It’s crazy to think Susan was ever capable of holding down a real job for several years when she was younger. Makes me think pregnancy hormones really turbo charged her mental illness.
In her own book, Susan detailed how she made exactly zero plans for childcare when she had Jani. It's like she wanted to get pregnant, but didn't understand that a baby would come out of her and need things 24/7 (this is fairly common with narc moms.)
You'd think some time during her couple weeks of maternity leave - that was what California unemployment gave at the time, two weeks; you get six weeks of unemployment now - Susan or Michael would have figured out that they needed to hire a babysitter if they were both working. But they did not figure this out.
Susan went back to the radio station for work with Jani in a car seat. She really thought this was the solution: just bring a fussy newborn to a radio station, where sound is tightly controlled. Susan was shocked when she was asked to leave for the day and get childcare, and she basically quit then and there (though in her written version, people just give her sad looks and Susan reads their minds and quietly walks out without a peep.)
Susan's total lack of change agility caused her to lose her mind when she had children. Susan was able to cope with life on a surface level without kids; somehow between her and Michael, they didn't get their lights cut off, or get evicted, or kill their dog, or get fired from work.
Bringing a child into the equation blew Susan way outside of her emotional and logical abilities. Michael was no help, like many half-hearted fathers aren't, but Susan lacked the capacity to understand that Jani needed a lot of attention and care - and she didn't understand that all babies require this level of attention. Susan interpreted normal infant needs snd behaviors as murderous insantiy.