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I’ve been working since I was 14, and I’ve always had at least one side gig on top of a primary job. Through economic dips, graduate school, and raising three kids as a single mom, my backup jobs have brought me peace of mind for 25 years.
I was raised to believe class was a state of mind. “Always broke, but never poor,” my father said. He was a Florida State Park ranger, and my mom was in and out of cosmetology school. They worked hard, but their paychecks weren’t enough.
By the time I was in first grade, we’d lived in six homes, with a couple of stints of sleeping in our car or camping on the beach. My father reframed these moves as “adventures.” He said, “As long as you’re working true, things can improve.” He taught me that doing honest work was one thing I could really control, even if life’s “adventures” went south for a time.
I started working from a young age
When I was 6, my younger brother and I fell asleep without turning off the lamp that sat on the table between our twin beds. A few hours later, my parents smelled smoke. They rushed in to find the lampshade on fire. My dad ran out of the house with the lampshade and stomped it out on the front porch. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the incident inspired my parents to start a business selling fire alarms.
Technically, I started working with them when I was in fourth grade, organizing their paperwork and cleaning their office. By the time I was 10, their business was booming, and my family leveled up to middle class for two years. My parents started paying me minimum wage to do admin work, and I also occasionally dressed up in a dalmatian costume to help my dad sell fire alarms at trade shows.
At 14, I landed my first real job working at McDonald’s, and I got a second job as a barista. A year later, just after 9/11 happened, our family business crumbled. Not long after, my father passed away unexpectedly.
After Dad’s death, my brother, mother, and I often ate leftover burgers or two-day-old pastries from my jobs — and the money I made from them kept the lights on and the water running. The more I worked, the safer I felt.
Anytime I saw another “Now Hiring!” sign in a window, I considered applying. In high school alone, I worked part-time as a line cook, a hostess, and a waitress. I worked at Subway one summer, and demolished flooring and installed tile another. I worked at call centers, assisted a travel agent, and cleaned boats.
Having multiple jobs makes me feel safe
Since then, eras of my life have been defined by side gigs. In college, I trained to be a sous chef, kept waitressing, and picked up gigs as a commercial model. When my children were young, I nannied and edited articles for a local news journal.
In graduate school, I taught undergrad classes and worked as a copy editor. Now, I’m a speech-language pathologist and journalist. Over the decades, I’ve taken on plenty of other odd jobs, too, including tutoring, working at grocery stores, catering, and being an extra in TV shows.
Even when I was on my own — and even when my primary job provided enough money for me to live comfortably — I always felt the need to have multiple jobs, but I don’t consider myself a workaholic. I’m more attached to learning than the work itself. Throughout the years, I’ve met incredible people, and working in varied fields has allowed me to narrow down the kind of job that brings me joy.
It’s still true that part of me is afraid of the hunger and housing insecurity I grew up with. I don’t want my kids to spend any part of their childhood in survival mode. I also try to teach them the work ethic that my dad taught me.
It’s a difficult balance to achieve as a parent, and I work toward it every day: While I hope my kids never feel compelled to work several jobs out of fear, I aim to share what I know about the value of trying out different pathways until they find one — or two — they can enjoy with integrity, day after day.
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