Marital and motherhood status (was Lost Children)

Join the rest of us and killfile it, Nyssa - it`s a troll with a mental problem!

Pat P

"Brenda Lewis" wrote

Absolutely. So why would anyone not be honest and say "Caregiver for my special needs child"?? One could go on from the kinds of duties you mention and list some of the skills acquired from doing that care--if you have to put a child through a set of exercises that a therapist has prescribed, you might be learning to work independently according to complex directions, for example. Following a special dietery regime can mean developing math and calculation skills while adapting recipes or calculating dosages. I just wouldn't call myself a specialist in advanced applied mathematics and chemistry as a result. Dawne

Yes, but if I were to tell a potential employer that I have a special needs child (which Sam technically is not because he doesn't have a disability, he doesn't need special medication or special food and currently he's not even having any kind of therapy sessions) I am certain that I would not get hired. A special needs child always implies that it needs a lot more care than a "normal" child, therefore I am more likely to be staying home because of my child, which I am not.

Besides, telling lies in a job interview is one thing, omitting things is very much different. I'm sure nobody is telling potential employers about their relatives who died of or suffered from cancer, high bloodpressure, diabetes, etc. even though every doctor will tell you that chances of getting any of those "diseases" is higher when someone you're closely related to has/had them. It's simply not relevant.

take care nicole

Precisely. If you've been off work for a prolonged time for health reasons, and explain months (or years) off work with "I was sick", you will never get hired because they assume that you're going to be off work that long again in the future. Much better to do a little something productive. When I first went off work, I set about making things for charity, so I could say I'd spent my time off on charitable work. When it became obvious that recovery was going to take longer than most employers would believe I spent volunteering, I started my own business. Then I started writing a book. Now I'm also designing and doing political activism. I have fingers in enough pies to satisfy people that I was working for the past 5 years, not goofing off.

Now, if the interviewer were to say "I lurk on RCTN and I know you have CFS", I'm not going to deny it. If she says "Knowing you have CFS, I doubt that you were working 40 hours a week at your business", I'm not going to deny that, either. Like the military, "don't ask, don't tell".

I've always considered my health to be a "need to know" basis. When I'm sick enough to be covered by Americans with Disabilities Act, that's the only time an employer needs to know. When I'm in remission, I can work circles around most people out there.

Unfortunately, the media have done an excellent job of convincing laypeople that CFS is either mental illness or laziness, so, unlike the person with, say, MS who "bravely" keeps working despite their (very similar) symptoms, we're portrayed as people who've finally gotten enough kicks in the butt to stop being too lazy to work. So, I went with definition rather than name: I have a chronic virus which is acting up again. My boss could grasp that concept; he knew people with herpes virus who had symptom-free periods and symptomatic periods but never completely got the virus out of their system.

Since I was diagnosed by a virologist researching CFS, I've always known my disease is "ahead of the curve" and I just have to wait for medical technology to catch up and prove to the skeptics that there's something physically wrong. I can now say with authority that CFS is a neuroendocrine illness with documented cardiorespiratory insufficiency in patients most severely affected. Maybe that's enough to move us from "lazily reducing work hours" to "bravely carrying on despite the symptoms".

Karen What is the book you are writing about ? Why would the fact that you write a book , interest an possible employer , unless it is related to the specific job , he is interviewing you for ? taking your line of reasoning , A possible employer might want to know when the book is about to be published, who is going to superwise the printing , proofread etc... which are enormous time consuming parts of publishing a book. He might also assume , [please note i try to play in your imaginary scene...] that if you have written 1 book , you might have another in the planning ...and take off time for writing this ,,,"after all" ,, he might think " she has already stoped working for a long period to write one book !!! so she could do it again " .......Unlike you i always told exactly why i worked or dodn`t work , what exactly i did or didn`t do. So once i wasn`t hired for one of those reasons ,,,,But sometime later i got a much better position ......And a free hand to change a whole educational system, and the hiring was exactly because i was straight forward with all my facts. As to making things for charity and writing them as a fact in your Cv for job hiring ???? Many of us make things for others, do some jobs for others, why should it interest your possible employer unless you are interviewing for some community related Social services, in which Voluntary jobs will be incorporated??? i keep reading this stories you tell here and i rub my eyes ??? maybe you should stick to fiction writing....it realy reads like a story to me ..... and last but not least , many of those `actions` you took , are usualy , noted down somewhere ,,, if an employer would be realy interested , he could ask you for refferences or other evidential papers .... And last but not least as i wrote before you tell us you did all this little `cover ups` ,, and than sign yourself as

How can i now trust any work you do ? or claims you make ??? mirjam still rubbibg my eyes in disbelief .