Life after Being Fired for Calling Out Racism + Financial Transparency

I got the sweetest letter in the mail from my godfather along with a $50 check made out to me as his paid subscription for this newsletter. I cried. He wanted to know how I’ve been since getting fired from my museum day job three months ago. Apparently, speaking out against genocide and calling out racism isn’t great for business when your donors prefer tax write-offs over accountability.

Zing.

Yes, I’m still annoyed.

But back to the soft part: his handwritten letter was such a tender reminder that the people worth keeping close do notice when we risk telling the truth. And for me, doing what I believe is wise, compassionate, and just is the whole point of existing.

In that first month of unemployment, I got my ass in gear and returned to this Substack. Your support has meant the world to me. Truly.

The next month, I launched straight into two new nanny jobs, and the Big Caregiving Exhaustion swallowed me whole. I’ve been drained… but fulfilled in a way I never expected.

So I owe you an apology and… I’m back! With a renewed commitment to showing up here and a newsletter that will reveal some very juicy details on my life.

It’s a job I never thought I’d go back to after being the kid who partially raised her little sisters and started nannying for other families at the ancient age of twelve.

It’s the job that helped me fund my first small business at twenty-three.

And it’s the work I assumed I would come back to when I became a mother in my early thirties.

But at thirty-two, I realized I was not meant to have a child with my ex-husband. I was not destined to give birth or call someone my own in that way. I thought my lifelong experience caring for other people’s children was preparing me to be a mother, the script I was raised with as the eldest daughter of the town priest/pastor.

Instead, I worked myself into illness, again and again, building a retail business, telling myself:

“If I work as hard at my business as a mother must work to raise her children, then someday I’ll get to slow down and become a mom myself.”

Surprise: by thirty-three I was fully burned out.

And the truth hit me hard, I had never actually explored my own childhood longings, impulses, or identity. There was no room left for a baby here.

I don’t think anyone expects a former fashion CEO to become a nanny again, just months away from turning 40. I certainly didn’t.

But after working at a nonprofit, navigating toxic leadership and elitism in my local community, and getting fired for advocating publicly… I needed to work with people I genuinely respect:

Kids.

I’m baffled by adults who say they don’t like children. Yes, childcare is exhausting… I have been absolutely whooped by tiny humans these past months! But the honesty and curiosity of children is sacred. Nothing compares to witnessing a young person wake up to their own autonomy. And knowing a child feels safe with you as their caregiver is an honor I don’t take lightly.

This fall, I took on mornings with an infant and afternoons with a 3 and a 5-year-old. By mid-October, I was heartbroken to admit the juggle was too much, but relieved when my morning family offered me full-time care with their baby. And here, finally, I’ve found a sense of day job fulfillment.

Caring for infants whose parents adore them and need support — that feels like happy place.

I was raised to be a good Christian girl with a Calvinist work ethic, destined for motherhood. And yet, here I am: a strong-willed, agnostic Democratic-Socialist who believes deeply in being a supportive neighbor and community member.

Supporting someone else’s baby at this stage of my life feels correct. It feels chosen. It feels earned.

As a child, I somehow knew I wouldn’t birth my own kids. My grandmother lost eight pregnancies. My mom struggled for years before having me and had multiple miscarriages between pregnancies. Pregnancy always felt distant and improbable for me. And I’ve been in total awe to see my sister’s become birthing mothers so young when it felt so physically unlikely for me.

I’ve never been pregnant.
No surprises.

But the urge to nurture has always been as strong as the knowing that I wouldn’t carry a child biologically.

If you ever came into my Seattle storefront during my retail era, you might remember me swooning over your baby and letting your older kids wander freely, touching gemstones, notebooks, and whatever they could get their hands on.

All I ever wanted, in every career and iteration of me, was to nurture curiosity, creativity, and the tender inner child that lives in all of us. It just took me until my mid thirties to allow myself to nurture my own inner child instead of focusing on a baby.

So yes — nannying at almost 40 isn’t a regression.
It’s a full circle. A bookend. And maybe, it could even be preparation for my own mothering of foster kids within our home in the later future. A dream I have held since I was a child.

So, how does a nanny afford a home on an expensive ass island outside Seattle where the median income average of people here is $160k?

Step past the paywall below to find out…