Twenty years cannot handicap your mind for your future English 219

Jan. 28, 2015

It was time. It was overdue. She tossed the empty water bottle into the trash and opens the front door to leave her home, in the quiet neighborhood. As Laney walked into a clean updated looking office, with her scarf around her neck, she didn't want to be too late for the job interview. After all, these years, a real job interview first time in a long time. She handed the security guard an appointment card and went into the elevator, she exhaled noisily. "I'm never doing this again, I can’t believe I’m doing it now." she said, closing her blue colored eyes for a moment. Now on the second floor, she opened the glass door to Suite 2 and glanced at the welcome sign of the Medical Facility. The receptionist looked up from her desk with a smile and asked Laney to hand over her resume. Once she took Laney’s resume the receptionist let her know that it would be a few moments until Rachel, the head of HR, finished with a client and invited her to sit in the lobby to wait. With her sitting straight in a modern mustard chair by the door, Laney folded her hands on top of her legs to wait and couldn’t help but ponder her past. It was May of last year, three months after she had turned 45 and over 20 years since she had held any kind of a job. Laney never intended to become a stay-at-home mother for this long. "I loved the whole thing," Laney recalled. "I loved commuting to work and home, working down in the cities, using my mind, having my own money. Then I met the love of my life.” Laney had 2 daughters and a son and her husband had a good paying job that made it possible for her to stay at home. "It was against everything I ever thought I was going to be.” Laney said. “Everybody I knew went right back to work after having children and they didn’t wait to get back to work. There were few that supported my idea of wanting to go back to work after staying home for 20 years.” Laney wanted to work again because her husband got laid off and was not able to find a job. “With the nation's jobless rate near 10 percent, long-term unemployment among women ages 45 to 64 had more than doubled in the past year, to 888,000 in February, according to the U.S. Labor Department.” A 2005 study by the Center for Work-Life Policy revealed tough odds: Forty percent of at-home moms who want to return to work land full-time positions, while another 34 percent find part-time work. Anyone with a work gap longer than a decade is likely to return at the bottom of the ladder. "You've got to convince somebody to take a chance on you, and you have to have the self-confidence that you can do that." It was intimidating just to meet other women who balanced work and raising children with no problem. With encouragement from her husband and the children in school she kept looking for work. "I keep thinking to myself, 'I'm an appealing person, I'm smart, I'm good to others, and I would be great working with others!" she said. Going into the interview she felt she had nothing to lose, after all, she had raised a beautiful family and that gave her confidences to breeze through the interview and land a great job. Laney is now a full time employee as the Corporate Administrator for a wonderful medical company. She enjoys working with the younger employees and they look to her with respect. She has no regrets and her children are happy that she is happy, even if they miss her at times. It’s never too late.
Interviewing Questions

Kristine Laney

1. What took you this long to decide to go back to work? Having 3 kids and making sure I was there for my children through their first part of school.

2. Was it hard to get the confidences to look for a job? It was difficult mostly at my age and size. Never like the person I was so I thought negative things if people going to like me at the weight I was. 3. Who was your support system with your decision? My love of my life and children was there for me. 4. Do you regret staying out of the work force this long? Yes because now I love the job I have wish I had my career sooner, but on the other hand, I don’t regret my kids. 5. At your age, if your husband wasn’t laid off would you go back to work if not needed? I believe I won’t go back even though I was bored at home when all three of my kids were in higher grades and never home. I was getting depressions by cleaning, homework with kids, cooking all the normal routine a stay at home mother would do. 6. Do you have any regret waiting this long since you found amazing job? Yes because now I love the job I have wish I had my career sooner, but on the other hand, I don’t regret my kids. I would love to be working and juggling a family though I’m 45 years old won’t be able to work 20 years here. I’m sorry; I have had the time to have a retirement saved for my family future. 7. If you has it all over again would you change anything about having a job sooner? Yes and no I would still be a stay home mother, but wouldn’t wait as long as I did.

Reference

Sandberg, S. (2013) Lean In, Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, Pg. 7 Retrieved from: http://www.academia.edu/9803432/Lean_In_Women_Work_and_the_Will_to_Lead

Kurtz, A. (April 8, 2014) Stay at home moms are at the rise, Pg. 2 P.p. 1 Retrieved from: http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/08/news/economy/stay-at-home-moms/index.html
Laney, K. Personal interview (Jan. 28, 2015)