11/19/2012

I need to figure out what to do about work. I’m torn. I have no idea what to do. I SHOULD just be so thankful that I have options, and that I’ll be ok financially whether I quit or go back….but I’m just frustrated with the options, because none of them are really what I want.

I could just quit. In a lot of ways it would be the easiest choice. Noah makes enough that losing my income would be ok (we might have to scale back on a few things, but we’d be fine). And I could just stay home with Baby all the time, which sounds SO nice right now. I can’t quite handle the thought of putting her in daycare. But I know I’m still in my brand-new-baby bubble, and I might feel differently in a couple months, and if I quit now then I won’t have a job to go back to.

But going back to work doesn’t really sound like a better option at all. Before I went on maternity leave I really worked my ass off to make it so my job would work with a baby. If I go back, I can do a lot of work from home, I have other people trained now on some of my stuff so it wouldn’t be 60-70 hour weeks like it used to, etc. But I’d still have to be in the office some (realistically, about 20-30 hours a week). And if I’m working at home, then I can’t really be giving Baby my full attention.

The thing I’m really worried about if I go back, though, is that it could actually be bad for my career in the long run. Before I had a baby, I cared about my job. I mean, I hated it most days, but I did actually take a lot of pride in it. I’m pretty sure if I go back to work in a few weeks, I won’t really give a shit, and I’ll just be doing what I need to do in order to get through the day. And I wonder if it actually makes more sense, career-wise, to just have a solid break in my resume, rather than having a period of time where I’m basically doing everything half-assed.

But it scares me a lot to actually quit. I’m pretty sure if I do quit, at whatever point I want to start working again, I’ll have to take a BIG step down. I’m totally lucky to have the job I do, I’m way under-qualified for it, so if I actually have to go and apply for jobs that I’m qualified for, I’d be taking a big pay cut and probably a big cut in status as well. And I know the status thing shouldn’t be that important, but after spending a few years as a waitress and thinking I’d never really get anywhere in life, it feels good to be "in charge." Even if I don’t particularly like the job.

In many ways right now, I just want the rest of the world to stand still for a few months so I can get my own stuff figured out without losing anything I have.

So I’m really on the fence right now. I feel like the cons outweigh the pros in BOTH scenarios, so I don’t know what to do, and I worry that either choice I make will end up feeling wrong.

I would say for now, just quit. You have a valid reason to have a break in your resume currently, those don’t come around often. There are lots of work from home jobs out there, mostly review writing or data entry stuff. Just have to be careful of scams.

Leaving the kid at daycare is heartbreaking the first few days. The think to remember is that your skills can provide better for the family overall if you are working and that perhaps someone else can spend the day changing diapers. Even more important is that kids really thrive around other little ones. The socialization is key and no amount of play dates will equal a week at daycare. My wife stayed home for a year but realistically would have liked to have gone back sooner.