Working Your Dream Job but Feeling Like You’re Needed at Home with Kristen Beedle, former primate zookeeper

Mothering Wildlife

Animal care professionals work so hard to get into the zoo field. Internships, commutes, low pay, time spent away from family and friends - all this because they love what they do and oftentimes consider it their passion. They can’t imagine doing anything else. My guest this week, Kristen, and I talk about how it feels to be working your dream job but also feel like you hate leaving your kid to do it.
Kristen has definitely worked hard to make it work throughout her career. From being a mom during her internship to living far from where she worked, she has recently considered whether her dream is the best for her family; and thus, she recently decided to step away from being a zookeeper for a bit.
We talk about the emotions that come from leaving something you worked so hard to obtain. When around her amazing coworkers and animals, she loved her job, but as soon as she stepped away from the good things at work she would think about everything she was missing at home. Her and I talk about feeling like she was “being split in half”. A feeling I can also relate to as a working mom - and one that we have discussed on the podcast before because so many women also feel like they have two different identities; zookeeper and mom.

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