Just Because You’re Unemployed Doesn’t Mean You Don’t Work

Especially if you have kids

Photo by Marten Bjork on Unsplash

I sometimes feel like I’ve regressed to a 1950s housewife.

And I don’t even have kids.

I’m unemployed, and my partner works. He works from home due to the pandemic, but he is still gainfully employed — thank god.

Our home life is very happy. But since we’ve added the work life to that happy home, we, like many, many — as in, over 50% of U.S. households —others have had to make some new arrangements.

There’s one unenclosed office in our 900-square-foot starter home. There’s no door to close for privacy, and there are no sound barriers.

Which can be tricky.

It also means that if one of us wants to work at a desk, then the person who has a full-time, full-paying gig probably gets first choice (as it should be).

But, as many of us have discovered since the U.S. “shutdown” to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, just because we’re not employed doesn’t mean we’re not working. There’s still plenty to be done in the hours between our daily Netflix binge-watching evening sessions.

First off, there’s the job search — that’s a reasonable requirement in order to collect the (very generous, thank you Congress) weekly consolation…