In the middle of one of these divine trials
More from my time as a reluctant stay-at-home dad
NOTE: I wrote this last year when both boys were home with me full time. Today, the boys are sick, and both are home with me and this one feels familiar.
ANOTHER NOTE: Gotta love how jacked and clean this version of Jonah is.
Resent. There’s the meaning; to feel bitterness or indignation (at a circumstance or person), and then there’s how it looks written; re-sent. Sent again. Etymology be damned, that’s how I feel these days. I’m trying to get out of the circumstance I’m in as a full time stay-at-home dad, and the circumstance is not done with me. Not yet, Jonah, from the Bible!
That’s what’s happening here.
It’s not as easy as finding a job and finding a daycare for the kids and problem solved. Trust me, I’ve looked for jobs. I’ve applied for jobs. I’ve networked hard. I’ve interviewed with companies that tell me that I’m “the unicorn they’ve been looking for,” and then, they shut down their office in the night and move back in with their parent company.
Jonah tells God, “I don’t wanna do this job you’ve given me to do in Nineveh. I’d rather do a different job somewhere else.” And then God says, “Why don’t you think about it for a while.” And after a three-day sloshy retreat, Jonah says, “Hey, I think I can do that job.”
A colleague from my time in construction reached out to me three times last week with three different application opportunities. If this sounds like a parable, that’s what I thought, too.
The first was an entry level job with entry level pay in communications. I’m not entry level, so I said no thanks.
The second was a mid-senior level job with better pay, also in communications. Interesting, but the company wasn’t the right fit. No, but thank you.
Then she sent me a third job, and she was excited about this one. She didn’t even need me to apply, just asked if she could share my name with the recruiter.
I was feeling like the guy in that joke who refuses rescue from a flood three times—first a car drives by and the driver says, “Let’s get outta here.” The guy says, “God will save me. You go on.” And this happens with a boat and a helicopter until the guy drowns.
He meets God, and furious, he asks, “Why didn’t you save me?!”
God says, “I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter, you big goof.”
So I started to respond to the LinkedIn message, saying, “Thanks for thinking of me, but I’m in the middle of one of these divine trials—I believe God wants me to go through something and I don’t think I’ve gone through that thing yet, so I can almost guarantee that I will not get this job...listen, how familiar are you with the book of Jonah?”
And then I deleted all that and sent her my resume and said, “Thank you, kind regards, best, yours.” I would make myself available to rescue by helicopter—even if I was meant to tread water longer.
I’ve hit two years in my not-so-silent retreat, thinking about that podcast where a wealthy entrepreneur says, “When you hit one year of unemployment, you kind of develop a stink.” I felt discouraged when I heard that. Dang, a stink? I thought about LinkedIn people who say you should ABSOLUTELY include your stay-at-home parenting experience on your resume, to which I simply disagree. Achievements: “Adequately managed household tasks such as not annihilating my own children”
A stink, huh? And smell bad to whom? HR managers whose jobs I don’t want? Whose auto-rejections I receive with relief, if they come at all?
And STILL I fill applications and write cover letters because I’d rather not go to Nineveh.
At this moment, I can’t think because a cacophony of critical voices are ricocheting around my brain, not unlike an unruly comment section.
“Ungrateful!”
“Lazy!”
“Entitled!”
A manly man: “Work is hard, go make money and hate your life like me.”
A keyboard cowboy: “Aww guy has to take care of his own kids? SMH.”
An angry woman’s voice, angry as I am: “YOU’RE complaining?!”
Suddenly the voices quiet as my special watch buzzes with a warning on my wrist: “Hey, looks like you’ve stopped breathing, how is that going?”
Not great, Bob.
A deep breath.
If I stink, I’m in good company. Surely Jonah did, too: three days in a fish will do that to anybody.
A lot has changed since I wrote this. A great daycare five minutes from our house opened up, and our oldest is there five days a week. Our youngest is there two days a week. I started publishing stuff. My oldest is like 90% potty trained. It’s sunny outside.
The boys are sick? Seriously, keep writing.
Ah Bart- keep writing! It's so refreshing to hear someone who lets those thoughts develop