I just watched this absolutely terrific TED talk by Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and wanted to pass it along. It’s great. She has so much to say about women and leadership and confidence and balancing a career with family, and I think she is so right to say that these are changes we need to make in ourselves, first and foremost.

Just two things I observed that warranted this question: Notice that even though the audience agrees that fathers need to get a lot more comfortable staying home and sharing the kid-care, the thought still is offered (and received) mainly as a laugh line. Same point, inverted, regarding women and their tendency to start planning way too early on how they will balance work and kids – in Sandberg’s version women are a little nuts to worry about this even before they find a boyfriend (again, laughter).

But I think that the real answer here isn’t that women start planning their work-family conflicts too early.  I think that we generally encourage couples to start planning these divisions far too late. I notice that young women in law schools (often without boyfriends) are already agonizing about how to care for their kids and work full-time. That’s not because they are taking themselves out of the game.  It’s because they see it barreling down the tunnel and realize that it affects every decision they make. In my view both men and women need to start thinking about these issues well in advance of having children, and we need to stop seeing that kind of thinking and planning as fanciful or romantic.

Tags: work-life balance

In Your Comeback today, Emma Gilbey Keller asks for stories from women who out-earn their mates. We know you’re out there; one in three married women is in such a position today, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you’re racking in the cash while your husband pursues his low-paying dream, spends time with the kids, rebounds from a layoff, or works as your executive assistant, Emma wants to hear about it. E-mail her at emma@thecomebackbook.com, and she may post your response.

Tags: recession, salaries, work

When Reina Victoria was laid off last week, she faced a pile of bills for medical treatment without the means to pay them. Her husband, Ari, also recently became unemployed. The two have no financial stability and Reina has a dangerous condition that will force her to take blood thinners for the rest of her life. She describes her situation below. If anyone has ideas or helpful suggestions for Reina, please post them in the comments section. And if anyone else has been laid off and wants to write about it, send your post to me: emma@thecomebackbook.com.

I knew it was coming.

Everyone thought I was being ridiculous when I said that I would lose my job. I worked for a national company, and was well-liked for the work I did. But the signs had been there for six weeks. So when the president of my company called me in along with my sales rep, Ann, to see him and the HR person, I knew that it meant one thing: layoffs. My entire department was disappearing.

"This is nothing personal," he said to us. "We just need to reduce the company's overhead." That meant getting rid of the people who had been hired as part of a merger that had taken place 13 months before—four full-timers and three part-time people.

I had already deliberated the possibilities the previous night, after an hour of blissfully distracting yoga. Two weeks beforehand, I had been diagnosed with yet another blood clot. Five-and-a-half years ago, I'd had five blood clots (three of which were in my lungs), and was found to have a genetic factor that made me prone to these clots. After I'd finished treatment, the doctor said to me, "One more clot, and you're done"—meaning I would have to be on blood thinner medication for the rest of my life.

I was able to avoid the hospital this time around, but I had spent hundreds of dollars on my recovery. I went through seven days worth of shots. Although the doctor gave me several samples to use, each shot, which lasted for 12 hours, cost around $90, even with insurance. I had—and still have—to visit the doctor multiple times to make sure my blood levels are normal so I don't clot again or bleed to death. I’m paying for this with money my husband Ari and I don't have: He's been unemployed since December.

The night before I was laid off, Ari thought I was being neurotic. "There's no way they would let you go," he said to me. I loved my company and the people I worked with so much. I wish he'd been right.

After I packed my piles of stuff from my office, cried with former co-workers, and hit the road, I came home to Ari—who, with his money-centric mind, had already started thinking about a budget. It was certainly better than when I first called him, when he'd seemed to hyperventilate.

"It's going to be like when you were out of work the last time," he said. He was referring to two years ago, when I decided, a month before our wedding , to quit working for a horrible boss. We have savings, but when I was unemployed the last time, we went through almost all of them and had to completely rebuild—not an easy task when one person is not making any money.

It seems strange that since we have been married, we have had zero financial stability. Except for two months of our 21-month marriage, either I have been unemployed, he has been unemployed, or we were anticipating his unemployment (before he was laid off, Ari worked for an insurance company).

Now we were both unemployed, sharing the lone computer. Every couple of hours, we would trade use of it for our respective job hunts. We spent time with friends and my parents. Everyone told us things would be fine.

Then Sunday came, and Ari picked up Friday's and Saturday's mail. I saw the big pile of bills. Cable, cell phones, electricity—and the statement from the ultrasound I had on my leg to find the blood clot. The actual bill will come next week. That stack is like something out of a nightmare. Not only are there the normal bills, but we haven’t yet received bills for all the medication I’ve taken.

Later that day at a brunch, I ran into my yoga teacher. He asked what I was doing, and I told him about all the projects I was thinking about taking on in my unemployment—freelance editing projects, some ghostwriting, and getting back to work on a pet project.

"Well, you have a good attitude," he said. "That's what counts."

I smiled as the California sun shone down. Even though we have had financial problems, Ari and I will find a way to survive. You just have to go to the light. Two roads are coming together at this moment—the road to my wellness and the road to our financial stability. I don't know which one will end first for us. But at least we will be together in our journey.

Reina Victoria is a freelance editor and writer in Long Beach, Calif., who is still looking for work.

Photograph of Reina and her husband courtesy of Reina Victoria.

Tags: bills, blood clots, compelling medical treatment, unemployment

When I graduated from college, I followed the usual path of those with respectable but pointless humanities degrees: I became a low-paid summer intern. After that I tried to avoid real employment for the next two years, and it worked for the most part. But as I reached my mid-twenties I began to worry that if I ever wanted anything resembling a career—and I had decided at some point that I did—I would have to give in and become part of the nine-to-five tribe. The next three years were far from any corporate or workaholic hell. My job, reading and editing esoteric science articles, was engaging enough. I felt On Track.

So I decided to quit. Graduate school in journalism followed. I was happy to change career paths. That is, until this summer, with my newly minted degree in hand, I found myself poised to (deep breath) join the ranks of being an intern again. It wasn't completely unexpected. I knew both the economy and my industry were tanking. But I think it would feel a little less demoralizing if some of my fellow interns weren't just applying for their first credit card.

Now, I’m less than a year away from 30, and a 29-year-old intern raises a few eyebrows. I'm not in similar company. I've quit trying to fend off the inevitable surprise of my age by dropping hints with cultural references to the original Beverly Hills, 90210 or the '80s classic computer game Oregon Trail because I found myself turning into the lady who doth protest too much.

If I were five years younger, I might feel triumphant. Or, at the very least, normal. 29 is more like arrested development. So as an almost-thirty intern with scant job prospects on the horizon, I've decided that perhaps it's finally time to set goals on paper. Or the Internet. What follows is a count-up to the next decade, in which I aspire to shed my adolescent tendencies and come to terms with some of the designations of my age, even if a few of them might seem a bit late."

At 30: Get health insurance. Dear Obama and Congress: Please, please, please patch something together within the next eight months so I can have someone diagnose that occasional, but growing more frequent, pulsing in my right elbow joint, and because I think I may have four cavities.

At 31: Wean myself off my family cell phone plan, because it seems like the adult thing to do.

At 32: There's always that one year where it feels like everyone you know is getting married. Needless to say, the thought of a marathon wedding year is anxiety-inducing. I've somehow avoided it thus far, and I hope this won't be the year either.

At 33: I'm still amazed when people I know own an entire furniture collection plucked right from page 25 of the Pottery Barn catalog. I may not want page 25 or Pottery Barn, but it would certainly be nice to afford it.

At 34: Decide on children. Thirty-five is my artificial mental expiration date for having children. If I do want kids, I hope I'll have planned accordingly.

At 35: I'm not sure at what age it becomes utterly inappropriate to shop at Forever 21, but I'm resolved to put an end to my penchant for affordable but disposable clothes.

At 36: My career conversion calculator tells me that this might be a reasonable age not to be working for someone younger than me.

At 37: Be living in a fabulous metropolitan city without the need for roommates to supplement my rent.

At 38: Hire someone. I'm not the type of person who gets drunk from power, but I'd like to know how it feels to have the fate of others in my hand. Just once.

At 39: Pay off my student loans without any intimations of regret or bitterness. (The latter might be correlated to how well years 30 through 38 go.)

At 40: There's more to life than career and money. I'm going to make this an exceptionally aspirational year and wish for no gray hairs. Let's face it, aging and vanity are synonymous.

Tags: career, Columbia journalism school, intern

From the time I was fifteen I’d had a plan—I was going to be an orthopaedic surgeon. From then on I knew exactly where I’d be in ten years. Other people had similar plans. I pitied them when they didn’t make it into medical school, or flunked out, or graduated but couldn’t get a residency. I felt superior to them; I considered them dumb or weak.

Then, during my orthopaedic surgery residency, I discovered I was one of weak. The "humane" 80-hour work week was too much for me. I didn’t deal well with sleep deprivation. I became insensitive to patients. I became overly sensitive to the frequent verbal beatings I received when my superiors vented their frustration. As I became ever more miserable and depressed, I realized I couldn’t go on.

When I finally quit halfway through a five-year residency, the director of graduate medical education sent me to see a career counselor. She suggested I try another area of medicine. (Some people do find success and happiness in their second residency.) I was adamant against continuing in medicine. She suggested I volunteer at Planned Parenthood. She suggested I sell medical equipment. I knew I’d make a lousy salesman. I decided she was clueless. I had some savings, some time, and a new six-step plan.

Step 1—Pay the $600+ to take Step 3 of the United States Medical Licensing Exam.

Step 2—Pay the $300+ to get a Virginia medical license.

Step 3—Move back in with my parents until the completion of Step 4.

Step 4—Get a job at an urgent care clinic where I could make enough money to live, pay off my $115,000 in student loans, and get an English degree without incurring more debt.

Step 5—Get a job as an editor for WebMD where M.D.s and PhDs were desired but still had to have editing or journalism experience.

Step 6—Turn my editing experience for WebMD into a job editing science fiction, my favorite genre.

It seemed like a good plan. And at first it worked. Steps 1 and 2 were expensive but successful. Step 3 was painful but successful. Then I began work on Step 4. I filled out all the required paperwork. The hiring director at the chain of urgent care clinics I’d applied to said she was excited to employ me; she said they were understaffed.

Then I got a phone call: “I’m sorry. The Quality Assurance Board has decided not to hire you at this time. We would be happy to hire you once you have been accepted into another residency program.”

I was devastated. I stayed on the couch for a week crying. For the very first time in my life, I was entirely without a plan. All I knew was that I needed money fast. My savings was about to run dry. I had officially reached crisis mode.

Medical temp agencies wouldn’t take me (I think for liability reasons), so I hired myself out to a standard employment agency. Eventually, I got a job as a secretary for a Northern Virginia school system. The work was honest, respectable, and low-stress. I answered phones, organized mass mailings, and picked up and distributed mail. I was paid $23,000 per year.

I read Po Bronson’s What Should I Do With My Life? It was a good read though it didn’t tell me what to do with my life. I read What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles. I never found out what color my parachute was, but I followed all the advice for career changers. I tried to re-word my resumes to make my experience in medical school and residency seem valuable in another career. I wasn’t successful.

I was under-qualified. I was overqualified. There were not many entry-level, college-degree-but-no-experience jobs posted on the on-line job search engines. Those employers who did post didn’t seem to think my M.D. or my medical experience were much of a bonus—or at least they never responded to any of my applications. I applied for teaching vacancies and got a provisional certification to teach biology. I wasn’t hired. The degree I’d worked so hard for was practically worthless. It didn’t even qualify me to teach middle school health!

I gave up and resigned myself to life as a secretary Then, I was told that my position was being eliminated for the next fiscal year. Two days later, I went to Craigslist and found my salvation in this listing:

“Orthopaedic Research Associate. . . Job responsibilities will include developing research protocols, obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, collecting and managing data, performing statistical analyses and writing scientific manuscripts. . . . “

At last, a job that seemed created just for me. I actually had experience from medical school for everything they wanted. I applied the very next day. Less than one month after I sent in my resume, I had a new job that paid twice what I had made as a secretary. I didn’t have a 10-year plan, but the pains of underemployment and job hunting were over . . . for a while. I even believed that someday I might even finish paying of my loans.

I don't believe in 10-year plans anymore. I'm being downsized again in December—budget cuts.

Photograph of Cara Powers courtsey of the author.

Tags: Craigs list, doctor, medicine

I’m frequently asked about my transition from actor to writer, the assumption being that these two vocations are poles apart: one a gregarious career (acting), the other more solitary (writing). I haven’t found this to be true. As an actor, I spent inordinate amounts of time alone between gigs, isolating, thinking, fretting, while carrying on desultory conversations in my head with the many voices and characters of my inner-world. Nowhere to go with this material, I just kept it on an endless loop, festering in the far reaches of my unconscious, as if being out of work much of the time didn’t make me crazy enough.

After 20 years of slogging it out, my “acting career” hadn’t materialized the way I had envisioned, but other things had: a life, with a husband and a baby girl, living in the city I love. And all of a sudden, I began to feel very brave; I started to think about what happened with my failed career and why. The thought terrified me, so I knew I was onto something. I would sit nursing my baby, thinking of all the stories I had to tell her—stories about my life, some funny, some sad—and finally, one day while my daughter was sleeping, I sat down and typed one into my computer. Then another, and another, until I had a few stories completed and the idea for a memoir. I remembered a free developmental writing group with an open admission policy from my days in the theatre called Naked Angels Tuesdays@9 wherein each week, playwrights, novelists, screenwriters, memoirists, short-storywriters, singer-songwriters, and actors would get together to hear new work “hot-off-the-presses.” There was no feedback, no “industry” types invited; Tuesdays was all about providing a safe place for writers to get a sense—sheerly through audience response—of what clicked. I signed up, and as often as they would have me, read my pages aloud to 100 people I didn’t know.

My drama school mentor David Mamet had taught that acting isn’t about magic; it’s about exercising your will. I found the same to be true for writing. And the acting techniques he taught me applied as well to the writer’s craft: What is the character doing? What do they want? What did it look like, taste like, smell like? How did you feel? How did you really feel? Though many people think that to be a good actor, one has to be a good liar or a good “faker,” the opposite is true: A good actor is expert at telling the truth under imaginary circumstances. It takes a lot of work to get to those truths, a lot of faith and trust, and I can’t think of any better standard for writing—or any art—than to be duty-bound to excavate the truth.

Two years after I started writing down my stories, I showed three of them to a writer friend who enthusiastically recommended that I send them to her literary agent. Amazingly, he took me on, then helped me shape a proposal he sent out to publishers. A month later, I had a book contract. As I stood stunned, crying tears of joy to my reflection in the mirror, I suddenly realized that my home office (and by “home office” I mean walk-in closet with a makeshift plywood plank cum desk that sits atop two mismatched file cabinets; it’s cluttered, way too dark, with décor best described as Morocco Meets New England Tag-Sale, With a Soupcon of Hindu, and it’s absolute heaven ...) would not suffice. It was one thing to write a few stories in a closet—but a whole book? Besides, by that time, my toddler knew how to open the closet door. I looked into office space but quickly discovered it to be unaffordable, so I joined a workspace for writers in the Village called Paragraph, where, for a reasonable fee, I could have a desk and a lamp. I set up my schedule according to when I had babysitting: Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 10-5, I would spend the day at Paragraph. Later, when my daughter was in preschool or on play-dates, I would also work on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a few hours in my groovy, little closet. I tried not to work at night or on weekends, but there were times it was unavoidable—like when I was finishing the first and second drafts of the manuscript and on a tight deadline. Not having all the time in the world was a good thing for me: It made me focus, concentrate and commit—to my book and to myself. Did it mean that every day, every hour was well spent? No. There were plenty of times I thought I was kidding myself; that I was wasting my money, time, and precious moments with my kid.

“Ohhhhh! You’re the mother!” a neighborhood mom squealed one day when I took my daughter to the park. “We only ever see your husband and the babysitter ...”

I worried so often that I was a terrible writer and, worse, a terrible mother, that I frequently wanted to fling myself onto 14th Street. But, as a writer I've learned that even more crucial than discipline is self-forgiveness. The more I can forgive myself for falling short of my expectations—something, by the way, I was never able to do as an actor—the more I know that I will show up day after day to face the blank page and at the same time, my own insecurities.

If acting is “the art of behaving private in public,” as one of my acting teachers once put it, then perhaps writing is the art of behaving public in private. Either way, the idea is to put it out there and then ... let go. So now, instead of the convivial rehearsal rooms of my days in the theatre, the good (and bad) performances between curtains, the camaraderie of the greenroom, or the post-performance revelries, I spend my days at my desk, where I sit in front of a computer, by myself but certainly never alone. I am with the people I write about, the people with whom I have shared my life and experiences, and most of all, I am with myself, finally able to connect to feelings long ago buried, daring to answer questions I had once been too afraid even to ask.

Photograph of Nancy Balbirer courtesy of the author.

Tags: acting, David Mamet, Naked Angels, New York City, writing

I read Liza’s summary of Mimi Swarz’s take on mature women in the most powerful workplace in the world with some interest. After all, I’d previously written on the preponderance of single women in the Obama White House, lamenting the fact that a bold-face name like Melody Barnes put off marriage for years, in order to run policy in an administration poised to overhaul health care, energy action, and the economy. And it is perhaps telling that I thought of these women—Susan Sher, Valerie Jarrett, and Desiree Rogers included—as single women rather than empty-nesters. Of course, not all the women with grown kids are unmarried (see Hillary Clinton), but the empty nesting bit means that, “like their male counterparts of all ages, they don’t even have to think about the babysitter.” When you put it that way, it sounds kind of great.

Rachel Swarns parsed some of this for a recent story in the Times about how family life remains difficult for those members of Obama’s staff who have children still at home. The 60-70 hour weeks sound even rougher when the job is to save the planet, or the economy—and the pain seemed to know no gender:

Peter R. Orszag, the White House budget chief who is a divorced father of two, works so many weekends that he often imports his parents to help care for his 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. “We’re still sort of groping here,” Mr. Orszag said.

As for Mr. Emanuel, he recently squeezed in a swim with his two daughters, 9 and 11, at 5 a.m. “No matter how much the president tries—and he and Michelle try, they do—the White House is brutal on family life,” said Mr. Emanuel, who has struggled to make time for his wife and three children since they moved here from Chicago.

After being tipped off by a XX-sympathetic friend at 1600 Pennsylvania, I found that the White House is even less pro-family than you’d think. For all Michelle Obama's paeans to work-life balance, maternity and paternity leave has never been guaranteed to federal employees—including those working for Obama. It wasn't until June of this year that the House of Representatives passed a bill correcting this marked divergence with the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act—a vote still likely to be torpedoed in the Senate, thanks to its $938 million pricetag. According to one critic:

"These are tough times, regardless of what industry you're in," said Rep. Christopher Lee, R-N.Y. "Think about the retail workers who are being forced to do more with less. Think about that, when Washington turns around and offers more generous fringe benefits to public sector employees."

Ouch. I hadn't thought of caring for a newborn as a "fringe benefit"—but apparently only 53 percent of private companies offer similar time off. And their duties do not, presumably, include running the free world.

As Liza writes, this doesn't affect the women on top. To get to the level of expertise needed in the White House War Room, you’re most likely at least 40. But if you’re somewhere just under there, it seems you’re no longer allowed to procreate—because when the baby comes, you’d be Compromising National Security by Leaving to Raise Your Child. The horror!

It would be nice to see the "pro-family" president lean on Congress to get this bill to his desk.

Photograph of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and his son Ethan by Aude Guerrucci/AFP/Getty Images.

Tags: maternity leave, politics, white house, women in power, work life balance, working families

Well, I'm glad the famous ones have off-days, too. Susan Orlean (staff writer at The New Yorker, author of The Orchid Thief, Meryl Streep muse) has been tweeting this morning about how hard it is to be an at-home writer—especially if you're a woman and a mother. She first posted: "When I was pregnant people said, Yr job is so flexible—perfect w/a baby! Clearly, they knew nothing about writing and/or kids." This has touched off a conversation between Orlean and other Twitterers about women and writing, a favorite topic here at the XX Factor. Orlean and her readers are discussing whether women have different styles of focus than men do, the extent to which writing is different from other professions, and why there are no "queens of non-fiction."

I certainly sympathize with the difficulties of being an at-home writer—which is why I'm currently sitting in a drop-in freelancer's cubicle here at the Slate Group's swanky new West Village office. (Thanks Slate Group!) Part of me thinks that working from home might actually be easier with kids around, since my problem has always been how vast and echo-y my apartment seems to become whenever I have to shift from, say, television-watching into work mode. The emptiness of the apartment begins to reflect the emptiness of the page, both start freaking me out, and then I just go back to watching television.

Of course, you can't tactfully avoid kids with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, the way you can tune out office-mates when you really need to concentrate. (At least, I'm guessing you can't?)

Work-at-home XX-ers, what are your coping mechanisms? And do you think it really is worse for women—and moms? And finally, what's your verdict on Twitter and writing: helpful social lifeline, or insidious procrastination tool?

Tags: freelance, office, Susan Orlean, women writers

Meghan, thanks so much for posting about the importance of female mentorship. I'm no physicist (anymore) but with many friends plus a mom in science, I am especially sensitive to the need for and frequent lack of XX mentorship in these disciplines. We've all heard reports that Americans lag behind in the hard sciences generally—but less reported is the fact that women rarely take on the quant-heavy jobs that do exist, or that tenured female science and engineering faculty are almost nonexistent. Then there are the other, real disadvantages talked about in the Fisman/NBER report.

Some of this, of course, has to do with lifestyle choices (cough, kids) that take female mentors out of the workplace. Some of this has to do with a distinct confidence deficit among junior and mid-level female workers that keep them from being top brass (one former employer told me that the women who interviewed for jobs often had better resumes than the men, but couldn't sell themselves in person, and lost the job). But can't we also blame men in these disciplines who are less willing to mentor young women? Perhaps they are just not that into helping women along; or fearful that accusations of impropriety might fly. But in male-heavy fields, what's wrong with dudes lending a hand?

Enter "Smart Girls At The Party." This may seem like an oblique reference, but somehow, this regular ON Network show—featuring Amy Poehler and friends supporting young women in hilarious, Christopher-Hitchens defying fashion—really speaks to me on the issue of underrepresentation and female mentorship. In this episode, a charmingly gregarious second-grader named Ruby broke it down on friendship, feminism and more, while Poehler and company, veterans of improvisational comedy, provide a real-time example of their craft to the little tot. That is to say they offer an enthusiastic "YES" to her every suggestion—including weeping on demand. Watch:

May Ruby grow up to have a fine career in psychotherapy, or pop stardom.

Tags: feminism, mentors, smart girls at the party, women, women in the workplace

Double X's Emily Bazelon has been writing an ongoing "recessionitis" series on how the recession is affecting family, work, and life. At the end of her last piece, she asked readers whether they'd been forced to move homes, cities, or even countries because of the economic downturn. She'll be posting her piece with the results next week, but there were too many moving stories to include in one short article. So this week, the On-Ramp will be running serialialzed excerpts of emails from some of those readers who were kind enough to share with us their stories of how the recession has shifted their mobility.

"In August of last year more than 200 people overflowed the largest conference room available in my office in 30 Rockefeller Plaza. We were all told that our job was being outsourced to another provider based in Malvern Pennsylvania. The delivery was so well-crafted most people left with a smile on their face. After digesting the information, and analyzing their incessant requests to not consider the move a ‘layoff' I began to get suspicious. They promised everyone that if they want to keep their job, they would have a position for them in Malvern. I assume they were expecting most people to decline the offer since most people living in New York would not willingly move to suburban PA for a mediocre job. They even offered a sweetheart deal for most along with several bonuses and a relocation package. Originally I expected a large wave of notices after each retention bonus was paid out, but other than a few people, no one left and waited out until the bitter end. I'm a 23-year-old with no debt or obligations and parents in the immediate area, so I had no objection to hitting up the job market again. I started applying in September and after a few interviews I realized the bonuses I was promised were not reasonably going to be matched by competing firms so I stopped looking until the bonus paid out. A month before the final bonus I started looking for jobs again and noticed a dramatic reduction in the job postings. Not every job posting especially promising but without them I just felt that all hope was lost. Two weeks before my last day with the firm I decided on the whim to forgo the 8 weeks severance I was promised, along with unemployment, for the mediocre job in suburban PA. It took a lot to swallow my pride but at least I'm in good company, as a significant amount of employees took the job. Now I just hope all those large relocation packages my firm offered don't sink the bank!"—Branko

"In 2006, I changed jobs and moved from the New York suburbs to Atlanta, partly for a job opportunity and partly to be closer to my father, who was having health problems. (He died about six months later.) The small company where I was working ran into financial problems, and I was laid off less than a year after I started. A few months later, I got a job at a larger company that I hoped would be more stable. I moved from Atlanta to Philadelphia. Less than a year later, the company "reorganized" and I was laid off again. I've been unemployed since late last year. Happily, I was just offered a new job, and I'm about to move to Washington DC. I'm hoping that will be my last move for a while! Even though I was glad to find new jobs in new cities, moving has some significant down sides. After I was laid off the last time, I had some health problems. My family was far away, and since I'd only been here a few months, I hadn't made any close friends yet. Most of the people I'd met were co-workers, and many of them had been laid off as well, and had moved to find new jobs. It was very hard to be in the hospital and have no one close to me to call on for help. It made me realize how important it is to have people around you who care about you, something that's difficult if you have to move every year or two. Phone calls and email aren't the same. I'm hoping that my next job will be more long lasting, and I'll be able to meet people and settle down in my new city. "—Karen

"The reason I'm writing: I'm part of a distinct demographic of young individuals who have left my home state in droves. I'm a former video and television producer and even used to do my job directly for the government of Michigan and helped our Governor tape video messages imploring young folks like myself to stay. I was an intern, and my need for health insurance and benefits started to become an issue. The state didn't have the ability to hire me full time. So off to the private sector I went; working at a TV station in Lansing, MI making the saddest TV commercials ever for G.M. and Hummer dealers who couldn't sell their wares, with an office window that looked across the street at a G.M. assembly plant being torn down. I shotgunned my resume and went from the state of highest unemployment to one of the lowest--Wyoming. I was gobbled up by a high tech/video production hybrid firm that provides stock footage and makes iPhone apps for NCAA sports and all sorts of high end video logistics. I guess my story is this: I couldn't find a job in Michigan if I tried. Even the people who WANTED to hire me couldn't, and even Governor Granholm who wanted to keep a burgeoning creative class in state couldn't pull any strings - the money and bureaucratic agility just weren't there."—Craig

Tags: Emily Bazelon, life, mobility, recession, relocating for the recession, unemployment, work