Here's what Ann tells me: She is tired--her job is exhausting what with traveling once a month, having to stay downtown for business dinners every few weeks plus dealing with the pressures of office politics and the crush of getting work done. She thinks she's ready to give it up, but there's one reason she's not: she likes the ready money--the ability to, without giving it a second thought, pay for her grandtwins' day care, take the whole family (three grown children, their spouses and children) away for a weekend to celebrate her husband's birthday.
Here's what I've been thinking: I would like more time to spend on this blog and turn it into a book. It's a dream I've been nurturing for years. I should give up my editing contracts and get to work on my dream project. But, like Ann, I like the ready money and the ability to indulge my children and their families with a new dishwasher, a warm coat or a ski trip without thinking about my retirement budget.
So Ann and I tell ourselves and each other that we would quit but that we continue to work to indulge or help our grown children. It's kind of crazy: it's not as though they are needy. All of them are--knock on wood--self-sufficient, weathering this economic crisis and doing work we're proud of. Neither Ann nor I could count ourselves in the "1 percent" but we are comfortable. Both she and I--and our spouses--have planned well and put aside a respectable nest egg for our retirement years. We could probably afford the day care tuition or the other indulgences even if we weren't working. And yet we continue to tell ourselves we need to stay on the job.
We may be in denial. It may be more that we're just not ready to leave the Mothership of our jobs and the security--not necessarily financial--that it provides. Our grown children--and grandchildren--may be the handy excuse.
