Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

Thursday 3 June 2010

You are damned if you do and you are damned if you don't...

Until March last year I was a full-time student housing officer at a small London University. Housing wasn't something I dreamed of working in as a small child rather, as is quite often the case with many people, was something I fell into after spending 3 years working in Youth Hostels in various roles from chef to bedmaker. 

So now Emily is 13 months old it occurred to me that it may be time to start thinking about what to do next. Is it time for a change I hear you say? Well that's exactly what I was thinking. About a week ago I started to seriously consider my options and being seriously unqualified in anything particularly useful (damn you BTEC National Diploma in Performing Arts, you were fun, but not much use to me now), it began to dawn on me that I may need to go back to the drawing board or in my case the whiteboard. In laymans terms, College. But what to study?

Considering various options I decided on the possibility of a childcare course at my local College. So I emailed the admissions tutor, completed an application and waited to hear back. I didn't have to wait too long! She phoned me yesterday to discuss my options and suggested, due to my maturing age, that I might be more suited to an Access Course. But access to what? So here is where the dilemma begins. 

A childcare qualification would give me the tools I require to go straight into work once I had completed the course. However I would have to study full-time over two years, which means finding money for childcare for my child. Option two, take the Access course which could be completed part-time over two years without the need for childcare but at the end be qualified for nothing more than moving onto Higher Education, which is not something I am sure I am interested in partaking in. So what to do?

I have considered the option of higher education, possibly training to be a midwife. However this course would mean a further 3 years study, full-time which would mean I am faced, once again, with finding suitable childcare and the money to pay for it. Add to that University fees, a new car to allow me to travel to University and it all starts to get very expensive! Looking at the support available to students, unfortunately due to the fact that Gavin earns a decent amount of money means we probably wouldn't qualify for much, if anything. And yes my partner does earn a decent amount but we have a mortgage and bills and all manner of other financial outgoings that adds up to not a lot of spare cash left over. All I want to do is go back to work! The words rock and hard place spring to mind! 

So I am hoping for some inspiration as to what the solution may be, failing that a miracle would do. For now though I will have to settle for a meeting with the College's adult education tutor who I hope has a better idea of what I want to do then I now do because with all this deliberating and consideration of options I now don't have the foggiest idea!  

1 comment:

  1. Ah now there's the rub as the saying goes.maybe your blog itself is the thing you might concentrate on.You are obviously very good at it and maybe you should consider the possibilty of publishing some of your writing for the benefit of other mum's but in a format that would give you some funds! Do some reearch and find out how to approach publisher's and what format a book or journal ,see newspapers especially the weekend ones! I know there is probably a lot of competion ut this stuff is good! so don't underestimate your talents love xxxx

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