It started with an AI interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had applied for what I thought was a writing position. Something that made sense for where I am right now \u2014 building a blog, creating content, showing up every week with words that matter to someone. Instead I found myself sitting in front of a proctored screen being asked how I would create a plan to address annotators about a hypothetical situation that wasn’t even provided. Acronyms I didn’t recognize were being thrown at me. I couldn’t leave the screen to look anything up. I couldn’t research. I couldn’t use the tools I actually use in real life to do real work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then came the hypothetical publishing company. Struggling with innovative ideas. Losing sales because of social media, podcasts, and all the online changes affecting everyone. How would I redirect them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I stared at the screen. And then I closed the tab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not because I failed. Because I don’t work in hypotheticals. Because I couldn’t answer a question about a company I knew nothing about without being able to research it first. Because the version of me that knows how to do things \u2014 that has always known how to figure things out \u2014 was sitting there being told she couldn’t use any of her actual tools. And something about that broke me open in a way I wasn’t expecting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here’s the irony that isn’t lost on me: I was being interviewed by AI. I use AI every single day. I just wasn’t allowed to use it the way I actually would in real life. That’s not a skills gap. That’s a rigged test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the spiral that followed wasn’t really about the interview. It was about what the interview confirmed \u2014 or what I let it confirm \u2014 about myself. That maybe I don’t have marketable skills. That maybe what I do doesn’t count. That maybe the 23 years of figuring things out, building things, making things work, raising humans, managing households and schedules and emotional fires \u2014 maybe none of that translates into something anyone will actually pay for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there it is. That’s the lie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Money equals value. That’s the lesson we as women and mothers have been handed. Quietly, consistently, for most of our lives. If it doesn’t pay, it doesn’t count. If there’s no paycheck attached, it must not be worth much. The 23 years of mothering, the managing of every schedule and birthday and emotional fire and medical appointment and permission slip \u2014 that’s not valuable. That’s just what moms do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Except it is valuable. Enormously. Irreplaceably. And the fact that nobody cuts you a check for it doesn’t change that. It just makes it easier to forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The spiral got louder when Nick’s hospital started layoffs. His Cyber Security Manager position \u2014 the one that protected the entire network after a ransomware attack three years ago \u2014 has been deemed non-essential. His pay took a hit. Then the Niagara Mohawk bill arrived. $553. For a house where we operate with all the lights off during the day. We haven’t changed our usage. The bill just changed. Hit after hit. Overcome, adjust, cut back. Repeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know we are not the only family feeling this. Daycare is expensive and limited. The math of whether it’s worth me returning to work runs on a loop \u2014 childcare costs, commute, the hours, the mental load of adding one more thing to the pile. Evelyn starts pre-K in the fall and mornings will open up. The most logical option is applying at the school part time while she’s there. Same schedule. No daycare costs. Some income. All my girls on the same calendar. Why is that even a choice that has to be made? Why does the value of what I’m already doing not count until someone writes me a check for it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have spent my entire adult life making other people’s things work from behind the scenes. Quietly, efficiently, without needing the credit. I am the person people trust when something matters. My friends Markus and Alena \u2014 brilliant paleontologists who spend their summers digging for fossils out west \u2014 trusted me to photograph cars for their dealership while they’re gone. They handed me their business and said we trust you with this. I go, I shoot, I get paid, and I felt something I haven’t felt in a while: competent. Trusted. Good at something that had nothing to do with keeping a small human alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n