"My father thought that the best way to ensure financial security was to join the civil service. He joined what was then called Customs & Excise as a messenger and worked his way to the top. When he retired, he had a good pension, which my mother continued to get half of after he died. So he was right. None of us listened to him, of course."
"My mother was a trailblazer, although she didn't know it. She went back to work in the mid-1970s, when a woman going out to work was seen as something of an insult to her husband. In 1986, when she was 50, she set up her own business as a word-processing trainer. She showed me it's never too late to reinvent yourself."
She grew up with a father who joined the civil service, worked up from messenger to senior roles, and secured a good pension that supported the family after his death. Her mother returned to work in the mid-1970s and at age 50 launched a business training in word-processing, demonstrating late-career reinvention. School nuns advised dividing wages into thirds for home, savings, and spending, advice she ignored initially. She prioritized job enjoyment over pay, choosing lower-paid roles like travel and enduring regular periods of being broke. Economic shocks such as the Celtic Tiger collapse and the pandemic caused serious financial strain.
Read at Irish Independent
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]