The Default Parent Resume

Resumes are kind of my thing. My entire career has been evaluating applicants on their professional experience, but lately it occurs to me that huge chunks of skills and talents are missing for parents who also identify as the Default Parent….you know, the ones responsible for the daily logistical and emotional needs of the children. Sure my professional experience is impressive, but what’s really awe-inspiring is that for the past 15+ years I also rocked it as the Default Parent…a job I never applied for and didn’t even know I had been doing until about year ago.

Whether you stay home completely, work full-time, or barely balance something in between, The Default Parent is such a comprehensive and significant position I decided it could not be summed up in one small blurb of a resume, but rather needed its own addendum. Here it is…with a healthy dose of sarcasm and a refreshing amount of honesty. I’d hire me on this resume alone.

 

M. BLAZONED
The Default Parent
Resume Addendum

143 Quiet Life of Desperation Lane · The Bubble, Suburbia 90210 · (555) 867-5309
www.mblazoned.com ·  www.facebook.com/mblazoned  · @mblazoned

OBJECTIVE
To raise self-reliant, confident human beings who are goofy, fun, loving, and kind, and are interesting enough not to be boring, but not so “interesting” they live in my basement forever.

SUMMARY

• Recruitment professional with 23 years, while simultaneously managing varied responsibilities of being the Default Parent for 15+ years. Highlights include: keeping three children alive and a husband still interested enough not to start secret other family in neighboring town (that I know of)
• Work closely and effectively with life partner to understand nuances of children’s personalities in order to meet their complex and varied needs. (I’m kidding. I’m just trying to minimize meltdowns and stay sane. I also hide a lot.)
• Dynamic speaker and lecturer, specializing in life lessons
• Barely holding on to fraying shred of own identity

CORE COMPETENCIES

• Carpool logistics
• Filling out forms
• Moving stacks of papers from one place to another
• Letting dog and in out while on work calls
• Pretending to follow stories my kids tell me with appropriate facial expressions
• Buying and returning things
• Purchasing and wrapping birthday party presents
• Researching and scheduling summer camps
• Drinking wine
• Crying in closet

EXPERIENCE AND SUPER COOL TALENTS

LOGISTICS

• Manage highly complex logistics of 50+ drop-offs and pick-ups per week using carpooling and guile
• Regularly defy time and space by being at three different child events at same time
• Statistically insignificant child forgetting incidents
  • But it is always the middle child and she’ll never let me forget it
• Trained bladder to rarely need to pee

ORGANIZATION & PLANNING

• Schedule hundreds of events per year for five humans using color-coded, complex calendar system called, “This is Not Humanly Possible.” Patent pending.
• Originate and execute all paperwork including: endless school form, summer camp sign-ups, health forms, and daily bullshit brought home from schools in evil plastic folders
• Manage influx of mail
  • Categorizing as: File, Pay, Recycle, Shoot Me Now, and WTF Is This?

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

• Expert in resolving conflicts including, but not limited to:
  • Sibling brawls about borrowing stuff, “It’s not fair” whining, and board game drama
• Excellent results in non-violent approaches using empty threats
• Use the “sounds like you both got what you deserved” method of sorting out who started it
• Once followed through on a punishment and lived through a child not allowed to use data on her iPhone for a month. No longer afraid of hell.
• Strategically use Netflix as both reward and punishment with solid results in behavior modification

COMMUNICATIONS

• Multi-tasker who can easily be congenial on a work call while angrily mouthing instructions/threats to children
• Excellent at picking battles. Also, exhausted, which helps.
• Deliver compelling, loving, and comforting pep talks to kids when down about sports, school and relationships. Put on brave front while crying silently on the inside for them.
• Compromise Maven: Married to same man for 21+ years

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

• Successfully taught walking, talking, potty skills, and basic and advanced human manners
  • Teared up when children said “thank you” unprompted for the first time
• Achieved goal of having kids be likable enough that other people will have them over
• Taught kids to tell interesting stories by making them retell boring ones in 5 sentences or less. You’re welcome, world.

NON-DEFAULTING PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Recruitment Consulting, Founder and Principal (only person, really), 2008 – Present
Major Media Company in NYC, Recruitment, 1998 – 2008
MBA and Undergraduate Universities, Admissions, 1993 – 1998

EDUCATION
Bachelor’s Degree, Cum Laude, Pre-Email Times
•   Uncertain if Bachelor’s degrees are still valid
•   English Major: Because that’s super helpful. Also, surprising, since I can’t spell
or follow simple grammar rules

AWARDS, SPEAKING, WRITING

AWARDS

• World’s Greatest Mom, Mother’s Day, 15 years running
• Macaroni Necklace Award, Three-time recipient

SPEAKING
Lecturer
Topics Include:

• You Don’t Know How Good You Have It
• Life is a Series of Choices
• And my personal favorite, I’m Not Just Your Mom, I’m a Human Being with Feelings.

Ongoing Mini-Lecture Series called, “Are You F*cking Serious?”
Topics Include:

• You Call Your Bedroom Clean?
• If You Leave One More Paper Towel Crumpled Up on the Counter, I Swear to God…(also see upcoming Empty Threat Series)
• No one Should Be Licking Anyone, and Other Things I Can’t Believe I Have to Say

WRITING
Blogger

• Published on Huffington Post, around the world:
  www.huffingtonpost.com/m-blazoned
• Made zero point zero dollars, altruistic talent sharing is the new business savvy?!?!

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Amazon Prime, Member – Possibly single-handedly funding UPS pension plan
Costco, Gold Star Member – Once got a really good parking spot, considered never leaving
Drinking Wine with Friends, Board of Directors – Attend monthly meetings
Sideline Parent, Vocal Member
•  Offer clever responses to all game situations
•  Yell “box out” at appropriate times (I think)
•  “Defense” shouting directly responsible for many ball turn overs

LANGUAGES, SKILLS, INTERESTS

Languages: Proficient in Toddler and The Annoying Bad Joke Telling Elementary Years; Fluent in Tween and Teen; Speak some/limited Husband.

Special Skills: Lamenting lost youth. Draping dirty clothes on bathroom chair. Losing earrings. Drinking iced tea. Singing passionately in the car by myself. Putting on mascara without a mirror. Reading Dr. Seuss’ Sleep Book in record time, nailing all rhymes. Talking to myself in public.

Interests: Sensory depravation tanks. Finishing sentences. Never hearing another goddamn Disney or Nickelodeon commercial again. Being friends with Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, and Amy Schumer. Cellulite removal. Giving zero fucks.

References Available Upon Children Being Bribed