The Child Advocate (what is failure?)

 When I was in my early 20’s, I was heavily pressured to set a career goal, so I set a career goal to help children. I was also very unprepared.  My very first job was in a daycare center, and I worked there from age 16-18. But setting the “career goal” was after that. My two years of daycare experience really helped me get into roles I was initially very mentally and emotionally unprepared for. Many of you know that I worked as a caregiver at a cps emergency facility when I lived in Arizona. I don’t remember exactly when I started there. I do know that I was working there when 9/11 happened and that I left when I moved here to Houston on Memorial Day of 2002. I probably started working there sometime in early 2000. Immediately before that, I worked at a second daycare center (not the one I worked at in high school), and I and another young coworker took care of 11 infants. I remember all of their dates of birth being in 1999 and 2000. So it must have been sometime in the middle of the year 2000 that I left there and joined the CPS center. 

I had a dream last night that I went back to work at the CPS facility.  There was only one person I knew that was still working there (in my dream), and in the dream I asked her if she was the only one still left from 25 years ago. At this facility(in real life, not my dream), two infants had died of SIDS before I ever started working there, and there was a lot of tension among the staff. All three shifts hated each other and all of the races hated each other.  I realize now that they all blamed each other for the deaths of the SIDS babies. I faked being Hispanic in order to get along with my three main coworkers. I can’t tell that many people that I faked being Hispanic. Usually, people of color try to pass as white in order to succeed, but in my case, I was taking care of 12-18 babies and toddlers with three women who hated anyone who wasn’t Hispanic. I needed to get along with them for the sake of these kids, who were already in crisis situations.  It was like I had to coparent with them.  I never tell anyone this unless I know that they’re the type of person that is able to believe there are exceptions to every rule. One of the three women I worked with, AG, once asked me where my family was from and if I was Mexican. I said, “No I’m Greek.” But she didn’t know what I meant. I tried to explain that my grandparents were from Greece, but she didn’t seem to understand. I then realized that she’d never heard of Greece. So I just said something to the effect of “Yeah I’m Mexican”. She asked me what part of Mexico my family was from. All I could say thinking fast was “Mexico City.”  I couldn’t name the Mexican states in a thinking fast type of situation like this. Sometimes I wonder if AG ever found out that Greece is an actual country, remembered our conversation, and figured out that I was bullshitting her. It’s been 25 years, she’s had a lot of time to figure out  which other countries exist. I can imagine her learning this information and thinking “That lying bitch!”  

I was also a volunteer child advocate with the CASA program in both Arizona and Texas. I worked at the children’s museum for about 8 years. Then, I got my college degree. 

When I went to the advisor at the University of Houston and told her my history and my career goals, she told me that if I got ANY degree within the “College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences” (or, CLASS), that I could get a pretty good position at “any nonprofit organization.”  So I believed her and got my degree, because that is pretty much what the previous generation taught people my age our entire lives- just get a degree and you’ll be set for life. 

When I graduated, I looked for a job and quickly realized that all of the nonprofit organizations wanted full time volunteers. They wanted people to work 40 hours a week for absolutely nothing. I always turned them down saying I was a single parent, and I was- my daughter was in 2nd grade at the time. But it doesn’t matter if someone is single or married or a parent or not. Full time volunteering shouldn’t happen. Someone working full time should always get paid. A few hours a week for something you’re passionate about is ok. I didn’t get paid to be a CASA volunteer, but it never took up more than about 8 hours a week. 

I immediately felt like my entire “career goals” were failed at. This is when I went to work with the elderly. I thought at the time that since what the college advisor had told me wasn’t true that it was me who had failed at that goal. Working with the elderly however, was best for me at the time because of the onset of my severe anxiety. I only had to care for one person, and it was in their homes. It was just, doing for them what I would be doing for myself if I was at home all day. And back then, I was more able to lift people. I don’t think I am anymore. 

I realize now that I didn’t fail at my career goals whatsoever. The advisor just gave me misinformation. She was trying to sell a product. I have never failed any actual child. I made minor mistakes along the way, but changed and learned from them like everyone else. I never “failed” at any of my jobs involving kids or the elderly, never got written up or fired, and always helped.  I look back now and realize that all of my actions were for the betterment of all these individuals I was either directly caring for or working on behalf of. 

Therefore, what do I do about it now?  Do I go back to it?  No, I really don't want to quit the inventory service and the side hustle apps.  In a way, I am back to it by writing my book “The Child Advocate.”  I have a document on my laptop with about 29,000 words.  I also have a spiral notebook that I just jot things down in. The day before I had the dream that I went back to the CPS shelter, I had been jotting notes about that. When I feel like it, I’m going to have ChatGPT help with how to structure what I want to say. I’m also going to change what ChatGPT tells me to write. AI isn’t going to write my book for me by any means. I can’t really describe what I mean. I’m going to look at what it suggests for a paragraph or page and then put it into my own words. I understand both sides of the AI debate. I absolutely don’t want it writing the book for me, but I have ADHD and want to use it as a tool. That, and Scrivner. 

Realizing that I’m not a “failure” has been monumental. It has encouraged me to get to work on the book.  However, memory jogging has taken its toll on my mental health. Remembering all the tension among staff because of the two SIDS babies that died before I even started there has made me realize that I never should have internalized anything. Code switching and pretending to be a different race is something that I would never do now, with the things I know now. And feeling like *I* failed when I was simply lied to by a college advisor like MOST millennials is not something I’d experience if I know what I know now either. I guess I’ve gained wisdom with age. 

More later of the accuracy of memory jogging and specific memories.