Desire to return to job, not a ‘hobby’
HI, CAROLYN! After I had my son, I left teaching to be home with him. He’s now 6 and I’m getting the itch to go back.
The problem is that it would be a seismic shift in our lives. My husband works long hours and isn’t home for dinner during the week. He didn’t travel for work during the pandemic but that is picking up again.
I love staying home with our son. Now that’s he’s returned to school, my days are kind of quiet, which I enjoy, but sometimes it gets lonely. If I went back to work, he would have to spend time in aftercare and he is a real homebody. My husband supports my return to teaching but also reminded me that it would essentially be a hobby. My ego is feeling pretty hurt right now.
— Feeling Lost at Home DEAR FEELING LOST AT HOME: Teach, a hobby? What stunningly contemptuous thing to say. Wow. I’m sorry.
If that was somehow his way of saying you would be working only to pay for your son’s care, then I’ll put my head back on and try to work with that. Because I do see the issue in that.
Except, no, I don’t: Work isn’t just about money, and a career like teaching is one of the ultimate examples of that. It’s a paycheck for work but also for being part of a community, shaping the future, satisfying our ache for purpose, and experiencing the joy of seeing the world through a child’s eyes.
It’s also specialized, exhausting, sometimes demoralizing work so people do get paid for it.
But if you want to do this for you, then, great - getting paid for it makes it at least revenueneutral for your family. Which is not the same things as a hobby.
And if you’re uncomfortable with the aftercare, or if your son is, then consider home care after school or a job that allows you to finish when he does, or choosing a program that he loves, or or or. There are choices. There are variations. There are possibilities to explore in conversations with your husband.
DEAR CAROLYN: A friend who has a history of making passive aggressive remarks with a nasty undertone recently told me gleefully how she had seen two overweight women walking in their bathing suits at the beach several years ago, and thought how she would never expose herself like that. "Oh, and guess what, it was you and Susie!"
When I said she was fatshaming, she protested that it was a compliment.
She had, the year before, patted the belly of a (male) friend in front of six people and said, "When are you expecting to deliver?" I called her on this later to point out that she embarrassed the man, who said something to me. She poohpoohed it and said he thought it was funny. Am I being too sensitive? I was offended. She is always fasting to stay thin.
— Feeling Fat-Shamed
and Gaslighted
DEAR FEELING FAT-SHAMED AND GASLIGHTED:
You feel fat-shamed and gaslighted because she’s fat-shaming and gaslighting you. And she’s putting her own acutely dysfunctional relationship with food on full display - so you also have the option of feeling pity for her.
You can decide someone who says these things has no place in your circle of friends - because there’s nothing "passive" about her social aggression and no "under" to her nasty tone and because we owe no one our discretionary time who isn’t good to us and others.
You can also decide you like or love her for a lot of other reasons unrelated to her body issues. In that case, have responses handy to deflect and redirect. "Nope, I won’t do this with you. Next topic."
Or you can try the 180: "When you lash out, what I hear is someone really struggling with food and weight and body image. If you want to talk, I’m here."