided and conflicted about my roles and who I owed the most to. And who did I owe?

Me. That’s who I owed.

Rob reminds me that I can do as I please. It is not a big deal and if I want to write then that is what I should do. He also reminds me that sending out an application and resume puts me under no obligation and to remember to negotiate rather than simply take what they offer. Oh, and say “no” if it doesn’t suit. Boys are taught to think about who they owe and what they are worth.

A full time job would kill my writing and at a time when I am just beginning to make head way. Even at six hours a day. Part-time is the way to go, I think, but I will see what – if anything – comes of this. It could be that, even desperate, the school district will deem me overqualified and pass my app by.

What is more intriguing than the whole working again thing is that I am feeling conflicted. Would I feel this way if I were male? Men, we are led to believe anyway, drop out and pursue their dreams without guilt or even second thoughts. Would a man pass up the opportunity to be “kept” a while so he could pursue his dream?

Rob wouldn’t. I know that because he reminds me that when I am successful he will be fulfilling his lifelong (an exaggeration) dream of being a stay at home dad. So why do I feel I must go back to work? What makes women feel as though they must divide themselves between home and career while erring on the homefront, possibly sacrificing opportunities?