I remember talking with a friend from Australia years ago, and we were discussing interesting differences between countries. For example, when meeting someone for the first time, we often both ask, “What do you do?” For those in the US, this is generally answered by providing a job title or description of your work. He told me that if he asked anyone in his area that question during a friendly conversation, he might get an answer that included what they did for a living, but most often they would answer what they liked to do for fun.

I find it strange and somewhat disheartening that we in the US define ourselves by our employment. Especially since the modern world has opened up a wide variety of new job titles – helpdesk support, administrative assistant, aide, retail clerk, customer service rep – that often aren’t long-term careers. They might be a step on the ladder to a better career, but often they are simply a “job”.

It can be hard to define yourself by your career if your career is a telemarketer or a retail clerk. (I’m not saying people can’t find these types of jobs rewarding. But overall many people who are in these jobs would rather be doing something else.)

Aaron has lately been feeling trapped in a “job”. Yes, he has a cushy position with room for advancement working for the state and making better money than his old job. But his degree is in theatre, and he wants to eventually work in that field, either teaching or directing or something. However, a simple BFA in Theatre is not enough, and there is further training he must pursue to reach his goals, which means that for now it would be close to impossible to make a living in the performing arts field. With a family to support, he must keep the good office job, even if it is just a job.

Luckily, he is still making progress towards his goals. But as is true with many of us, that progress is not coming fast enough for him, even though there is no way to speed it up. He will get there in the end, but it will take time, and he will have to fight off the depression that constantly tries to drag him down and pull him away from doing what needs to be done in the present. That same depression tries to tell him that everything he’s doing is pointless, and he’ll never do what he wants to do.

Thinking about his situation made me wonder: how many people feel like they’re in the same situation? How many people are really where they want to be right now? Are you really happy with your job? Is what you’re doing a career or just a job? Did you see yourself doing something else when you first started out? Do you think you’ll never do what you want to do?

Are the scores of people who are depressed today (and the numbers keep growing) feeling hopeless because they see no purpose in their lives? Can they only see the current job chaining them down instead of providing them the means to keep going and hopefully one day find something that will provide them meaning?

Before the modern age, many jobs actually produced something. At the end of the day, you could go to sleep knowing you harvested 10 bushels of food to feed your family and others, or made two wagon wheels, or produced two bolts of cloth. Usually your job was important to your town or area – you were a needed link in the chain of society.

In the present day, many people go to work, and come home at the end of the day with nothing to show for it. Oh sure, they may have sat at a phone bank all day and tried to sell people supplementary life insurance. They probably got yelled at or hung up on many times, and may have even sold a few policies. But some of these people will feel no sense of accomplishment for what they did. If they weren’t doing that job, society would continue to function.

And when you look at really interesting jobs that many people want to go into, there are usually a limited number of those jobs available or they require a lot of extra training and waiting. There is a plethora of less interesting jobs, however.

As a college student advisor, I see a lot of students coming back to school because they are so miserable in their current jobs and want only to find some job to give them some meaning. They pick a new major and hope that a degree in Human Resources or Accounting or Marketing might provide the exciting job they hope for. Sadly, some of these people graduate with those degrees, go out into the world, and then are disappointed when all they can find is an administrative assistant position.

I’m curious to know how you, my readers, feel about your current situation, or your partner’s situation. Are you happy with your job, your family, your life? Are you where you want to be? If not, do you see yourself ever getting to where you want to be?

As for me, I don’t think I’m happy with my current situation, but I am at least content for the moment. My job is often frustrating and not what I wanted to do, but it does have its rewarding moments. I am going back to school for nursing, since my BA in History is doing nothing for me at the moment. Hopefully I will find nursing more rewarding.

My ideal situation would be to stay home with my children full-time until they were in school, and then go to work in nursing part-time so I could still pick them up from school most days. However, real life steps in and reminds me that we don’t have the finances to do that, so for now I must be content with working part-time. If I let it really bother me, I could end up right back on antidepressants, so I try to keep a positive outlook. At least I have the ability to be part-time, and at least my job doesn’t completely suck the life out of me.

I look forward to hearing your answers. It’s totally OK to answer that your life sucks, and at the same time, feel free to express if you’re really happy, too. I’m curious to see the entire spectrum.

In a previous post, I discussed the disturbing trend towards sexualizing our little girls way too early, usually through inappropriate clothing.

I should have realized that Halloween costumes would soon follow this trend. The number of “sexy” costumes available for preteen girls, and even little girls, is appalling.

When I was a kid, costumes followed traditional styles of ghosts, monsters and princesses in big dresses, with some plastic TV cartoon character masks thrown in.

I remember one year I was a ghost, which is the Halloween equivalent of trick-or-treating in a burka. Another year I was a California Raisin, yet another warm and stuffy costume with limited visibility. I was also a witch one year, but certainly not a sexy witch – more like the green and scary variety.

Perhaps the most skin-baring costume I ever wore was when I dressed as Wilykit from Thundercats in 4th grade. One shoulder was bare, and the dress was short, but I wore dyed tights instead of painting my bare legs to provide a little bit of modesty. And one look at me, with my hair cornstarched to stand straight up and sprayed a bright red and my white and black makeup, would tell you I wasn’t going for a sexy look. Weird and slightly frightening, but not sexy.

So while shopping for Cordy’s Halloween costume, I am appalled at some of the choices out there. Sure, there are the cute, furry, full-body costumes. But for every cute plush kitty costume, there’s a “sexy kitty” costume as well.

What’s that? You want examples? I thought you’d never ask.

Exhibit A: Raggedy Ann Look at that cute little rag doll!

You could never make Raggedy Ann sexy for a toddler, right?

Wrong:

Exhibit B: Pirates Sure, pirates are the big thing this year. And with a smash movie, even girls want to be pirates. But there’s a difference between being a pirate girl:

…and being the pirate’s consort (with some serious vinyl boots):

Exhibit C: Cowgirls While I did find some decent cowgirl costumes, I had to point out two bad ones in particular. First, is this little girl just an early bloomer, or is the chest of this costume padded?

And then there’s the cowgirl costume named Lil’ Texy Cowgirl.

“Texy”, get it? Like sexy, without driving moms into a stampede by using the word sexy. Just switch the first letter so it is a Texas reference, and you’ve got a winner.

Now, I’ll admit that these aren’t too racy. Pretty tame compared to the costumes for older girls, truthfully. But they’re toddler costumes! Toddlers don’t even need to hint at sexy! What’s worse, dressing them like that now could be the first step towards these types of costumes. The distance between that first step and pre-teen costumes is not that big of a jump.

When did it become OK to dress our girls as sexy little women? And do you really want your 11 year old daughter wearing this?

OK, clearly nature designed motherhood to wipe out any memories of pregnancy so you would want to go through it again. The memories of my first trimester last time are blurry and fuzzy and all I can remember is the excitement of being pregnant and the constant 24/7 nausea.

The good news is that today I am 6 weeks pregnant, and while I have passing bouts of nausea, lasting only a few moments at most, generally I am OK. Last time, at exactly the 6 week mark, I stopped eating anything other than saltines and ginger ale, which lasted for six more weeks.

But I forgot about the fatigue. God, the fatigue! I am so damn tired, and even on the days I do manage 8 hours of sleep, once midday hits my eyelids suddenly gain 10 pounds each and I can barely keep them open. I feel like I could easily join Cordy on her sleep schedule – 12 hour nights, plus a 2 hour nap in the afternoon. Actually, that would be fantastic.

I understand I’m growing another human being, but that human being barely needs any extra calories (I disproved that whole “eating for two” myth last pregnancy), so why does it need every last ounce of my energy?

Most of my coworkers know I’m pregnant now. It’s hard not to tell them when they look at me and say, “You look like hell! Are you sick?” And I have received that comment from no less than 4 people, so officially I do look like hell and appear to be ill.

At my main office location (I’m located at a suburban campus most days of the week), I’ve been tempted more than once to shut the door to my office and take a short nap. We have few staff up here – surely no one would notice, right? Besides, my office manager is also pregnant with her second baby (3 weeks ahead of me), so we both understand this chronic exhaustion.

Along with the fatigue is short term memory loss. I called a student today, in response to a message she had left me. Turns out I had already called her last Wednesday, and she was puzzled as to why I was calling about it again.

Only 6 more weeks to go until the fog lifts, right?

…and today at her two year check-up, I was given more proof.

Height: 35″ (75th percentile – eh, she’s slipped a little there)

Weight: at least 32 lbs – she refused to hold still on the scale (95th percentile)

Head circumference: 20.75″ (even further off the charts than before – somewhere around 135th percentile, if there was such a thing)

So it would appear Cordy is continuing along her growth curve just fine. Oh sure, she has a head circumference larger than some adults (adult hats fit her), but the doctor said since she’s always been near or past the top of the charts, she’s not worried. We’re hoping her height will make a rally once more to catch up to her weight, otherwise she may not get as many stroller rides in the future as we encourage her to be more active.

We had a new doctor today. This is the third we’ve had in two years. The first quit the practice after her daughter fell seriously ill, and she needed to quit to help her recuperate. The second was OK, but I really thought he had no personality with children. He was a decent doctor, but a lousy pediatrician. He never took the time to warm up to Cordy, but would instead come right at her and examine her, and I think it was because of him that she is so terrified of the doctor’s office.

Today started out much the same as the other visits. She was happy in the waiting room, and didn’t complain as we walked to an exam room. Once we stepped foot in the exam room, however, the memories came flooding back to her, the tears started to flow, and the screaming began.

After the nurse left the room, Cordy calmed down a little, like normal. Then her new doctor came in – Dr. Luci. I was stunned by how young the new doctor was – she looked like she had graduated from med school…oh…yesterday. The whimpering and crying began again as Cordy buried her head in my chest.

But this doctor quietly sat down away from her and began talking with us about Cordy’s habits. Every now and then, Cordy would peek up, and Dr. Luci would give her a quick smile, then go back to talking to us. Slowly, ever so slowly, Cordy started to warm up to her doctor. Dr. Luci even offered Cordy a tongue depressor to play with to help her feel more comfortable.

Eventually Cordy was calmer and even smiled at the doctor a few times. When it came time for the exam, she still struggled and cried and fought (Dr. Luci even commented on how strong our giant child is), but after it was over, Cordy calmed down again and even tried to talk to the doctor. This, to me, was huge progress, and Dr. Luci handled herself wonderfully. This is how a doctor should handle young children.

Luckily, no shots were needed today. On the way out, Dr. Luci handed Cordelia Dora and Boots stickers, and she loved them. By the time we were checking out, Cordy was back to her normal self, even telling the receptionist “fanks!” as she handed us our receipt.