When I get a job...

When my first layoff struck at the end of July 2008, my kids (Maya--then 9, Cameron--6) were on vacation with their dad and stepmom. I told their dad on the phone what had happened, and his reaction to the news was dramatic ("What??? Oh NOOOOO! I'm so sorry!!!"). The kids happened to be listening, and were obviously traumatized when I picked them up at the airport at the end of the week.

"What are we going to do, Mommy?"

Since my own question about the situation was so similar, all I could do was reassure them in a way that I wasn't quite sure of myself.

"It's going to be fine, guys. Don't worry."

Despite this reassurance, they could see right through me. Of particular note was Cameron's need to explain the situation to each new acquaintance. Encountering a classmate and his mother on the sidewalk in front of our house, for example, Cameron introduced me in the following way: "Hi, this is my mom. She lost her job."

This past spring, when I got the news of another layoff, I had enough poise to remind their dad not to break the news--to let me do it. I took my time, eventually explaining that we were going to get to spend some nice time together after school was out, because I had been laid off.

And we did. Normally, my kids are in day camp from 8 to 6 during the summer, roughly the same hours they have at school during the school year. Their dad and I decided to go ahead and send them to camp so I could spend good chunks of the day job hunting, but not to enroll them for after or early morning care. This meant they were at camp 9-3.

I got to pick them up some days and take them to the pool, or just back home to lounge around in the air conditioning. I attended a noon awards ceremony I would normally have missed, we went on a weekday camping trip, and I kept them home for the entire week of July 4th just because it would be fun.

Despite the love fest, Maya expressed concern about my job situation on a regular basis. And, as is often the case with kids, I fielded a lot of requests for activities or items outside of my unemployment budget. I found myself starting to promise to consider these requests after the current crisis resolved itself.

"Mom, are we going to be poor?"

I didn't know what would happen, but I was fairly certain we would not be poor, as in not having enough to eat or a place to live. When I was laid off the second time, I was making less than I needed to comfortably pay my mortgage, so I did have a real concern that I would need to move. But never did I think we'd end up on the street, mostly because their dad or my family would take us in if nothing else. I assured Maya that no, we would not be poor, reminding her about all the family that loved us.

"Do you know how often you say, 'When I get a job'?" Maya countered.

I had to admit that I knew I'd been saying it a lot...and that I'd been saying it to myself as well. If nothing else, being unemployed has been a handy excuse to avoid the dreaded haul down 44 to Six Flags. Nevertheless, when I got an appealing job offer about 5:30 on Friday, Six Flags was the first thing I promised when called my kids and their dad with the news.