Being retired and not re-employed (yet) has me analyzing my sense of worth. Right or wrong, in our society, a paycheck\/job often equates literal worth. Many retirees report experiencing a new lack of status now that they have no job or reduced money. I struggle with these new perceptions of reduced worth as well. So before I get practical reconfiguring my lifestyle and budget, I take a look at some origins of my own worth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It reminds me of the times when I was a stay-at-home mom with young children.\u00a0 As a young mom back then, at-home employment did not seem valued much in our society.\u00a0 My at-home job was hard for people to classify-and not deemed particularly crucial. Stay-at-home work consisted of those mundane \u201cunimportant\u201d activities- cooking, cleaning, doing errands, carpooling, and keeping curious toddlers educated, amused and away from self-destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I Was Even<\/strong> A<\/strong> Baby-proofing Failure<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n My toddler son used to bring me all the outlet plug covers with which I had carefully baby-proofed the house’s outlets. His methodical diligent removal of these plug covers just reinforced my feelings of irrelevance.\u00a0 (I was a baby proofing failure!) <\/em> True relevance seemed to be in money earned, and a paycheck was much more important than stay-at-home duties.\u00a0 Incorrectly, that was how I felt sometimes back then. Retirement “status” causes inadequate feelings like these to still crop up now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n