Marcie M

I have worked since I was 14. Sometimes I've had as many as six different jobs at once. I love my work (well, most of the time, most of it). But it feels like all the odds are against me at the moment. My toddler is off nursery for the third time in two months due to vomiting. Even the small amount of self-employed work I'm trying to do is difficult when I can't know from one week to the next whether I'll have any childcare, or be sick myself.

Apart from the fact that our income is lower when I can't work, it makes me feel horrible about myself to keep cancelling plans and just lazing around the house doing endless laundry. I want to do the work I'm good at! My goal with being self-employed was to get some balance but it doesn't seem to be working out that way.

The only blessing is that I can't be fired, because I certainly would have been by this point if I were employed.