This is a story about TanjaNest, a reader that recently joined the site. Like so many of us, Covid-19 forced some changes on her family. A huge thanks to Tanja for sharing her story. This is all very new to her so feel free to reach out with any praise, questions or support for her. We had a phone conversation which I recorded and paraphrased in the blog below.
Hello Emma. Thank you. My husband and I have been married for nearly sixteen years, we got married after I became pregnant with our daughter who is now 17 years old. We live in the US in Colorado and I think we are a mostly normal family. Back in March when the pandemic struck, my husband lost his job with a resort hotel. I previously was a teacher but my credential did not apply in the US so I opened a franchise tutoring business. Since the pandemic struck, I've barely been able to keep up with demand.
Originally from Sweden but my family moved to the US in 2001 so one would think the accent would be gone. When I speak to my family, it becomes more noticeable.
Yes. My husband got laid off and he had a stressful job with a resort. It began as a two week furlough and eventually it became clear that he would not be returning. While it was furlough, it seemed like a vacation but became more real once they told him the job was no longer waiting for him. We had a great partnership but his job loss made him feel depressed. For the first several weeks, he would sit at home and watch tv the whole day.
It is true, my job was doing very well because so many kids were struggling with distance learning. We have three campuses with a fourth planned for early 2020 so I am keeping very busy but we are needing to grow so fast that I am not bringing more money home. Due to this we needed to evaluate our finances.
We had a gardener, a cleaning lady and frequently order take-out meals. We knew that despite my husband's state unemployment checks we were still bringing home much less money and those would need to be cut drastically. We agreed that my husband would pick up the slack on those things while he was without work.…
