I understand that you women come from all parts of the state and that you are generally the leaders group leaders of various extension groups within your home areas. And so I hope that the message that we can stress today will be something not just for yourselves but something that you can take back home to those women who might need to hear what we have to say today. I'm going to allow a considerable part of our time for questions and answers because I want this message to be that well geared to you that you will feel import into what I have to say. So I would really like to stress a few things to you.And then ask you to say back to me what you want to hear and then we'll talk from there. I'm just in a general way today. We're facing a time in our history where perhaps one of America's longest oldest heritage's of the woman in the home is being it's not question. Just downright disregarded for a whole number of reasons.And I find that this is true. Not just in the large cities where I am now living but that it is true out in Rural America is well that in fact was the reason for writing the book the woman's guide to re-entry employment because I found that an awful lot of women out in the rural areas are faced with that problem of having to re-enter the job market after being away for a while and I found that those women felt terribly isolated because for the most part their friends were other full-time Homemakers or part-time Homemakers part-time Farm hands, whatever the jobs might might be categorized as what they were women who it who are not working.And so there seemed to be no place for them to turn no one for them to talk to in large cities. There are programs many programs that are geared to helping women to go back to work. But I used to use in my mind set an imaginary woman, which I created in my little world as I was writing this book. I don't believe you ever heard of the town of Welcome Minnesota to baptize two boys by 25 or 30 miles south of Mankato, which is where I lived for 25 years and I used to picture in my mind by fantasy woman sitting at her kitchen table after the kids are gone off to school one morning and Welcome Minnesota saying I've got to do something.Her reasons might be many sometimes the reasons were because the night before her husband had said sorry babe. Ain't no more I'm leaving. Maybe the reason was that her husband had just died and she sat down and she figured out I have this many years of Social Security coming in while my children are still under age 18, but when the last one is 18, I'm all done. What am I going to do then? How will I support myself that incidentally was the feeling that I had when my husband died very suddenly I had always thought of my income is being supplemental that I had gone back to work to help out and that it was extra income into the family and all of a sudden my youngest was 19 years old and I realized that at age 49, I'm 51 now. So you going to get your fingers busy at age 49. I was looking forward to 16 years, which I would have to work no more Chi it's nice to be able to work now it was I solved that problem. However, I got married but really couldn't blame on the government. So I needed a husband. Actually, the reason for getting married again when I said I went on a book writing trip all by myself for three months in a motorhome went through Houston, Texas and my mother were they eating 7 years old now to look up Jack Shoemaker whom I had dated many many years ago and Shoemaker. How many kids does he have now and she said all he never married. But I looked him off instead of again. I'm sure glad he never married? Can you imagine the culture shock? This fellow was in for when he got on his wedding day acquired for kids and son-in-law to grandchildren and a mother-in-law and we brought the whole drive through Texas for a good old family Christmas and he just sat in Grimm the whole time the whole week. They were there just grin. But for many women who I left alone, as I was the fates are not quite as kind and they must face that realization that they must support themselves for the remainder of their work here is until they are eligible for at least a minimum Social Security return which is at age 60 for a widow. And so for these women it is a very very frightening aspect to one day just be dumped with the rat with that kind of reality. There also are women. That we've sort of told in the past by you made your bed now sleep in it. If you didn't want kids shouldn't have had them but one day they said I'm hitting the kids. I'm screaming at him all the time. I've got to get out of the house and do something besides just stay here and scream at these kids. And so they are saying what are my options? What can I do? And then there are the women whose family is very much intact. Love their job is Homemakers But realize that money just is not stretching like it used to But maybe times are a little hard now and they can't quite make it financially. and so they need to get out of their home and get out and earn some somehow or in some extra money to help get this family through Maybe it's time for the kids to be going off. The older ones to be going off to college. How do you support a college education these days there lots of programs. If you're really poverty level up the financial help but you happen to have a farm and so much money tied up in capital on that farm in the lights for that. Those are not ask that that you can take out of the bank and write a check for them off to college somewhere and yet we want our children to have an education especially if they wanted for themselves. So there are many reasons that women are thinking about going back to work. Some of them may not have told you yet that this is their thought but the thought is real and is burning inside of them for whatever reasons. And so is that I hope you will regardless of your own personal feelings about going back to work about leaving a family about all of the negatives. We've heard over the years about working women regardless of how you personally feel. I hope you will indulge us to talk about something that is very very important to a lot of women. It is life shattering and life shaking for them. Generally speaking women tend to undersell themselves. It's part of our upbringing isn't it? Great job we did but great dinner we made. When we have been Homemakers that even get stronger a man goes out he works and he got a raise at his job or the crops came in well and them to buy some new equipment and put some money into the bank or whatever. He's hey, I was successful this year, but women are not reading program to think of themselves as successful. And so when the time comes for them to go into the job Arena, they feel very ill prepared because they don't believe that they're really good at anything except being a homemaker. So, where do you start? What can you craft that a woman can offer to an employer? my feeling is that probably the most important step and the first step in returning to work has to be the thing that's most often disregarded and that is planning. Women generally enter the workforce re-enter the workforce out of a crisis situation family financial crisis personal crisis, whatever and so and doing so they quick gram for the paper pulled pick it up look at it and say, oh my gosh, there's nothing in the paper. What am I going to do an absolute Panic sets in And my advice is that a woman who is thinking in this line of the chief wants to must whatever but he is going to have to go back to work must start my planning. And that planning starts very first step is why am I going back to work? Why am I even thinking about it? And the reasons should be at least once written down. Honestly, a lot of women make the very serious mistake of saying I've been would never understand that and so she sells herself will get the extra money that I can sell it on that basis. Well, even if that's the basis that's necessary to sell it and I don't Advocate that that we misrepresent. But even if that is the basis on which you're going to sell this idea to your husband at least once be honest with yourself, at least once honestly indicate why it is that you want to go back to work. Because I need to feel good about me because I'm so sick of being used as a volunteer. I'd like once to get paid for something worthwhile that I do whatever the reason and there may be many reasons. Maybe it starts out as a little knowing idea that she would be nice to go back to work and then suddenly some big Bill start looming in and then it becomes much more important but list all of the reasons totally and honestly with yourself so that you know, why all the reasons for going back to work and maybe some reasons for not going back to work and wave them out consider them as options. Then I think it's important to look at what skills do I have to offer an employer? I remember now. This is coming before we even pick up the first one at section. What skills do I have to offer an employer? Not that never did anything when she got married all does raped kids. That's why I'm practicing my Just raise kids. Just took care of the family checking account. Jobs task I could never do you should have seen me when I was alone and had to balance checking account that we got it all squared away. And then fortunately I met Jack and I said jack is not one of my good thing. I do a lot of things. Well, I have confidence in myself a lot of things but math is not one of them. But that is an accomplishment to have handled the the records for the family farm or business. That's an accomplishment. To have been a 4-H leader. That's an accomplishment. It takes a certain kind of skill, even if you found out from this kids all kinds of them around all the time every week and all these little field trips and all that stuff, but we still did it and we made it. Says something for the woman who did it. Maybe for three years running you were in charge of the annual church dinner. You had to line up all these women and get these tickets printed and get some some kind of a press release written by have a workshop on press release is Stephen. So you're going to have to be able to say write that down and you're in your list of things. I attended a workshop on writing press releases. You have some kind of experience no matter what Endeavor you went into all of those volunteer jobs that we think we're all walleye with only. They are important if you are going back to work. The woman who took care of people like screen to a hospital for example and delivered flowers one day a week or greeting cards to the patients there develop a certain kind of rapport with those people. At one of the nice things about that is that when the time comes that you want to use that for a reference you can go back to those people that were supervising those projects you did have hey they're going to say nice things about you cuz you did it at the volunteer. So those are all assets that you have to offer an employer. But I think the next step probably is to list the things that you like to do really like to do know. I really like to work with figures. I don't think it's in your position of part. I really like to work with people. I am very good at teaching a youngster how to crochet. I am very patient when The Neighbor brings over her four kids and I have my five home on a rainy day. I somehow I make it through. I'm pretty good with kids. I served dinners at the last six Church dinners in dumb. People always said I was very good at it. All things you like to do + things you're good at now and put these two together. You can start to see some kind of picture of things that you can do. You can take those lists into a state employment office and they can help you actually put them together to match them up with jobs. I mention the newspaper before. Newspapers I always have not always terribly expensive and hard times such as these but they are one source and only one source of looking at the job situation and I have found generally that the harder times are in terms of numbers of jobs. The harder things I the less said you was seeing the paper and the more employers will go to things that don't aren't so bothersome to them. And the most bothersome way to advertise for help is actually put an ad in the paper because you get a big response. Now if you want lots of people to come in and apply for lots of job. Then you have that alternative advertising your paper. However, if you're looking for someone with certain skills, maybe you are looking for a mature woman who handles people well, Who maybe can learn to do some kind of job that you would like her to do a person for the job. You can't put woman in the paper because it's supposed to be the law says that the job has to be open to anybody but other employer you have an idea what you want. Do you want for this job? So what do you do if it's available? You might go to a private employment agency and say I'm looking for a woman 40 45 50 years old somebody who really knows how to handle people who have come a lot of empathy for people. That's pretty specific. But that's what you do. If you are looking for somebody very specific or you might talk to somebody in your office or in your company and say what do you know that might be interested in going to work? That's a really important trigger, especially out in areas where you are not jam-packed into large neighborhoods is to check with your neighbors and friends. Let them know that you're interested a lot of us get very uptight about the fear of failure not to tell all my friends. I'm going to work or I want to go to work until I get a job because what if I don't get one in they'll say oh boy look at her she was going to go out and get a job. And we worry about that. But actually the most one of the best sources particularly for women. The best sources of finding jobs is through the people that they know. because It's your neighbor down the road. Who knows I throw and throws daughter-in-law who is pregnant now and it's going to be leaving in three months from her job. They haven't even advertised this job yet. Haven't gone to an employment agency. I'm putting in the paper three months. She's going to leave. I think I will stop by there sometime when I'm in the area of that business and check and see and when you go in your say I hear there might be an opening in this department and I wanted you to know that I was interested in that job. If you're really looking for a job, you're going to find a job. If you are really looking for work of some kind you're going to find it where where we're all here. We'll talk about that in just a minute. But if you are looking for work, you will find it and now you need all the help you can get to get the right kind of job. And so you rely on your friends you rely on those people who are in and out of town in and out of businesses and who know who is out there working now and who might be needing somebody You also go to private employment agencies. If you have them in your in your near vicinity now generally private employment agencies require a fee to be paid and that's important to know what that fee is before you actually go in and apply with them. It's a good idea to find out ahead of time. But before you sign anything at least you ought to know what their fee is. Some places some employment agencies the employer pays the fee and if they do that's fine then worry about it. But in other cases you may have to pay up to a month salary for that job. However, if it's the only way you're going to find out about the job is through that employment agency that company can go to that employment agency and hire somebody they're going to have to type in paper. So if you can get the job that way and maybe the only way you're going to get the job. And so that is an important source to the private Employment Agency. Okay. Now what do we do about this business of don't have can't find jobs way out here. again You must of course go in some cases to where the jobs are was telling you last night, but she has a part-time job with a couple nights a week and she drives 50 miles to that job, and I thought I would drive an hour day an hour in in an hour back home again to get to their jobs. So I'm actually a 50 mile drive while it can be expensive but it is not currently is not that unrealistic. Because they're an awful lot of people that do that. I read. Last night a little blurb that came so I can find it here. This was in the motel room and it said Howard been filled Sky than there is an article in this song. This is the May issue and there's an article about a young woman who was a student the journalism student has Howard been filled and she used to work for has believe some just some local newspaper at any rate. She has written a book that says how you can make $20,000 a year writing no matter where you live. And that's what she is doing. And she is succeeding. So you might give that some thought what other ways can you make money where you live what other kinds of crafts do you have? For example skills, I should say such as craft their craft shops all over the United States. That I looking for things that are made. But can be sold. There's a great Resurgence of interest in homemade things. And I think that with some exploration or example through craft magazines, you might find some leads on who some of those people are that are looking for that kind of thing because I see things in Houston stores that are hand-made hand-crafted selling for very nice price. Is it come from all over the United States now that I go back I'll probably find something from Fargo and I wish I'd have seen it before that. I could tell you how far from this area of, North Dakota. But this is a possibility. But it requires some planning some imagination and some creativity. I think that probably the most important asset that a woman must acquire before she goes out to look for a job is the belief the sincere belief that she has some value as a person. And then just a person not is George's wife not is Junior's mother. But as a person in her own, right, I believe very strongly that all of you have that or you would not be here today. You would not be in this position that you're in if you did not feel comfortable with yourself that you have something to offer that you are a person of value. And then you that needs to be told to an employer one of the interviewers this morning. I was on a radio on a television show this morning. And one of the interviewers said, how do you how do you convince an employer that being a homemaker and being a volunteer is important important enough to get a job? And I think that that's not really the question is how do you believe it? How do you convince yourself? Because if you go in to apply for a job and someone says well, let's see what kind of experience do that. We never did much, but see I was just a just a homemade tutu housewife just a homemaker just us whatever just to volunteer staff how the employer will see you as just. But if you can go in to apply for a job and say but I've not had actual work experience for a number of years climate field. However, I have done the following things as a homemaker and a mother managing a home with so many children in it and doing these things for the farm doing these things for my husband's business and whatever and if you present your credentials that way That employer will see you have a good impression of yourself. And that will give him a good impression of himself. There is nothing wrong with saying I can do things well. We too often as women particularly have been inclined to put ourselves down somebody sit on a nice dress on. Someone says your hair looks like all Kyle and I really need to put into it. Tell me that you did a nice job and it's nothing then arms and elbows and everything off for three months on this job. And then we said cuz I always used to tell my students when I was teaching job application skills stand in front of the mirror and say good morning. Very nice to be here. Good morning. How are you and be dressed the way you want to look? The best you think you can look and stand there and get used to the idea how that's how are you good morning? Good morning and feel good when you're so don't laugh at my mirrors, please. They're very important. I think what I would like to do now is to stop my talking and to give you a chance to ask questions. And I hope that you will be very honest with me. And if you think I'm all wet on something, that's fine. I've heard that for years from people and it doesn't phase me in the least cuz I know one brother. Don't feel very pretty please to disagree but also let's hear The Way It Is in North Dakota and the way that you think it needs to be or what you need to know in order to face the situation as it is here. Okay questions. I think that that's probably the most unique problem that women face aside from their own insecurities and everybody is insecure when they go looking for a job, but that question of guilt and too often women deal with it in the wrong way. I think the important thing is to anticipate that it might be there and then to make adequate arrangements for the children set up certain guidelines for the children. For example, you do not call Mommy at the office unless it or store or wherever unless it is a real emergency. You are going to have to solve some problems you and your sitter or you and your older sister or you and whoever is in charge of the children after school or when you ever you are not in the home. They are going to have to solve some problems and then we will have a time after I get home where we can talk about those problems, but I think the dealing with the guilt is the thing that must be really seriously looked at before any woman go. Back to work too often. I have seen women who are they kept house they ran here and they ran kids here and there and did sort of the normal things that mothers do and then they went to work and where they would have felt perfectly comfortable before thing. I'll gosh I can't make brownies for the the 4-H group this week because I've got some other things going on or I have to work over at the church because I'm volunteering over there or I have to work at something else that I volunteered for suddenly when they are employed and I must collect my children. So instead of one batch of brownies, you make three then then somebody says all hey we need a leader for this little boy scouts or boy Cub Scout Troop, and you know, you're so good if you we see you on the job and you just so terrific on the job and and how about if you would take this little Scout Troop now before you would have said hey honey, I can't stand more than my 7 year old is 10 seven-year-olds forget it ain't going to do it now suddenly my child because I'm working. Well, I suppose this is the way I can prove to my child that I really still love him. And so you take the Scout Troop and we get into what I described as being the super mom and just doing way more than we ever done before I always have I made my daughter's dresses for the prom. Well, so this year I have to make a dress because I've always made my daughter's dresses. So they should we buy address. Or this year. She makes the dress and I helped her with it. But to try to keep all those things going at once is really a problem for a woman. She has to start sorting out. What's really a priority. What do her kids and her husband and she like to do together maybe that I can get away once in a while and go camping over a weekend Oh, but now I'm working I have to stay home and do all this housework. Okay gang here. We're going to have a little family conference. Not mom is working and we all want to go camping next weekend. But normally I clean on Saturday is not how we going to work this how you can blackmail him into it. Believe me. You can Bill do it if they know it's for a camping trip until they all pitch in and help but that problem if it isn't just the woman don't feeling of guilt it's what her sister-in-law tells her. Believe me. I know it's what her mother tells her. You cared about those children. You certainly stay home. Nothing at all has nothing to do with staying home father's care for their children and they go to work. Doesn't say it doesn't mean the same thing as before if you didn't want to have kids. Why did you take care of kids? Why did you have maybe I didn't know I had them. Do you want to stay home and take care of it? I didn't would you believe when I got married. I was an only child. I thought big families greatest thing in the world. I want 12 kids. Python the third one came by that G3 is a nice family when the fourth one came of the what do I do now? But to alleviate that guilt the best thing to do is to take a look at it to talk it over with your kids and say Hey, you know, I love you, but now it comes to time when I must go to work or when I need this. I need to work with a very well-educated rural America today women as well as men and a lot more women in Rural America. I see are finding themselves frustrated because they have an education and they have some experience and they had they seen some of the world and then all of a sudden the whole world is transformed for them into a very what they see is very narrow. Now that's not to put down the women who believe that it is Broad and we see it is Broad. They're just seeing it from different different angles. And so the happy the woman was happy as a homemaker has a hard time relating to that but the woman was not happy as a homemaker also has a hard time relating. But guilt guilt come and if it isn't dealt with straight up it becomes a problem. Well today fortunately there are a lot of vehicles that are there to help to protect you from that happening because companies are not allowed now and I put a quotation marks not allowed to pay you less money than they pay a man for doing the same job proving. It is a little more of a difficult situation. However the records if you if you find that you truly are in a situation such as that the thing to do then is to contact the division of employment for your state and find out what is the procedure who is the person to contact in your particular area and very off and now I think in the last year or two, I've seen it more of a reverse there used to be these long drawn-out battle if it really got terribly angry and everybody was really feeling hateful by the time it was over with but I think that now Takes only Mini cases just a little nudge from an agent state agency to remind an employer that this is the way he is operating and that he may not or she may not operate that way and so it is up to us to again make our feelings known into make our what's happening to us to make to bring it out into the open and I just sit back and quietly take it that's another thing women are accustomed to doing it just sitting back very quietly and taking it and I don't think that that's the that's the way to go. I particularly if you are in a position of supporting a family by yourself. I know it's a little different a little easier to swallow that kind of discrimination if your income is kind of supplemental and you like the job anyway, and there's enough to go around but if you are the sole support for a family that makes a whole different ball game out of it and I believe that women have a responsibility to stand up for their rights to be paid equally for equal work. Bra, and I will I will preface this by saying that in my job at the Mankato Vo-Tech. I was very involved with the industry's throughout the area worked. I also worked in management training at work does a private consultant doing Management training? So I had that the inside year. I mean, I wasn't just coming as a school of person. I was coming from several vantage point in talking to employers and in most cases. They didn't think of it themselves. They didn't invent the wheel. They didn't send me say collie. I'll bet you that all those women that are sitting at home. I really competent and I need to know if they came and applied for a job. I just would grab one of them up like nothing but they don't think of those things themselves, but their experience more and more is that women are confident and the first women who got hired had to be confident then had to believe it and had to sell it and that's happens regardless of what work women go into that. They may not have been doing before but employers are willing. Generally if the woman is confident herself. I think employers are willing to buy that And they like self-confidence in anybody that they hire they like people who are confident. So I think they will my experience is but they do buy it and they do except those killed his balance. If the job happens to be to be an x-ray technician at the hospital and the requirement is that you had so many months of training then being a housewife is not going to be enough but if a woman has the educational or background qualifications that fit the job the employers are willing to see her homemade and her other volunteer things as a plus not is a detractor. Now that's that's a very good point just in and I said the qualifications you have to have certain qualifications now, it would be really stupid for me. Even though I happen to have a master's degree, which I got over a. Of 7 years and got when I was in my almost 50 years old. But even if I even with that it would be very stupid for me to say well now I know I've been a homemaker and I've done all these things I ought to be able to be Comptroller of a of a large corporation. That's dumb cuz I don't have the qualifications and in the book it is very strongly urge that when you find out what skills you have and then you find out what kind of job you would like to do when you mash the two up and you find it then there's another set of list list maker because I forget everything so I have in the book of page of where you write down the skills that I have in the skills to be acquired the skills to be acquired. Maybe some brush-up of math. And then it may require either going to neighboring high school for an evening refresher class in math or it may mean taking a correspondence course in math or something to bring your skills up. But that does not mean that you have to have a degree in math in order to have just basic math skills. And so you can acquire those basic math skills, and that's why planning is important also so that you get the training you're going to need so you don't end up with a dead end job doing something. You hate the rest of your life because now you're locked in and you have to work take the time to get some education and if you do if you don't feel you have the time because of the emergency of the situation of getting back to work, then it's all the more important to take a look at are there some educational funds available for me and there are funds available for women who must go back to work. So these are this question of getting the education is important and I'm using this again in different contexts, but just being a homemaker is not a qualification for a lot of jobs. but it is certainly not a detractor and if you get the other things you need the other technical, I'd the x-ray technician for example who goes off and take the course in an x-ray technology is certainly going to be a better x-ray technologist because not only does she have the training but she has the life of learning and the life of dealing with people to fall back on so that she is not 19 years old fresh out with her little diploma and saying here I am told me the Homemaker has that advantage What do you do if your husband doesn't want you to go to work my gear some people identifying with that in the last chapter of my book which deals with extreme. This issue is like I'm stressing like family and like husbands who don't want you to go to work. I do deal with this situation. There are a lot of things. In life that we really think would be terrific to do we really would love to do with them. But we either are we accept the fact that somebody else won't let us do them or we make certain decisions ourselves. I was just working on my book polishing up the first and second chapter last my new book last week and I was reminded in that writing about the thing that sort of Saved My Sanity after Ray was gone. We have been very very close. And we had just arrived at that point where the kids are leaving and it was like it was a honeymoon all over again to get reacquainted with each other and then he was gone. And I I thought my world had ended. I honestly believe that the world had ended for me there would never be another occasion to smile again, or I could put on a smile from the outside, but I didn't believe I would ever smile inside again. I went to visit a very dear friend of mine who lives in Alabama. And I have known him and his second wife for a number of years and I knew his first wife had died of cancer. I did not know her and I never really thought much about the pain that he had gone through until I was in it myself until I went to see my dear friends taking Sally and Dick and I talked and cried long into the night. And dicks ednamary, what you need to do is to work on your future. You you have reached this point where you say, you know, I'm this part of my life is ended Dallas look to the Future and he suggested to me that the one thing I had now that I never had before in my life was freedom and I sit on or not. I always want the kids grew up right gave me all the freedom that I wanted and he stopped me there and he said Ray gave you all the freedom that you wanted your love constrained you and can strange that freedom. It was a voluntary choice for the sake of your love. You did not do certain things and you did other things because this was your choice And I realized how that applying to what I had previously written about this question of what to do if your husband does not want you to go back to work. Now I'm assuming that you pleaded and cajoled and threatened and done all of the things that you might have tried normally to get things that that husband didn't think he wanted you to do before and we've really gotten down to the place where you're between a rock and a hard place as far as he is saying no way is my wife ever going to go out and work. You still have some choices? Obviously, this is all this is America the land of the free and the home of the brave or something like that. So you have a choice you can just stay and go out and get a job knowing what the consequences will be or maybe just guessing what they will be. And maybe that's the choice you're going to make. I'm not telling you you should make it. I'm just sore that you shouldn't but maybe that's the choice that you are going to have to make and maybe we'll give in like he has on a lot of other things after a while. He'll back down. Or maybe you decide I love this man. My relationship to him is very important. And I know what my going to work would do to that relationship. I guess I choose for the relationship and I choose not to work. And if you are going to make the choice not to work, then I'd like for you to think of it as being a choice not to work. So that you are in effect still in control of your life. You're not running around like a little whimpering five-year-old thing. You won't let me do it. You are in charge. You are a woman and you are in charge of your life and you have made a choice my relationship with my husband is much more important to me or at least somewhat more important to me than going out and getting a job. And once you feel it's your choice to make and once you feel you have made it then there's a good feeling about it.