Written by: Kaitlin Hurley
When interviewing my mother for my feature story, her answers to my questions gave me an insight into her life and also inspired me. When asked about her childhood, she gave me an in-depth depiction of it to better understand who she is now. Joan grew up in a loving two-family home with one sister, her parents, with her grandparents living upstairs. She says that having her grandparents live with her made her extremely close to them and played an instrumental part in her childhood years. She says, “Having my grandparents live with me shaped me into who I am today.” Joan excelled in high school and then decided to go to college. She and her sister were the first in her family to go to college because her parents encouraged and supported her to further her academics, and they wanted more for her than the education they received. She got her degree in social work and began working in healthcare. After having two children under the age of 2, Joan decided to be a stay-at-home mom because she didn’t want to miss the important years of her children. Her husband supported her through this because he knew it would be best for her, me, and my brother. She did not miss working because she loved spending time with her kids, family, and friends and claims she was never bored. Joan says that her husband was so supportive of her decision to be a stay-at-home mom that he worked six days a week and worked twelve-hour days to support her and the family. When her kids were in middle school, she decided to go back to work as a social worker in healthcare. She decided to return to work because she felt she needed to change her life, make some money, and help her husband because her kids would soon go to college someday. Joan wanted to be independent and make her own money because she had been financially dependent on her husband for so long. She felt it was time to go back to the workforce, and it was time to let her kids be on their own. Joan says, “Never rely on a man for money. Make your own money and rely on yourself.” She does not regret the time spent with her kids at home, but she wanted to be financially independent. Her husband Paul was hesitant about her returning to work after being home for so long but began supporting her yearning to go back to the workforce because this is what she really wanted. Her husband understood that she wanted to contribute money to the family and, in a way, be independent. A hard part of a career in social work was not having enough hours in the day and “taking the job home” with her. Some of the residents become like family. She tells me the hardest part of her career in social work was working through the pandemic. My mother is a healthcare hero. While everyone was staying home and quarantining, Joan went to work every day in a nursing home in Jamaica, Queens. Most of the patients in the nursing home had COVID because the disease ran rampant, and the patients were unfortunately dying. Joan tells me they had little to no PPE or personal protective equipment such as gowns, gloves, and masks. They had no access to N-95 masks, and she wore the same surgical mask every day because there were none. She tells me she fed these patients who had COVID with nothing to protect herself except a surgical mask. She told me, “Working through the pandemic was the most physically and mentally exhausting experience I’ve ever had.” Most of the patients my mother had treated in the nursing home had sadly passed away because these elderly patients were old and immunocompromised. COVID affected Joan personally because working in the conditions that she did emotionally drained her and made her feel hopeless. Most of the residents in the nursing home died, so there wasn’t a job for my mother to do anymore; therefore, she was laid off. “I went into my car and cried and was so scared how I would support my family. I took a deep breath and felt a sense of relief.” Everyone who worked in healthcare during the pandemic will never forget that time in their life. She did not have a job for a few months until her husband ran into an old friend, and that moment changed her life. That friend said his wife was hiring and asked Joan to send her resume, so she did. She got an entry-level job as a financial representative in a rehabilitation center. She told me, “I was so nervous about changing careers this late in life, but it is never too late.” She was eager to learn everything there is to know about working in finance and excelled at her new job. She told me it wasn’t that extreme of a change because she is still working with patients, which she enjoys. She says that switching over from social work to finance was a change for her, but she had been laid off during the pandemic, and when the opportunity arose, she took it. The job was working in accounts receivable in a nursing home/rehab, working with insurance companies, so there were definitely similarities, and she enjoys learning new things. Joan started as an accounts receivable representative, where she had an amazing boss who trained her, provided guidance and support, and eventually was promoted to supervisor. She used many skills, such as listening, working with her teammates, and learning from other leaders, to become a manager eventually. Joan couldn’t be happier with where she is in her career and in her life. Her path changed a few times along the way from a stay-at-home mom to a few different jobs, but she can say with great certainty that she feels where she is now is where she is supposed to be. If Joan could change one thing, she says, “I wish my mom was still alive to share in this wonderful life that I have with my amazing family.”
