Stage mother?

There comes a point when an unemployed mother of identical twins thinks to herself, “You know, they’re always looking for identical twins in Hollywood, and these kids are pretty damned cute…” They’re also petite, which means they could probably play younger than they are, and hit “precocious kindergartener” out of the park. This point usually comes when you’ve eaten ramen for dinner for the third night in a row, or skipped dinner altogether, so that your kids can have the entire pan of Trader Joe’s mac and cheese for themselves.

I know what you’re thinking. Don’t judge me.

Yes, as a matter of fact, it does feel like I’m thinking about pimping out my children. Yes, visions of Mary Kate and Ashley dance in my heads. (Or Billy Ray Cyrus or Michael Lohan or Kit Culkin.) And frankly, that feels pretty gross.

But as my savings account dwindles, I worry more and more about how I’m going to pay for their college educations. I try to keep in mind that there are scholarships and student loans, and the days of parents paying for college are probably a thing of the past, at least for most parents. I sternly remind myself that it’s more important, at my age, to save for retirement, because there are no scholarships for that. But I’m old enough—close enough to the generation where parents did pay for school—to feel that an inability to at least contribute something is a massive parenting FAIL.

Strictly speaking, of course, any money that they earned would mean that they, not I, would be paying for college. But at least I could worry less about that and save my stress allowance for everything else.

The wrinkle in this whole plan is that they haven’t shown any interest in a career before the camera. They’re highly creative and love putting on plays at home, and it’s possible that they just haven’t made the connection yet. It may come, and they may beg for the opportunity. But until they do, I can’t bring myself to Google agents.

In the meantime, I’ll keep answering ads for administrative assistant positions. I’ll keep taking those freelance jobs teaching creative writing to kids. I’ll keep working on that manuscript. And ramen isn’t too bad if you throw in some steamed veggies.