With my upcoming graduation and this baby on the way I have some choices to make. Mostly about my job/career. Although BYU is a great place to work in some aspects, it's not so great in others. Namely, valuing their employees. I feel like they have the attitude that you should think it's such a privilege to work there that they shouldn't have to do anything to show their appreciation or make any efforts to retain their employees. The things I'm most bugged about right now are maternity leave and education or merit-based raises.
They do not give maternity leave. So any time you take off to have a baby has to be taken from your vacation time. Luckily I do have quite a bit of vacation saved up so I will be able to take a decent leave, but it still bugs me. Also, when I graduate with my masters next month I will not get a raise. No matter what I do I will never get a raise. If I do a good job or a bad job, I will always get the same 2.5-3% inflation increase every year. That just doesn't seem right to me.
Anyway, back to the choices. I feel like I have 4 choices right now.
1. Stay at my job until Matt graduates and deal with the unappreciation.
2. Try to find a new job where I can work from home.
3. Try to find a new job that will appreciate my education and hard work.
4. Quit my job and stay home with my baby and go into debt.
The ones I am really considering right now are #1 and #2. Matt will graduate next summer and so I would only have to work for one year after the baby comes. I just don't feel ok about going into debt and even if we cut back to the bare minimum, we could not survive without me working. I know that education is an ok thing to go into debt for and I know there are a lot of families who somehow can work it out so that the dad still goes to school and the mom stays home, but for some reason I just don't feel quite right about that.
I also feel like it's not really worth it to get a new job at another institution for just one year unless I can work from home. Even if they paid me better and showed their appreciation more. But I am still struggling with this. I feel like no matter what we do, we are going against the counsel of our leaders. We either go into debt or our baby has a working mom.
Sometimes I feel guilty for thinking about being a working mom, like I'm a terrible mother. I do have a wonderful sister who has volunteered to help us out a lot by watching our baby most of the time. And I know that if we decide to go that direction, our baby will be in good hands with her auntie. But I also feel guilty about going into debt and staying home when I have a perfectly good opportunity to avoid that situation.
I don't even know if I could get a job where I could work from home. Or if I would even like it. It would probably be easiest just to stay at my current job rather than having to learn a whole new one. And there are a lot of things that I do love about my current job. And even though I'm upset about the whole raise thing, I do make plenty of money for us to live on.
We also feel that Matt needs to be in school full-time right now. We felt very guided and directed in this decision when he got laid off last year. And it was a miracle how everything fell into place for him to do this. We really feel like he should just go full time and get done as soon as he can. We also felt like it was right for us to start our family now instead of waiting until he was finished.
Anyway, we're still struggling to decide what will be best for our family. I know it's different for everyone and we need to figure out what is best for us. What is/was best for you might not be best for us. And no one knows what is best for our family except for the Lord and so we just need to rely on Him to guide us into making the best decision.
5 comments:
Christy -I know you don't know me, but I know your hubby, he was a missionary in my family ward, I read your blog from time to time to see how you guys are doing, I hope you don't mind. I read this post and i know exactly how you are feeling. We have been delaying having a baby for some time because of the debt issue. my husband is in law school and I'm the only one working, and we are so far away from family. We have alot of friends that just decided to have babies and not worry about insurance or income or massive amounts of student loans. I'm starting to feel a little left out with my responsibility. If we do have a baby I'll have to continue to work. It's a tough position to be in, but I know how you feel.
Megan Shea-Sayer
Good luck! As terrible as this sounds, there's always WIC too. And lame about no raises. That's just ridiculous.
You think so much of others it's inspiring, but sometimes you have to put yourself first, and make you happy, and try not to let others guide you, because in the end, as you said, God will guide you and he wants you to be happy!
Talk to Bethany, she'd be a great resource to help you at least talk it out and get advice.
My own opinion is far too feminist for the mormon world :)
Either way, don't let anyone make you feel that you are a less caring or loving mother because it just isn't true.
Good luck.
I thought the family medical leave act requires them to give you some time off....you might want to check into that. Good luck making your decisions, you'll figure it out!
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