Ok, life has been pretty tough for the past year, lots of things going on and I have been affected by them all from the fallout. I have an incredibly intelligent husband and he has his own company and even in this time of crisis, his company is in expansion and doing really well. This is great! However it generally means he's traveling all the time and that means I get stuck at home with the kids - not fun. Living with "god" is not an easy thing to do - it is all about him. So how many other women out there have the same problem?
Woman are extremely resilient and resourceful. Men have been allowed, for as long as most of us can remember, to just get on with bringing the money in. Woman, as we all know, in the majority of cases have to hold down a full-time job, run the house, look after the children and be a loving and supportive wife.
When I met my husband I was lucky enough to be able to stop working. However, in his absences due to his hectic schedule, I have started working again. I am luckier than most though, my husband's salary pays for everything and I can work just to keep my brain in tip top condition and earn a bit of extra money for anything that's needed.
Women who are married to self-employed men know that it is an extremely stressful life. The main problem with this kind of job is cash-flow. He knows the money is coming in, what no one knows is when. Being dependent on other bigger corporations to pay up is not a great place to be for peace of mind. They quite often delay in paying the "little guy". I have often been to the supermarket to do the weekly shop and ended up with the cashier telling me my credit card is over the limit - I learnt the hard way to always carry enough cash just in case. As I have pointed out to him on many an occasion, the people we have to pay at the end of the month: credit card companies, house security company, schools, etc do not call him - they call me.
Before meeting my husband, I lived alone with my young daughter, held down a full-time job and paid all the bills - even if that meant I had nothing left over at the end, and now to have to explain to people that we will pay them as soon as possible, just pushes me closer and closer to the edge.
So me being me, meant that I got active. I found "slavery on-line", yes it does exist! Web sites where you can join up (you have to pay a fee to do this) and you can access a list of job offers for sepecific things that need doing. For example, secretarial work, computer programming, PAs, writing and translating, etc all from the comfort of your own home. Why is it slavery? Well you have to bid for the job you want and this means competing against other people all over the world, so the lower your bid the more likely you are to get the job assigned to you. Most of the people on there end up working for a very low wage.
As I pointed out before, I am one of the lucky ones, I do this just to have a little extra when my husband's cash-flow hits a tough patch. Have I thought about going back to full-time employment? All the time, but I really do want to be here for my kids. Before I married, my daughter had to go to early birds school club and after school club so that I could get to work on time. We both got out at the same time, but I had a 40 minute drive back to pick her up. Now, thanks to my hard-working husband I can take my kids to school and be there to pick them up, and funnily enough, that is all they ask for.
Now, if I did choose to go back to work, it would have to be for a really good reason or to a job I loved and that gave added value to my life.
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