By Margaret Treadwell
Our family has a history of making lemonade out of lemons during hard financial times. Thinking about our ancestors who found unexpected blessings during the adversity of job loss is one way we deal with the current economic crisis; after all, it is the way we THINK about a situation that makes a difference in the outcome.
My husband’s grandfather lost his job as a bridge engineer during the Great Depression and had to draw on all of his creative skills to support his wife and three daughters. He became an entrepreneur using his talents to build and sell window fans from which he created a good enough business to see the family through. Imagination and perseverance are his legacies to us.
My father used to say about the Depression, “We were all in it together; not two nickels to rub together.” He and Mother had to postpone their wedding for several years, and Dad moved far from their families to a town where he could join a surviving law practice. Mom tells the story of their honeymoon when they were able to take a night away at an hour’s drive to another town in a borrowed car with a broken door handle which required tying the passenger door shut. She says, “We didn’t think much about it because nobody had anything for years; I believe that made our friendships stronger.” My parents worked together to build Dad’s practice and gave us the twin gifts of endurance and faith triumphing over fear.
During my husband’s job loss in the 1983 recession, we learned useful lessons that we put into our “ NOWork Workshop” for families who wanted to survive and even thrive during those scary years. We based our coaching on a team approach to job loss that stressed the importance of maintaining one’s individuality without becoming a victim or allowing the crisis to consume the family. Now twenty-six years later, we remember how applying our research to ourselves helped us grow up, especially with the following three healing experiences important to our family’s well being:
1) Family financial inventory: Assess and budget spouse’s income, unemployment benefits (Yes! Sign up for them ASAP) and any other family resources. Questions: How can you enjoy a simpler life? Cut all non-essentials from the budget? Involve children who are old enough in these discussions and encourage them to take some responsibility in positive ways and certainly with home chores necessary for family functioning. Talking calmly and openly about financial issues can be a freeing, new experience.
2) Grieve: Job loss is like a death, especially when it represents the family’s community and social life as well as income. Couples move through the stages of grief at different times and in different ways – a healthy response when acknowledged and one that frees families to focus on practical day-to-day functioning.
3) Time Discipline:
• The job seeker is not out of work; it takes hours everyday to market oneself – networking, assessing strengths and weaknesses, rewriting resumes, follow-up. If an unemployment support group would be a benefit, start one, check local churches or on line. Volunteer in your career field or simply help others.
•. Set aside a specific daily limited time with your spouse to discuss the loss and how you are coping and moving forward. Could this be your prayer and faith time as well? Occasionally share this time with children who are old enough to understand. Very young children sense when something is wrong, and they “get it” when a parent explains that he/she will have more time to spend with them while searching for meaningful new work. Extend this to relaxing family time when a) spouses are alone or b) the children are involved. Laugh. Exercise. Appreciate leisure time, especially in the Washington area where there are so many free cultural and recreational opportunities. Unemployed parents say that more nurturing time with children turned out to be their greatest blessing.
• Take time to be with friends. A few want to know the details of your search and how they can help. For others, a brief, carefully chosen sentence that doesn’t focus on the past (ex. “I lost my job.”), but rather helps define what you are moving toward (“I’m looking at several opportunities to tell you about later.”) suffices to open other topics of conversation.
Turning the crisis of job loss into opportunity involves slowing life’s fast pace to stay awake for serendipity. Otherwise, you might miss the dormant skills that need space to bloom, the basic values that give sustenance, and the truth that your job is not you. Our God is a God of surprises.
Margaret M. (“Peggy”) Treadwell, LCSW -C, has been active in the fields of education and counseling for thirty-five years. Following a long association with Dr. Edwin H. Friedman, during which she served on his faculty, she co-edited and helped posthumously publish his book, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix.