Marnie Piazza

The Gap

Now that my kids are back in school and settled into their routines, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about The Gap.  Not a generational one, since I still like and often wear the same clothes as the younger set and listen to current music (I don't have tattoos, but still,) nor am I talking about the store, which I find useful if not exactly hip.

It's the dreaded resume gap.  The looming years-long gap that stay-at-home moms must confront one way or another sometime or another.  The one that only gets longer the more I put off getting back into the workforce.  The one that on darker days convinces me I am never going to be legitimately employable again.  But, not being Nancy Botwin, or someone able to invent something prosaic yet brilliant like Velcro, work at a real job again I must.  It's just that it has to fit into the six hours when my children are in school or late at night after tuck-in time, with time off for school parties, plays and concerts, as well as for sick days, school vacations and those random school staff development days.  It also needs to be stimulating and make the most of my talents and skills, as demonstrated by my last job, oh, about eight years ago.

So how do we address the resume gap?  Luckily for me, I have done some freelance writing work recently, which I hope will be my new career path, given that I love it and it fits into my schedule.  Unfortunately, my resume still has a long gap in it prior to my recent work.  It's always a question when bidding for a new project - do I address it upfront?  Or only if asked about it?  Or do I include my PTA volunteering in my resume and assume that will subtly explain it?  Do employers look at an otherwise perfect resume, see the gap, check the college graduation year, and assume late 20s to late 30s underemployment is due to a breeding break?  Or is it a major red flag that could indicate anything from general flakiness to being on the lam to joining a cult for a few long years?

For now, I'm going to update my resume with some of my PTA experience to shore up that gap.  It's all actually related to my field, including writers workshop for the kids, but honestly, I find it a bit of a stretch.  But if it proves I've been using my brain a bit and explains why I fell off the face of the work world for a while, I guess it's worth putting it in there.

To anyone else out there dealing with the gap, I'll let you know how it works out.

My Little Fish Hero

My youngest son and I were in the waiting room of his speech therapist.  There's a fish tank there and I've always encouraged him to count the fish in it.  When we first started coming here in May, it was a way to get in a little counting practice and it was hard for him.  Watching him count them on this day, I was thinking about how easy it had become for him to count several fish. 

He counted and got seven once, eight another time, and then seven again, perfectly reasonable considering the fish were moving in and out of their foliage.  I came over to confirm which was the right number.  This time, we both counted six, which seemed strange.

"Where is the big one?"  my son said.

"Hmm, I don't know,"  I said, while casually looking for the four inch long gray fish that we had both seen darting around the tank a minute ago.

"He's down!  He's down! He's out!  Look!  Look!"  my son said, jumping up and down and pointing behind the fish tank.

And sure enough, that fish was on the floor, jerking and twitching pitifully, halfway behind the fish tank's table, with his head sticking out beyond the table's edge.

Now it was my turn to jump up and down and point.  I knocked on the receptionist's glass, gesturing excitedly and babbling something along the lines of "We have to save the fish.  Get a Tupperware.  Get something to put him in.  He's out.  He jumped out!"  She looked confused but joined me quickly.  I grabbed a business card holder from the counter, dumped the cards out, and prepared to bravely scoop the fish up in it and return him to the water. 

The receptionist continued to look confused until she figured out where my son was pointing, then said "He really jumped out!  I can't believe it!  He jumped!  Wait, I have a net!"   She opened a door under the tank, found the net and scooped him up, while I opened the tank lid for her to drop him in.  He was saved. 

Shortly after the excitement, the dentist, who our speech therapist shares an office with, came out, along with the receptionist and other staff members.  Everyone crowded around my son, congratulating him and calling him the fish hero.  They found the hole in the lid that the fish had jumped out of and covered it up.  We all talked about how strangely like the movie "Saving Nemo" the fish's actions were.  But mostly, we fussed over Jacob and told him how great he did.  The dentist gave him a little prize and thanked him over and over.

Later he told the story to my mother.  She nodded and listened, but I could tell she thought he was making up a fantasy story.  He is a child who does a lot of living instead his head, and often makes up tales about his stuffed and plastic animals.  But this time, his heroics were true, an adventure in the unlikeliest of places.

I'm proud of my little fish hero.