I’m not really sure if I’m antiwork it’s more that I have crippling anxiety when I try to imagine a sustainable work life balance. I have had so many terrible jobs. I have had so many terrible bosses. I am an under educated adult that spent all of my 20s traveling as a vagrant. Working seasonally different times and places. Trying to put down roots occasionally only to be taken advantage of by bosses some of them even friends. I enjoy working with my hands I have farming, harvesting construction, brewing I even tried fishing a season in Alaska. Most of those jobs you work very close with a few people often very male crew. I’m a lady so I’m automatically the odd man out. It is easy to be excluded or looked over. I tried my hand at bartender which I felt I was generally good at and though I often worked with a majority of women every restaurant or bar I happened to work at I had a male boss. I am not by any means against work-for or with men but I seemed to have developed a complex about being under appreciate or overlooked after repeated sexism in the workplace.
After a few particularly bad years I headed back to where I grew up and the cost of living is astronomical. I became a mother at the beginning of Covid. I have hardly worked in two years. We can’t afford for me not to work at this time but we can’t afford childcare even more so. With the cost of childcare in our area I would not even break even with my skill level on paper. I worked nights for a bit but I was hardly able to function in the day. I feel like there is nothing I can do that isn’t failing my daughter.
I just can’t see a way to start something from home without a huge cost getting started. We can barely afford food as it is. I would love to work for myself and my family but everything worth a darn wants years of experience and degrees.