I'm a lone parent on benefits at the moment - not a position I ever expected to be in, but there you go. I have been in this position for around a year. I am qualified in a professional career and have almost ten years experience working in it. Currently I do not have paid employment. I have a 2yo DC at home with me all day and a 6yo at school.
Life has been pretty shit for a while but I am keen to get back to work and start rebuilding it.
So here is my dilemma: I could apply for jobs now doing the exact same thing I did for 10 years - so picking up where I left off, basically.
Or, I could work towards getting some voluntary experience and additional qualifications in a specialised branch of my profession which I am particularly interested in, then in a year's time apply for jobs within that specialism. This means staying on full lone parent benefits for an extra year.
If I go back into my usual job it will be full time and I won't be able to do the voluntary work I want to do to gain experience in the specialism. Nor will I have time or energy for gaining the extra qualification I'd like.
But I feel like a bit of a fraud staying on benefits when I could be working if I chose to. And my life really has been shit these last couple of years. I want to start a new chapter ASAP and I think a new job could be just the ticket.
As an aside, financially I won't be noticeably any better off in work because of the childcare costs and because it is not a high paying profession. But that's not particularly relevant here.
So - what would you do?