PICK ME! - aka I'll Raise Your Baby

Since I hate my job and I'm a firm believe in you only have the life you want, Im shooting for any remotely creative job opportunities.  HelloGiggles, Zooey Deschanel's site is looking for topical writers so here is what I submitted... and yes I literally titled the attachment "pick me" and I may definitely mentioned that I am desperate.
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Inspired by “I can’t afford to work”

I hate making choices.  I cannot decide what toppings to put on my pizza let alone decide the welfare of my future offspring that are yet to be conceived, with a partner I have yet to meet.  Ahhh, irrational stress.

The American dream is to own your own home, have the freedom to pursue a career of your choice and worship as you see fit.  You have your two kiddos and Labrador and call it a day.  On paper it looks easy peasy.  However, it is never that straightforward.  You may achieve your career dreams but one person has to carry the baby or both have to go through the lengthy adoption process.  Then after 12 hours of labor in a birthing tub with incense and Enya, or two hours of a pain-free hospital birth with a doctor (no judgment), you bring home your brand-new bouncing baby.  Perfect.

If you’re lucky, your company will give you 6 to12 weeks of maternity or new parent leave at less than 100% pay. Great.  Next you look for a reputable daycare center to drop off your much longed for 12-week old progeny.  You need to get back to work, engage with other adults again and pursue your career.  A couple years later you pop out bambino number two.  This is where it gets tricky.

Daycare costs are rising and unlike other industrialized nations we do not have well funded or free childcare. Some people would think state-run care is too socialized and weird. Then again, as part of my job in pediatric, public health research I’ve been inside of a lot of day care facilities and can tell you they are not all created equal.  Nannies are expensive. Sometimes, as much as you trust someone, you can never really know how well they are taking care of your perfect, future world leader? 

So you make the hard decision to stay home and take care of your kids.  Sure you love the little piglets but snotty faces and nonstop finger painting can get old (not for me I love finger painting). It is hugely expensive to put the little rug rats in daycare and for a lot of families the cost is more than half a year’s salary.  Just for the basics, to make sure your kids are healthy, well-fed and not running in the streets.  I’m not the norm. I love a little street running; dodging a car or two makes me feel alive.  Sometimes it’s even more 2010 report shows, about what you’re going to spend a year to send them to college.  Now it has been a while since I was a daycare student, but I’m pretty sure a year in college was a little bit more intensive an education than being instructed to not eat paste.  Statistically, women are still making less than their male counterparts and therefore the decision is that the mother will stay home with her goslings. 

This isn’t something negative; a lot of people get much joy by staying home and raising their children.  My mother didn’t stay home with us.  I don’t take the abandonment* personally.  I got along just fine as a latchkey kid watching reruns of A Wedding Story on TLC and eating cookie dough.  I never burnt the joint down, and when I was really young, I would hang out at someone else’s house with a mom who could stay home, and made actually cookies out of the dough… how novel.

The recent Ann Romney debate has brought this issue to mind, and while I do not think you should shame someone’s choices, I do think being ridiculously wealthy does make the decision to stay home easier.  Although, raising five little boys is a bit daunting, I do not think I can handle five anythings, maybe five kittens --girl kittens.  Why do we punish families?  We continuously push our children to go to the right schools, get the right degree, job and then we have to find the right partner to “settle down” with (whatever that means) and deliver some baby goods.  A sacrifice needs to be made and you would think that it would be over what is best for your child, not what you can afford. 

At 27, I’m unmarried and childless so childcare isn’t something I’m budgeting for.  I’m glad my biggest financial decision this year will be if I should continue my gym membership that I don’t really use, then feel bad about not using it and finally go down a Catholic guilt spiral until I re-up my contract.  So moms of America I stand in solidarity with you and until you are given the compensation you deserve, I am offering up my services.  I’ll totes mentor your baby.  We won’t do baby yoga, baby sign language or write baby poetry, but it will cost you a whole hell of a lot less than a year of college.  We’ll race in shopping carts, have conversations with woodland animals and have afternoon TV drinking games (with milk) every time Dr. Phil says something self serving.  They’ll end up the most interesting kid in school and you’ll end up with a little extra dough in your pocket to take a vacation catch up on your Fifty Shades of Gray reading.  All interested parties please send applications to the address below.

*No actual abandonment occurred