Mom's Got Money

CHAPTER 8The Childcare versus Career Dilemma

All I could hear were the sounds of both of my two‐year‐olds sobbing and banging on the window. Their cries had something to do with the fact that I had to step outside on my front porch to give a radio interview. This wasn't just any radio interview. It was my first spokesperson job for a company that hired me to complete 10 different radio interviews on their behalf over a period of two days. The interviews were national segments with tens of thousands of listeners and wouldn't you know, my babysitter couldn't be bothered to wake up that morning to watch the twins so I could do it.

I'd just moved to Michigan, and my entire house was full of boxes. It wasn't the greatest time for me to accept a spokesperson job, but it was such a big opportunity, I couldn't turn it down. With my husband working very long hours at the hospital as a new intern, I had to scramble to find a babysitter in a state where I didn't know a soul.

The babysitter I hired was a teenager who was off from school for the summer. She seemed very excited to help and had experience. I even talked to her parents. But the morning of the radio interviews came and there was no sign of her. She didn't answer her phone or texts, and I found myself in my house with two two‐year‐olds not exactly sure how I was going to make it all happen. After all, this was before much of the world had to learn how to work at home with kids in the house, so I wasn't sure how my client would ...