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Return-to-Work Mom

Pregnant through the 90's then driving car pool through the millenium, Mayer is the sometimes proud, often embarrassed mom of four kids, ages little league through SATs. Remarkably, she's still married to their dad ... as of this posting. Once upon a time, before life hit her square in the face, she was a copywriter. Here are her trials and tribulations of a working life.

Stay in School

Posted on April 22, 2009

Will work for food signs on the off ramps often tug at my heartstrings. And those poor saps holding the festively designed Going-Out-of-Business, Everything-Must-Go signs outside Macy's or Linens 'N Things or Circuit City or Home Depot or Foot Locker or Domain or .... well, the list is way, way too long.

Now I glare and lecture. Not to the poor dude (why always a guy?) holding the sign in the rain, but the blood relations strapped in the back seat. "STAY IN SCHOOL and do well or you'll end up holding the sign. You want to hold the sign? Want that to be your job? Think he dreamt of doing that at 12?"

And I come down especially hard on the teens who are often being carted from one event to another. I use the quality car pool time, that one-on-one opportunity when the loving children are held hostage to those who can transport them near and far, to educate. Sex and drugs were easy; got that covered (literally, covered). Economy? Well, not so much. That's the hard stuff.

So I dumb it down the best I can, then shove it down their throats. Stay in school. It's your job. Do the best you can in the hardest classes you can manage. Learn and grow and know no job is beneath you. Listen more than you talk. Be patient. And kind. And this too shall pass.