Working in IT and Not Working In IT

So, it's true that we're now a two-income society.  Unless you have someone bringing in well over 150K, there's just no way you can really afford to have a house, groceries, gas, or a child (let's face it, they're cute but expensive).  Child care alone can eat up one parent's salary, which is the main reason that so many parents give for one parent quitting their job nowadays.  And the parent that keeps their job has to be in IT or you'll never afford life.  I've had friends of my husbands actually change jobs from low paying 3D animation to programming so that they can afford their families.

So as the parent who quit their job, what do you do when your kid doesn't need child care any more?  You've quit your job and your resume is dusty- you have no contacts in the working world.  S-tarting over would be ok for someone who had a baby in their 20s because they still have a long working life ahead of them.  But what happens when you have a kid and you're almost 40?  (gulp).  You can't really give up the career that you've worked on for 10, maybe 20 years.  You're at the Senior or Management level and you can't start over if you leave that.  I have a sister who's in this track right now, but she hasn't realized that she's going to need to go back to work at some point.

It used to be that you could just get any old job if you had the skill set for that job, no matter how rusty your experience or perhaps you just knew how to answer phones, work a copier, and file papers.  But nowadays, you can't even get a secretarial job without a certification in "Administrative Assistance".

Seriously

or should it be "Seriously!?!"  I mean, if you've worked in a office for 20 years and you've had your own phone and haven't had a secretary running all over doing the work for you, you already know how to be a secretary- you've had 20 years of experience doing that.  But you couldn't get a job as a secretary unless you have that stupid AA degree in knowing how to press the Copy button.

Now, don't get me wrong, secretaries (or administrative assists- whatever you have to call them), are very valuable and offices can't be run without them.  But do you really need to mandate that someone has a degree?  I can type at over 100 words a minute.  I know how to file.  I know how to multitask- I mean, being a secretary is usually akin to being the office Mommy.

so, why can't I get these jobs!?

Some of it, I blame my resume- it's just too IT heavy now and no one takes me seriously when my cover letter clearly says that I don't want an IT job anymore.  I actually did manage to swing a part-time secretary interview with a local property management company and they wanted to know if I knew how to make copies after looking at my resume...my PAPER resume.  Are you joking?

But the salary of $12 an hour was what made the whole conversation ludicrous.  I mean, in IT, you shouldn't be getting anything less than $45/hour for a senior, permanent position- if you're a contracting consultant, you can easily go $20/hour higher.  There isn't a middle layer type of job where I could make, say $20 per hour and still bring my vast amounts of office experience to the job?

So far, I haven't found it.  If you know of one, please let me know.