My Career Change

Recently, I have been interviewing with a number of different companies and one question I have been asked frequently goes something like this, “What are your career goals?” or “What would say is your number one career aspiration?” This gave me pause, and I’m going to use this blog to share some of my reflections and discoveries.

If asked that question back in 1999, I would have quickly replied, “I am going to seminary and graduate school so I can become a social worker with an emphasis in Christian counseling for children and families. I want to help clients use their faith and Christian community to weather life’s storms and celebrate their hope-filled identity in Christ.”

Flash forward to 2003, I would probably have had a different answer. It would go something like this: I want to be a youth director in a large urban congregation, developing programs and staff that help students and their families deepen their faith and make life-changing connections with their church, neighborhood and the bigger world. Another 3 years later, my response would have been similar but would perhaps indicate a desire to change course a bit to included faith communities outside the church like Bible camps and faith-based nonprofits. Then in 2013, if I were asked what my greatest career goal was, I would have said, “What career? I’m giving it up to be a stay at home mom.”

Back to present day, I am sitting in the office of a successful insurance agent: what is your career goal? I didn’t have to think twice about my answer, but I did consider whether sharing the truth would help or hinder my chances at securing this job. Because the truth was, my career goal has nothing to do with insurance. It has nothing to do with my professional life nor does it lends itself to my corporate prowess.

Plainly put, it has everything to do with being a mom and the calling I stepped into November 6, 2013. I spoke the truth that day and told the agent, “My greatest career goal is to be an active, available, and reliable girl mom. My goal is to raise a daughter, along with my husband, who is healthy, confident and equipped to navigate her young life and then take over as an independent adult.”

I realize being a girl mom isn’t exactly a career in the strictest sense of the word. But since becoming a mom in 2013, it is where I spend the most time and energy and takes up the biggest space in my heart and prayers. It is more than a full time job, and the benefits are tremendous if I can stay focused and committed for the long haul.

In late spring of 2023, my husband was injured while on the job and as a result had to scale back his hours and eventually have major surgery and months of recovery and physical therapy before he could go back to work. He has been the breadwinner and mostly sole income since 2014. I have stayed home full time to take care of our young daughter. Though I’ve done some contract work and tried my hand at my own business, we have relied on his full time income and benefits. So when he got hurt, I had to re-enter the world of employment. At the time, I wasn’t looking to rebuild my career or start over from where I left off (covid/pandemic life reshaped church work from what I had known and was trained for). So I found season employment at Costco. It was meant to be temporary but I stayed on even after my husband went back to work. I enjoyed it, and our daughter really didn’t need me home 100% of the time.

Since then, the need for full time employment has become a reality. And finding it has been devastatingly difficult. Costo froze hiring in 2024 and cut back part time hours to the bare minimum. Finding a company to give me as fair a shot as a new graduate has proved almost non-existant. I have struggled as I send out hundreds of job applications and tweek and re-tweek my resume. I have had great interviews only to be passed over for a more qualified candidate. To be transparent, there are jobs to be had in the service and hospitality industry that pay as little or less than minimum wage. But my life experience, previous career and job experience warrant a lot more than that. So I decided to take a page out of my job search in 2023: seek seasonal employment. Tomorrow, I will be starting with the City of Minneapolis as a seasonal gardener. I will work full time with them through October while still maintaining my part time gig at Costco. Damn, it is going to be taxing for my 48-year-old body! But it needs to be done, and I know I can do anything temporarily.

My career path has been anything but straight. And it really doesn’t look like much of a career anyway. When my husband and I made the decision to pause my career and become a stay at home mom, the career goals were tabled. And over time, given the pace of the world and the impact of pandemic life, my career as I knew it ceased. So when I was I asked by that insurance agent what my career goal was, I could confidently and proudly say it was raising my daughter. And working at Costco part time and securing seasonal work for a fill gap measure fits into my career goals. It is a means to end, or rather to a focus on parenting and providing for my daughter. My number one priority remains in tack, even if it looks vastly different than it did a year ago: be the best girl mom you can be!

The day will come when my daughter no longer needs my daily focus and the flexibility to drive her to and from hockey practices and sleepovers. And when that day comes, I may be writing a different blog about building a small career during the sunset toward retirement. I don’t know what will come then, but right now I am focused on my career as a girl mom. Tomorrow, I will be starting our first lesson on working hard and time management. Wish me luck. It’s going to be a wild 6 months!