To be honest,I can't be bothered to fill in the gaps between graduating and now. Suffice to say that my daughter got to school age. I was utterly broke - no, in debt, by the time I left university (who, but the very fortunate, isn't?) and I was finding it nigh on impossible to get a job which was term-time only, school hours only and with a company that would be reasonable and understanding about my single-parenthood-related lack of punctuality and unavoidable days off.
I went for a handful of interviews. Shop jobs, reception work, that type of thing. I had a hard time trying to convince the interviewers that I wanted to work in e.g. a shop (I didn't). Why I particularly wanted to work for that company (I didn't). How, after doing a degree and a Master's, I would keep myself from being bored in this new job (I wouldn't be able to). Oh, I know that of course you have to give all the "right" answers and look genuinely keen and interested. But however convincing I thought I'd been, I didn't get any of the jobs.
I live in a small town. There are no opportunities here for me to use my degree. And for reasons I haven't got time to go into right now, I can't move out of the area. I really hadn't realised how hard it would be to find a job with hours I could actually work. And please, do not even utter that T word to me. Some people are meant to be teachers. I am not one of them. There are 2 things I really struggle with more than the average person. 1. Customer service. 2. Kids.
Yes, I know, how can I say that I struggle with kids when I'm a parent myself? The difference between my kid and other people's kids is that I love mine. There are a lot of great children around. I am very fond of some of them. But some kids are just plain horrible. More to the point (and probably the main reason), the parents are awful. And it makes me so angry when kids turn out bad because of rotten parenting. It makes me angry but equally, it saddens and frustrates me. I won't go on, but just accept that teaching and I would not mix well.
So, right now, I'm treading water. I'm going nowhere. Just struggling to stay afloat. It's not easy. It's not the way I intended my life to be. I'm skint. I'm totally socially isolated. I don't have a social life of any description. But my daughter is a happy, well-behaved, polite, kind and caring girl. She's clever, funny and (of course) beautiful.
I might not be employed. I know I'm costing the tax-payer money - I'm sorry to all you people who do go to work and do pay your taxes. I know that I'm now a financial burden on society. But just remember one thing. I am working so hard on bringing my daughter up to have consideration for others, to be a responsible, law-respecting, kind person. (And believe me, she's very smart with it). Surely that counts for something? Doesn't that equate to some sort of investment?
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