When are you going to get a grown up job?

First of all, ouch.

This has been weighing on me heavily of late, and after a conversation with my sister, I better understood why. We were talking about how tough it is to find a job and get into grad school, and figure out what you will really be successful at in a career. And she told me what my parents have said about me, but not actually to me.

They're afraid I'm not going to make it.

I went to college, but since I decided not to complete the program to become a high school teacher, they now seem to doubt I will do anything with my life. Right now I work seasonal jobs, with no medical benefits or retirement hopes, and those are clearly not "grown up jobs."

This is not due to a lack of trying on my part. I have applied for full time employment, but it has yet to happen. And I have a plan that makes these "not so grown up jobs" make perfect sense. While working part time and seasonally, I can go back for my master's, something I have always wanted to do. I can do online courses, get my degree, and then get into what my real dream job is: teaching at the college level.

I want to be an English professor, and to work at a major university I would need a doctorate, but to start out teaching a Master's would suffice. I can see this happening, and I know the work I would be required to put in to make it happen.

But my parents, and many other adults in the world, look at me and see a 23 year old mother who has yet to grow up.

It's insulting.
It's frustrating.
And it is a completely unfair judgement.

So the next time you see someone that has yet to embrace a 40-hour a week 9-5 for the next 40 years job, consider that maybe there is something else happening in their life. Perhaps, just perhaps, they know more about their plans than you do, and maybe they are going to make it after all.

xoxo,
Camille

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