I Have Been Out of Work for 335 Days
Some personal news and something for subscribers
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I’ve been a professional journalist and editor ever since I graduated from NYU with a B.A. in Journalism just months before the Great Recession began.
Like many of us Millennials entering the job market back then, I’ve had a million ups and downs throughout my career and work life. But none hit me quite so hard than when I was laid off from my role as the first-ever Parenting Editor at theSkimm earlier this year.
I joined thousands and thousands of my fellow laid-off journalists, editors, writers, social media editors, etc., across broadcast, digital, and print. Apparently, there are 20,342 of us who lost our jobs this year—the highest number since 2020. Somehow, despite the media industry declining and annual layoffs happening every November or so (terrible timing, I know) ever since I entered the workforce, I’ve never faced this before.
You’re probably currently saying, HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?
Well, to be honest, when I left New York City in 2016 to stay sober after 8 months of ups and downs post-rehab, I decided to go full-time freelance and my career flourished. For years, I was thriving, increasing the quality of my work, getting new bylines in bigger publications, and growing my expertise as an editor—and my rates at the same time, of course.
But despite plenty of writing for Parents, Good Housekeeping, Oprah Daily, Glamour, Real Simple, HuffPost, Yahoo, Insider, Romper, Healthline, What to Expect, Refinery29, and many others, I was starting to get burnt out at the end of 2018. So I did extensive research on my skills, experience, and interests, and realized that my dream job is Managing Editor—someone who primarily focuses on developing content strategy and oversees content production.
As I frequently say in job interviews, “There isn’t a color-coded calendar that I haven’t loved!”
I’m a natural-born ideas person (thanks, ADHD) and thrive in environments where contributing new ideas, brainstorming, and coming up with new challenges is a huge part of the job. And, as I mentioned, keeping up a calendar to track all of this stuff makes my heart sing, too.
No sooner did I have this realization and decided to find this type of job but I actually got this job when I became the Managing Editor of The Temper, a now-defunct lifestyle publication that focused on the many intersectional aspects of navigating the world through the lens of sobriety, addiction, and recovery. I loved my job and met many amazing people during my work—including some who have become IRL besties (Hi
!)But this was 2019, so you can guess what happened next…
I was 37 weeks pregnant when the pandemic began but, since I had already been working from home since 2016, things kept going as normal. Still, when I came back from maternity leave just after July, my hours were cut in half (from 30 hours a week to 15 hours a week, YIKES!). I got lucky that this was reinstated and I became full full-time in early 2021, but remember that burnout I mentioned earlier? Yeah, that came back.
In early 2022, I took 12 weeks of short-term disability leave because my mental health had gone down the crapper and I physically and mentally couldn’t work anymore. It was a really difficult time for me as I worked on trying to figure out my new ADHD diagnosis (which happened at the end of 2021), living in a new state, continued COVID fears as we waited for the vaccine to be available for our then almost 2-year-old, and navigating new dynamics in my family relationships after I decided to go no-contact with my narcissist father on December 31, 2021.
But I got through it! And came out on the other side to get a new job as the first-ever Parenting Editor at theSkimm. I was thrilled. Sure, the job was below my pay grade and two steps down on the career ladder, but all I wanted at the time was to get back on the track I thought my career was on before I left NYC and went full-time freelance.
Although I loved my time freelancing, and always had half or more of my income coming from a freelance editor role, I wanted to get back to a more traditional career trajectory for an editor and journalist—and I thought that meant going back to a full-time (remote) job for one of the big media companies, most of whom are based in New York City.
Well… You know how that turned out!
Until today, I had spent 335 days being officially unemployed—that’s exactly 11 months that I have been struggling to find work.
Finally, as of today, I’m a new part-time writer and editor for the shopping newsletters at Dotdash Meredith—and part of the team that sends you the best deals and finds from Real Simple, Food & Wine, Better Homes & Gardens, Travel & Leisure, InStyle, and Shape. And I am thrilled to finally have a good, stable job!
But… you can probably guess what happens to a family when one parent who makes half of the income for the family is unemployed for almost an entire year.
The truth is that my income was and continues to be necessary to our household—especially since my husband and I make almost the same, and our base expenses are barely covered by our combined salaries. And due to my job loss and then subsequent struggles with burnout, depression, and my mental health in general, our finances are in the toilet.
I feel incredibly anxious admitting all of this publicly.
We’re taught as young kids to not talk about money because it’s shameful and you should never discuss such difficult topics, and I bought (and sometimes continue to buy) into that.
It’s scary, isn’t it? To talk about money, to admit that your family is in debt.
But that’s where my family is right now, in deep debt that we can only now start trying to crawl out of.
The problem is that, like most families, we didn’t really have enough income to save money for emergencies (like one parent getting laid off). Every penny goes towards our mortgage, daycare costs, bills, and living expenses. Yes, we pay for things like my weekly therapy sessions, my husband’s bowling league, and various activities for our son, but I call these “make life worth living” costs that keep all of us sane. And, I mean, considering the deep depression I was under all summer that I am still seeing lingering effects from, many of these limited “extra” costs feel necessary.
I honestly don’t know where I would be right now if it wasn’t for my therapist, and that’s a very scary thing to share.
I’ve lived under the poverty line when my family first came to the U.S. in 1994 when I was 8 years old and I’ve lived “upper middle class” when my parent’s real estate business exploded in 2003 and they were able to help send me to New York University (with some scholarships). And I guess now we’re somewhere in the middle.
The problem with being “in the middle” these days is that the ability to live a decent, comfortable life is getting harder and harder.
I once wrote for Parents about how we were making six figures but student loans and daycare costs were keeping us broke. Considering that one in eight Americans has student loan debt and over 40% of American families have children under 18 living with them, we’re certainly not the only ones.
I could rant about the insane costs of daycare in this country but you’ve probably heard it all before, so I’ll leave that for another day.
Instead, I want to leave you with this:
If you’ve enjoyed reading this newsletter so far, and think you might enjoy it in the future—especially as I invest more of my time and energy towards growing this community of Gen Alpha parents who are navigating raising this next generation with the values of anti-racism, feminist, embracing neurodiversity, and queer allyship in a world that definitely feels like a dumpster fire much of the time—please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
In the past few weeks, I’ve increased the publication of this newsletter to 2-3 per week. Additionally, I am working on re-launching the podcast (originally called Pandemic Mama), which will feature interviews with experts who can help us navigate all of this difficult parenting stuff… and perhaps our own mental health, too.
This shit’s hard, y’all.
If you can’t contribute much or don’t want to commit to Raising Gen Alpha, but are able to throw a couple of bucks my way for previous (and future) work, I’ve included my Venmo below as well.
Look, I know begging for money is super gross and all of that and I am having quite a lot of feelings about sending out this post, but one thing I’ve realized during my treacherous job search this year is that you don’t get anything if you don’t ask for it.
I know my family isn’t the only one suffering right now, and I’d like to get to a place where I can financially afford to offer comped paid subscriptions to Raising Gen Alpha to parents who can’t afford it. But, ironically, I can’t afford to do that right now.
What I can do right now is start actually contributing a liveable income to my family thanks to my new part-time job (YAY) but that won’t be enough to crawl out of the deep cave of credit card debt we’re stuck in right now. So the other thing I can do—and that I am really excited to do—is to continue to build this community of Gen Alpha parents (which, yes, takes time and money). I hope you’ll join me. I really hope you’ll be able to contribute financially.
And if you can’t, don’t want to, or find yourself in a similar tough spot, I’m sending you a BIG virtual hug. 2023 sucks for so many of us. But perhaps we’ll find some relief next year.
Talk soon,
Irina (she/her) - raising a March 2020 gen alpha kid