I just finished a Canada Summer Jobs position at Mom2Mom Child Poverty Initiative, and am heading back to school (for the last time in my BA!!!) next week.
After spending quite literally all my money in Europe earlier this summer, I returned home at the poorest I’ve been since I started making my own money, and all I really wanted was a job–ideally one that would pad my resume, pay off my trip, and would understand that I was going back to school in the fall. Mom2Mom’s Canada Summer Jobs posting showing up on my Facebook feed was absolutely providential for all those reasons, but I definitely got so much more than just a job and paycheque. I learned so many things that I can hardly distill it into a list, but here are 3 things I learned about working, and then 3 things I learned from working at Mom2Mom.
It was my first time working a full-time position. There was probably only one week in my life that I worked upwards of 35 hours before this summer, so having a 9-5 office job was new to me. The weekend before I started at Mom2Mom, I was chatting with some friends who had been doing full-time co-op jobs all summer or all year, and they talked like people tired of their full-time jobs, tired of spending 40 hours at the same place doing the same thing every day, and listening to them, I felt a little bit of dread for what I thought I knew would be a dull, mundane office life.
It was also my first time working for a non-profit, although I’ve always been involved with a number of non-profits, always a volunteer. I’ve always known that it’s not glamorous, and that it would never make me rich, which is perhaps why I never seriously considered working in non-profits as a career.
On both fronts, my expectations and assumptions were seriously questioned and then proven wrong.
#1:
I bring so much more than just “English major” to the table. It was very cool that my boss graduated from the same program and the same university that I did, and it probably helped both in terms of getting the job and in terms of getting the job done, but what I actually did at Mom2Mom, and what I did well, cannot be fully expressed when I tell strangers that I am an English major, Law & Society minor.
#2
I distinctly remember my mom telling me when I was very, very young that she wanted to do anything but an office job. I’ve seen the media caricature the office drone at a computer, tapping at keys for 8 hours and then going home to a greyscale life. What I forgot to consider is how I would fit into that frame. I have always been a go-getter. I love setting goals for myself and getting things done.
Working a 9-5 office job just means that I can leave work and I can actually leave work. When I leave school, I come home to do more school. Every English major knows that doing reading for pleasure is out of the question during the semester; sure, you might be on top of your reading (if you’re lucky!), but you can always read ahead, so why bother starting something for your own leisure reading?
This summer, I got to spend my transit time reading books that I chose. I got to write more, watch Netflix when I got home, go to the gym, hang out with friends, and more, because I had a 9-5 office job. My life became fuller of things I love and am passionate about because working at Mom2Mom left me with time and energy to do so. It also meant I could go back to work ready to get stuff done. I was a better employee because I was better to myself.
#3
I have always loved school. I love reading deeply, writing thoughtfully, and thinking critically. That, coupled with the fact that I like a challenge, always suggested to me that staying in academia makes sense, because wouldn’t a 9-5 office job, doing admin or comms, be mundane?
In fact, I found myself confronting impossible problems and internal conflicts throughout my term at Mom2Mom, and I was always thinking critically, which brings me to my third set of lessons.
#1
Moms love their kids. Love cannot be measured by gifts, involvement in extracurriculars, or public displays of affection. Moms don’t all start from the same place.
#2
Poverty cannot be solved by work. It cannot be solved by throwing money at it. Because not everyone learns how to budget. Because families get stressed. Because children grow, and have needs. Because making ends meet can only do so much, and because emergencies happen. Poverty cannot ever be reduced to a single root problem.
So many of my peers–myself included–think that we can create the most efficient change by creating and changing legislation, or advocating for the underdog. I still think that the law is a powerful tool, and I’d love to explore that, but legislation is slow and it doesn’t focus about the individual.
Government services doesn’t imagine solutions to a single mother’s broken laptop for school: Mom2Mom does. Community members do. Volunteers reach out to their communities, look into their resources, and do the work themselves. Change doesn’t have to be large-scale and dramatic to be worthwhile. We don’t have to “fix” poverty. It is enough, and it is also so much more, to help make changes for the individual and the family.
#3
I am privileged. I get to take out student loans to attend one of the top universities in the world. I got to grow up competing in organized sport. I have had fancy, shiny electronics, I’ve accumulated books and expensive clothes and accessories. I am a woman and a visible minority, and I am privileged. My job earnings at Mom2Mom could have helped feed a family, and I thought about this every time it felt like I was wasting time.
When you plug in the numbers, it doesn’t make sense and the system sucks. But liberal arts majors know what accountants don’t: privilege, society, and humanity don’t work like an accounting spreadsheet.
I come out from this incredible summer job so much more grateful and simultaneously so much more critical of my degree. I recognize that it equips me with the skills to do great things, but I am also so much more than my degree. I love university, and I am excited to go back, but I am also so excited to finish; there is a world beyond May 2018 and I can’t wait to see what it looks like, but thanks to Mom2Mom, I am assured that that world is not so bleak as others might have me believe.