You’re here, which tells me you have internet access.
I mentally categorize options like Fiverr and mturk as “about as scammy as DoorDash”. I don’t think they’re a good option, but I also don’t think DoorDash is a very good option either. It’s probably worth looking into online gig economy options.
What skills were you renting to companies before you became a stay-at-home parent? There are probably online options to rent the same skills to others around the world.
You write fluently in English and it sounds like English is your first language. Have you considered renting your linguistic skills to people with English as a second language? You may be able to find wealthy international people who value your proof-reading skills on their college work, or conversational skills to practice their spoken English with gentle correction as needed. It won’t pay competitively with the tech industry, but it’ll pay more than nothing.
Another weird one that depends on your age and health and bodily situation, since you’ve had more than 0 kids of your own, is gestational surrogacy. Maybe not a good fit, but hey, you asked for weird.
For a less weird one, try browsing Craigslist in a more affluent area to see what personal services people offer. House cleaning? Gardening? Dog walking? Browse Craigslist in your area and see which of those niches seem under-populated relative to elsewhere. Then use what you saw in the professionalism of the ads in wealthier areas to offer the missing services. This may get 0 results, but you might discover that there are local rich techies who would quite enjoy outsourcing certain household services for a rate that seems affordable to them but game-changing to you. Basically anything you imagine servants doing for a fairytale princess, someone with money probably wants to hire a person to do for them.
You mention that your kids are in the picture. This suggests a couple options:
Have you contacted social services to find out what options are available to support kids whose parents are in situations like yours? You probably qualify for food stamps, and there may be options for insurance, kids’ clothing, etc through municipal or school programs. If your kids are in school, asking whatever school district employee you have the best personal rapport with is an excellent starting point.
What do childcare prices look like in your area? Do you have friends who are parents and need childcare? Can you rent your time to other parents to provide childcare for their kids at a rate lower than their other options? This may or may not be feasible depending on your living situation.
Thank you for your response. I probably should have given a more exhaustive list of things I have already tried. Other than a couple things you mentioned, I have already tried the rest.
Before becoming a stay-at-home parent, I was a writer. I wasn’t well paid but was starting to earn professional rates when I got pregnant with my second child and that took over my life. I have found it difficult to start writing again since then. The industry has changed so much and is changing still, and so am I. My life is so different now. I’m less sure of what I write—no longer young enough to know everything, as Oscar Wilde said. I feel like I’m trying to leap onto a speeding train from the ground, like I’m watching for an open doorway or a platform I can grab onto as the train roars past me at 100mph.
My children—yes, I have children. They are with their dad most of the time. It was his mother’s house we were living in when the domestic violence situation got so severe that the courts got involved and separated us, and when that happened it was I who had to leave. His mother was not about to turn out her son and let me stay in her house, especially since he was the breadwinner and the one paying rent to her. And I was not going to drag my children into a precarious housing situation. There are no emergency housing resources where I live aside from shelters which are known for being miserable, overcrowded, prison-like, and difficult to get into anyway. So my children have stayed in the safety of their dad’s home. His mother came from across the state to help, and while I’m relieved to see that she is taking the responsibility of caring for them seriously, she is also tenaciously possessive over them. This is still very painful for me to talk about.
Ah, so you have skill and a portfolio in writing. You have the cognitive infrastructure to support using the language as art. That infrastructure itself is what you should be trying to rent to tech companies—not the art it’s capable of producing.
If the art part of writing is out of reach for you right now, that’s ok—it’s almost a benefit in this case, because if it’s not around it can’t feel left out if you turn to more pragmatic ends the skills you used to celebrate it with.
Normally I wouldn’t suggest startups, because they’re so risky/uncertain… but in a situation as precarious as yours, it’s no worse to see who’s looking for writers on a startup-flavored site like https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs.
And finally, I’m taking the titular “severe emergency” to be the whole situation, because it sounds pretty dire. If there’s a specific sub-emergency that drove you to ask—a medical bill, a car breakdown—there may be more-specific resources that folks haven’t mentioned yet. (or if you’ve explained that in someone else’s comment thread, i apologize for asking redundantly; i’ve not read your replies to others)
To be honest, I downplayed much of my situation in my post. After all, it is my first post. I have contributed nothing to this community so far. I feel it’s irresponsible and sort of entitled to hose people down with the full weight of my very negative and emotionally draining circumstances as an introductory post. It’s not charming. I kept thinking, while writing this post, “do I really want this to be the first thing I say to these people?” I respect this community more than any other one and understand that it can only absorb so many posts that essentially “take” (or seek to take) more than they offer before the quality standards that set LW apart begin to suffer. I feel a sense of duty to be an interesting conversationalist and add value here, and I hate to be tiresome.
I posted anyway for a couple reasons. For one thing, I have read LW for years. It nourishes something in me that I don’t get anywhere else in my life—the inquisitive, slow-thinking, human-oriented, analytical, diplomatic part of me that I am constantly forced by my life circumstances to suppress in view of the fact that these qualities are considered unfortunate in the world I inhabit.
In other words, I feel very strongly that I “belong” here and can therefore justify asking the community to afford me the luxury of venting and soliciting its assistance without tweaking people’s noses too much. I feel like I can signal in-group membership and long-standing familiarity with LW strongly enough to justify doing this, because it really is my respect for this community’s collective excellence that sets it apart for me as the ideal place to seek advice and insight.
I also figure this could be useful to someone else at some point, so it may also pull its weight in that sense.
But yes, you’re right. There’s more to my circumstances. Of course there is. They’re much worse than I can justify disclosing.
Reaching out to startups on sites like ycombinator is a great idea. It never occurred to me to market to them. Thank you for suggesting it. Your consideration means a lot to me.
I hear you, describing how weird social norms in the world can be. I hear you describing how you followed those norms to show consideration for readers by dressing up a very terrible situation as a slightly less bad one. In social settings where people both know who you are and are compelled by the circumstances to listen to what you say, that’s still the right way to go about it.
The rudeness of taking peoples’ time is very real in person, where a listener is socially “forced” to invest time in listening or effort in escaping the conversation. But posts online are different: especially when you lack the social capital of “this post is by someone I know I often like reading, so I should read it to see what they say”, readers should feel no obligation to read your whole post, nor to reply, if they don’t want to. When you’re brand new to a community, readers can easily dismiss your post as a bot or scammer and simply ignore it, so you have done them no harm in the way that consuming someone’s time in person harms them. A few trolls may choose to read your post and then pretend you forced them to do so, but anyone who behaves like that is inherently outing themself as someone whose opinions about you don’t deserve much regard. (and then you get some randos who like how you write and decide to be micro-penpals… hi there!)
However, there’s another option for how to approach this kind of thing online. You can spin up an anonymous throwaway and play the “asking for a friend” game—take the option of direct help or directly contacting the “actual person” off the table, and you’ve ruled out being a gofundme scam. Sometimes asking on behalf of a fictional person whose circumstances happen to be more like the specifics of your own than you would disclose in public gets far better answers.
For instance, if the fictional person had a car problem involving a specific model year of vehicle and a specific insurance company, the internet may point out that there’s a recall on some part of that particular car and you have the manufacturer as a recourse, or they may offer a specific number that gets you a customer complaint line that’s actually responsive at the insurance company. If the fictional person had a highly specific medical condition, there may be a new treatment with studies that you have to know to ask to get into, and the internet may be able to offer that information.
At this point, I don’t think it would be wise for someone in your situation to do a throwaway account on lesswrong in particular. However, I would seriously consider using several separate throwaways and asking about various facets of the details on the relevant subreddits. Reddit will get you a lot of chaff in the replies, but if you’re sifting the internet for novel ideas, it’s also a good way to query the hivemind for kernels of utility as well.
All that is to say, part of your search for insight and ideas should probably involve carving up the aspects of the situation that you cannot justify sharing here into pieces that you can justify sharing elsewhere, and pursue those lines of inquiry. Those topics contain potential insight that cannot be found under the circumstances you’ve created here, and that’s ok—I just want to make sure not to endorse leaving them un-explored.
You’re here, which tells me you have internet access.
I mentally categorize options like Fiverr and mturk as “about as scammy as DoorDash”. I don’t think they’re a good option, but I also don’t think DoorDash is a very good option either. It’s probably worth looking into online gig economy options.
What skills were you renting to companies before you became a stay-at-home parent? There are probably online options to rent the same skills to others around the world.
You write fluently in English and it sounds like English is your first language. Have you considered renting your linguistic skills to people with English as a second language? You may be able to find wealthy international people who value your proof-reading skills on their college work, or conversational skills to practice their spoken English with gentle correction as needed. It won’t pay competitively with the tech industry, but it’ll pay more than nothing.
If you’re in excellent health, the classic “super weird side gig” is stool donor programs. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/i48nw33pW9kuXsFBw/being-a-donor-for-fecal-microbiota-transplants-fmt-do-good for more.
Another weird one that depends on your age and health and bodily situation, since you’ve had more than 0 kids of your own, is gestational surrogacy. Maybe not a good fit, but hey, you asked for weird.
For a less weird one, try browsing Craigslist in a more affluent area to see what personal services people offer. House cleaning? Gardening? Dog walking? Browse Craigslist in your area and see which of those niches seem under-populated relative to elsewhere. Then use what you saw in the professionalism of the ads in wealthier areas to offer the missing services. This may get 0 results, but you might discover that there are local rich techies who would quite enjoy outsourcing certain household services for a rate that seems affordable to them but game-changing to you. Basically anything you imagine servants doing for a fairytale princess, someone with money probably wants to hire a person to do for them.
You mention that your kids are in the picture. This suggests a couple options:
Have you contacted social services to find out what options are available to support kids whose parents are in situations like yours? You probably qualify for food stamps, and there may be options for insurance, kids’ clothing, etc through municipal or school programs. If your kids are in school, asking whatever school district employee you have the best personal rapport with is an excellent starting point.
What do childcare prices look like in your area? Do you have friends who are parents and need childcare? Can you rent your time to other parents to provide childcare for their kids at a rate lower than their other options? This may or may not be feasible depending on your living situation.
Oh yeah, food banks for sure!
Thank you for your response. I probably should have given a more exhaustive list of things I have already tried. Other than a couple things you mentioned, I have already tried the rest.
Before becoming a stay-at-home parent, I was a writer. I wasn’t well paid but was starting to earn professional rates when I got pregnant with my second child and that took over my life. I have found it difficult to start writing again since then. The industry has changed so much and is changing still, and so am I. My life is so different now. I’m less sure of what I write—no longer young enough to know everything, as Oscar Wilde said. I feel like I’m trying to leap onto a speeding train from the ground, like I’m watching for an open doorway or a platform I can grab onto as the train roars past me at 100mph.
My children—yes, I have children. They are with their dad most of the time. It was his mother’s house we were living in when the domestic violence situation got so severe that the courts got involved and separated us, and when that happened it was I who had to leave. His mother was not about to turn out her son and let me stay in her house, especially since he was the breadwinner and the one paying rent to her. And I was not going to drag my children into a precarious housing situation. There are no emergency housing resources where I live aside from shelters which are known for being miserable, overcrowded, prison-like, and difficult to get into anyway. So my children have stayed in the safety of their dad’s home. His mother came from across the state to help, and while I’m relieved to see that she is taking the responsibility of caring for them seriously, she is also tenaciously possessive over them. This is still very painful for me to talk about.
Ah, so you have skill and a portfolio in writing. You have the cognitive infrastructure to support using the language as art. That infrastructure itself is what you should be trying to rent to tech companies—not the art it’s capable of producing.
If the art part of writing is out of reach for you right now, that’s ok—it’s almost a benefit in this case, because if it’s not around it can’t feel left out if you turn to more pragmatic ends the skills you used to celebrate it with.
Normally I wouldn’t suggest startups, because they’re so risky/uncertain… but in a situation as precarious as yours, it’s no worse to see who’s looking for writers on a startup-flavored site like https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs.
And finally, I’m taking the titular “severe emergency” to be the whole situation, because it sounds pretty dire. If there’s a specific sub-emergency that drove you to ask—a medical bill, a car breakdown—there may be more-specific resources that folks haven’t mentioned yet. (or if you’ve explained that in someone else’s comment thread, i apologize for asking redundantly; i’ve not read your replies to others)
To be honest, I downplayed much of my situation in my post. After all, it is my first post. I have contributed nothing to this community so far. I feel it’s irresponsible and sort of entitled to hose people down with the full weight of my very negative and emotionally draining circumstances as an introductory post. It’s not charming. I kept thinking, while writing this post, “do I really want this to be the first thing I say to these people?” I respect this community more than any other one and understand that it can only absorb so many posts that essentially “take” (or seek to take) more than they offer before the quality standards that set LW apart begin to suffer. I feel a sense of duty to be an interesting conversationalist and add value here, and I hate to be tiresome.
I posted anyway for a couple reasons. For one thing, I have read LW for years. It nourishes something in me that I don’t get anywhere else in my life—the inquisitive, slow-thinking, human-oriented, analytical, diplomatic part of me that I am constantly forced by my life circumstances to suppress in view of the fact that these qualities are considered unfortunate in the world I inhabit.
In other words, I feel very strongly that I “belong” here and can therefore justify asking the community to afford me the luxury of venting and soliciting its assistance without tweaking people’s noses too much. I feel like I can signal in-group membership and long-standing familiarity with LW strongly enough to justify doing this, because it really is my respect for this community’s collective excellence that sets it apart for me as the ideal place to seek advice and insight.
I also figure this could be useful to someone else at some point, so it may also pull its weight in that sense.
But yes, you’re right. There’s more to my circumstances. Of course there is. They’re much worse than I can justify disclosing.
Reaching out to startups on sites like ycombinator is a great idea. It never occurred to me to market to them. Thank you for suggesting it. Your consideration means a lot to me.
I hear you, describing how weird social norms in the world can be. I hear you describing how you followed those norms to show consideration for readers by dressing up a very terrible situation as a slightly less bad one. In social settings where people both know who you are and are compelled by the circumstances to listen to what you say, that’s still the right way to go about it.
The rudeness of taking peoples’ time is very real in person, where a listener is socially “forced” to invest time in listening or effort in escaping the conversation. But posts online are different: especially when you lack the social capital of “this post is by someone I know I often like reading, so I should read it to see what they say”, readers should feel no obligation to read your whole post, nor to reply, if they don’t want to. When you’re brand new to a community, readers can easily dismiss your post as a bot or scammer and simply ignore it, so you have done them no harm in the way that consuming someone’s time in person harms them. A few trolls may choose to read your post and then pretend you forced them to do so, but anyone who behaves like that is inherently outing themself as someone whose opinions about you don’t deserve much regard. (and then you get some randos who like how you write and decide to be micro-penpals… hi there!)
However, there’s another option for how to approach this kind of thing online. You can spin up an anonymous throwaway and play the “asking for a friend” game—take the option of direct help or directly contacting the “actual person” off the table, and you’ve ruled out being a gofundme scam. Sometimes asking on behalf of a fictional person whose circumstances happen to be more like the specifics of your own than you would disclose in public gets far better answers.
For instance, if the fictional person had a car problem involving a specific model year of vehicle and a specific insurance company, the internet may point out that there’s a recall on some part of that particular car and you have the manufacturer as a recourse, or they may offer a specific number that gets you a customer complaint line that’s actually responsive at the insurance company. If the fictional person had a highly specific medical condition, there may be a new treatment with studies that you have to know to ask to get into, and the internet may be able to offer that information.
At this point, I don’t think it would be wise for someone in your situation to do a throwaway account on lesswrong in particular. However, I would seriously consider using several separate throwaways and asking about various facets of the details on the relevant subreddits. Reddit will get you a lot of chaff in the replies, but if you’re sifting the internet for novel ideas, it’s also a good way to query the hivemind for kernels of utility as well.
All that is to say, part of your search for insight and ideas should probably involve carving up the aspects of the situation that you cannot justify sharing here into pieces that you can justify sharing elsewhere, and pursue those lines of inquiry. Those topics contain potential insight that cannot be found under the circumstances you’ve created here, and that’s ok—I just want to make sure not to endorse leaving them un-explored.