| Thursday, June 18, 2009 |
| Still looking for work |
 The NPR story: Battling Despair: One Mother's Search For A Job catches up with 38-year-old Sylvia Martinez of Northern Virginia who has been unemployed since November 2008. The reporter rides along as Sylvia travels to her latest job interview. She gets out of the car and disappears into the building, a rectangle with darkly tinted glass. Thirty minutes later, she appears again, and there is a slight fall in her face. The interview didn't go as planned.
"I think they're looking for someone who has really strong accounting experience, which I don't," she says grimly. "As soon as I heard 'strong accounting,' I was like, uh!"
Martinez says she was honest with them about her limitations, and the mood in the room cooled. They didn't even have a conversation about salary.
Sitting in the car, her thoughts turn to her children — 19-year-old twin girls and a son. They had all intended to go to community college in January, but after losing her job, Martinez told them college had to be put on hold.
"I've always told my children how a college education is necessary," she says with tears in her eyes. "I have to get a job now so that they can at least go in August. How can I take that from them? I can't. I can't."
Martinez feels certain that when she gets home, they won't press her too much to give them the interview play-by-play. "I don't think so," she said. "Just because the last interview was such a disappointment for all of us that ... I don't think they will."
Just like her kids don't ask for details, Martinez says recently that she has been avoiding the news reports. The stories about job losses — even job numbers that are declining more slowly than before — just kill her, she says. She knows too well exactly what all those people will go through. |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 6:36 PM *
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| 5 Comments: |
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I realize that she needs employment for more than just providing for her children's college. But I kept thinking, why is there this expectation that she will pay for her children's college? Why can't they help pay for college?
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I believe in her earlier interview on NPR we learned that her children are working and helping her make ends meet. Her unemployment check is not enough to cover all of the expenses. If her twins left to attend college she would be homeless or worse (she is emotionally fragile).
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I heard that story on NPR and my heart broke for that woman. Her story gives just a glimpse into the pain that lots of people are feeling right now.
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So the kids are helping Mom and not the other way around? Wow, that is rough. No wonder she is on anti-depressants. I can't imagine having to lean on my teenagers like she is currently having to do. But at least she does have children who are sacrificing and helping to support her. She is a very lucky woman indeed and I hope she can get to an emotional place where she can see how truly blessed she is.
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No doubt it's rough out there. I feel stress over the economy, but hearing stories like this make me count my blessings. :-(
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I realize that she needs employment for more than just providing for her children's college. But I kept thinking, why is there this expectation that she will pay for her children's college? Why can't they help pay for college?