Long rambly post in which I ask for your advice

OK, great Wisdom of the Blogosphere, help me out with this one.

The story I tell goes like this:

Husband is Chaplain in a boarding school. That's great, because it means he gets long holidays, which always match the children's holidays, and that means that I've got the freedom to take on a job and not have to worry about childcare in the holidays or half-terms. And anyway, it's not like my children are small any more. Oldest is 16, nearly 17, and next one is 13, so both well beyond holiday club ages. They just like to veg out at home, and do a bit of sport here and there. Youngest is 10, but she's pretty self-sufficient, and anyway, it's lovely for her to spend that extra time with her Dad. They're going to climb a munro this half-term (weather permitting).

It's great for me to be developing myself in a job that plays to my strengths. I like that I'm being a role model for my kids, showing that women can work outside the home, and it makes for a balanced life. I always planned to work in some shape or form, once they were a bit older. It's good to be investing for the future, and this job will open doors to other fundraising jobs as and when the children leave home. It's great to have found the opportunity to return to my previous career, and be keeping it ticking over. I like having a job outside the school, which, like any small community, is something of a bubble.

The real story is more like this:

I'm exhausted. I don't know how people do it. I'm "only" part-time and I can't fit it all in. That makes me feel terribly inadequate, because lots of couples out there have two full-time working parents and make it work ok, and as I believe I mentioned, I'm "only " part-time. And yes, we do have it easy regarding the childcare situation. It's not the domestics (though they have to be done), or the dog (who does take up at least an hour a day), or the provision of food (though with teenage sons, I do sometimes feel like I should put up an "Open" sign on the kitchen door - they need a lot of stoking), or the fact that wider family is geographically far flung and so a visit necessarily involves several days or air fares. I don't really know what it is. It's just that there isn't enough of me to go round.

The job is stressful and demanding, and leaves me with a small level of bubbling worry most of the time. Yes, I do have days when it's rewarding, and yes, I do like being in an office and having colleagues, and getting out of the bubble. However, as sole fundraiser in a small organisation where the management structure won't listen when I talk about "unrealistic expectations" (which I've been doing for months now), it's not a relaxing situation. I like the world of fundraising, but it's not a great passion, and when I left it after having babies, I always said I wouldn't want to go back. I'm not career ambitious; I've always been more interested in the rewards of the job in itself and of itself at any given point in time, rather than looking up the ladder.

Boarding school life is busy and intense in a way that's hard to explain until you've experienced it. Husband doesn't have a day off during the week during term-time, and works most evenings. In effect, we get a Sunday morning and/or afternoon together, but he's often having to prepare for the evening chapel service, or just crashes out and sleeps. I'm not complaining: it is what it is. But I have worked out that, of all the couples who live on campus, all the non-teaching spouses either work in the school in some kind of capacity, or are teachers in other schools. All bar two, who (interestingly) are men, married to housemistresses.

I don't really want to work for the school, because of a healthy desire to get out of the bubble, mixed inextricably with some kind of bolshy pride in doing my own thing. I prefer it when I say to people "Yes, I work. I'm the fundraiser for a small family centre", rather than the idea of saying "Yes, I work in the school office/school shop/school library". I suppose this means that I don't have a very healthy regard for women who do those jobs, and of that, I should be ashamed.

I do like the fact that my children have to be a little more independent because I don't have the time to run round after them as much as I used to, but I don't like the fact that I live with a perpetual feeling that I'm not quite coping. I've moved a family to America and back. How can I not be coping with a part-time job, for heaven's sake? And because I'm tired, I see that they're all tired too. I don't know how this works logically, because I'm strict on bedtimes. I just think that a child's inner life reflects their mother's. Home isn't quite as relaxing a place as it used to be, and there are consequences to that. Don't shoot me for saying so.

The denouement, with which I need your help, is this:

The position of Library Assistant in the school has been advertised, and I've applied. It's term-time only, and 19 hours a week. Do I really want it? (Of course I might not get it, and I know there've been many applications, so I'm absolutely not presuming.)

On the plus side:

• Long holidays. Fifteen weeks a year. Yay.
• I like libraries, books, and related things.
• It would be a low-stress job.
• Who knows? It might open doors to other things, for that "empty nest" time of life that I want to plan for.
• I wouldn't feel exhausted all the time (at least, I don't think so).
• The long holidays.
• The long holidays.
• The long holidays.

On the minus side:

• It would involve a pay cut, but not too significant, and one we could absorb.
• It would mean I am sucked in the vortex bubble that is boarding school life, and I might never get out.
• I feel like I'm compromising, and that somehow feels like a negative thing, rather than a positive choice. 
• I feel a failure. I don't know why. I guess it's my own demon. When I look at my cv, it reads like an impressive list of demanding jobs that I've done well in. But in each one, I felt like I was vaguely ok at it, good in patches, and when I left, felt I was leaving under a personal cloud. I have no idea why I feel this. It feels important to me to succeed at this one, even though it is (and I've said this from very early days in it) set up for failure.
• I feel a failure because women are meant to be able to do this, aren't we? Juggling. Whenever I think about it, I see how easy my lot is compared to most: a husband who has school holidays, flexible after-school care on-site, the convenience of living on the school property, "only" part-time work. I should be able to make this work (and most of the time, actually, I do - but looking down the barrel of a 9-week summer holdiay, in which I will have 2 weeks off, or 3 at a pinch, I seriously doubt that I want to make this work any longer). Perhaps I can make it all work, but it might take a few years to get there, years in which precious family life is ticking by, years which I won't get again.
• I will have to say to people "I'm Library Assistant at the school", and they will think "she only got that job because her husband is the chaplain", and I will have to swallow my pride (this, of course, might actually be a plus, not a minus!)

The other possibilities:

• I've applied for two or three other fundraising jobs, and even had an interview for one. But there are very few part-time opportunities. And it won't solve the long holiday issue.
• I've been very up-front with my current job, told them I'm applying for other jobs, and have a meeting this week with my manager, and the chairman, in which one of my strategies is to suggest I leave the job, and then work for the organisation on a consultancy basis (I'm thinking long holidays...). I think it is extremely unlikely that they will agree to this, or that it will work out very well even if they do. But I thought it was worth a try. 

OK, so what do you think? (I think I've decided what I think, by virtue of writing this post, but I'm interested, truly, in your thoughts.)

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