When Will We Be Taken Care Of? A Social Workers Plea

Note: This is a total rant blog post, written in the middle of what was probably Postpartum Depression in getting prepared for going back to work. It's real though, so I'm posting it anyway. No real educational content here, just pure emotion.

Over a year ago, I was preparing to go back to work after 6 weeks home with my baby boy...

And I WAS DEVASTATED

Why?

I had no more leave time left and my job had no options other than exhausting my entire leave time and our finances would not allow me to do otherwise.

Again. I was devastated. There are some moms I know who were going crazy after 6 weeks and would be more than ready to get back to work. Me? I could have taken another 6 if they were available.

I literally researched work from home jobs so I could switch places with my husband who works from home or even better, that we all be at home, both of us working and not having to go to a 9-5 (that would be just the most ideal situation EVER!). It would probably be different if I loved my job, but honestly I had been sick of non profit work for years. Don't get me wrong, what kept me there were the kids I worked with. But the red tape, the egos, the elitism, power and control struggles, ungratefulness for hard work and overall office drama....Why would I want to go back to that? And as a trade off for getting to stay home and work and take care of my baby boy? Staying home and working from home had been everything for me. I not only could get work done, but I was able to avoid office ridiculousness.

I kept asking myself how am I going to do this? How do we that work in non profits or in other helping professional fields do this? This is the real reason why I jumped so quickly into getting a counselor and guess what? The job I had, only paid for THREE sessions and my co pay was $35 dollars which at that point in our lives (even now) was almost impossible every week when we had so many other bills. Forget the fact I was paying almost 800 dollars a month for health insurance for just my husband and I. And lets not forget that I still ended up with thousands of dollars in medical bills because that expensive insurance I paid for barely covered anything. All for a mediocre pay check and thousands of dollars in student loan debt for a degree I don't even use. For a a job where my creativity and free will was taken every day to please someone else. And I had to leave my baby boy for all of that.

Being a helping professional is TOUGH. I know I am not the only one completely miserable at times in this work. These jobs are less than stellar and management is often unbearable. Not to mention the work we do is emotionally and mentally taxing. We sacrifice and give so much of ourselves for little to no benefits, that are masked as good. I had a coworker mention to me that in Germany, they allow a mom AND dad up to one full year of paid maternity/paternity leave with guarantee their job will be kept in tact. I also found out this is the same in Canada. My job opted out of providing FMLA and in order to get more time, I had to get short term disability!!!!

It has to get better and it won't get better unless we speak up for ourselves. When will it be okay with asking to be taken care of, for those who take such good care of everyone else? When? And when will the organizations that are supposed to be for us, such as National Association of Social Workers advocate for these needs on our behalf? This is a conversation for another blog post.