My graduate school departmental newsletter arrived about a month ago. I promptly opened it, sat on the sofa, ignored my children, and proceeded to pout. For the next 45 minutes, I caught up on former fellow students and the faculty who mentored me in the craft of doing history.
I used to read a book with my Freshman Seminar students entitled, Finding God at Harvard. One of my favorite essays in that book, "A Childrearing Interlude," recounts a similar story. Kathryn Wiegand, a Harvard graduate-turned-stay-at-home-mother-of-five tells of the day she received her alumni newsletter. She was supposed to check a box, a box beside such noble vocations as doctor, attorney and concert musician. Near the bottom of the page she finally found her box. Beside the box it read, Childrearing Interlude.
And then I spent the rest of the evening feeling like a loser. The Man just sat by and watched the emotional carnage unfold. He endures this unpleasantness every time that dang, annual newsletter arrives.
I proceeded to wallow and to feel unsmart and unproductive, as if my life doesn't count because it doesn't have words like "published her 11th anthology" and "Distinguished Professor Lecture" and "fellowship" beside my name.
That's the track I was on. I completed all of my doctoral coursework and was 2 months away from qualifying exams, and the impending 5-year-dissertation process, when I bowed out. We welcomed Blondie, whose sense of timing is nothing if not both perfect and unpredictable, during my final year of coursework. Being mom, wife, and stressed-out PhD candidate made my hair fall out and gave me panic attacks.
So you see, I'm a PhD dropout.
Thankfully, I had supportive mentors who told me I'd be fine, who even told me it would be better to not be so stressed. Somehow I got full-time employment in my field and spent the next five years working at what I loved: doing history and mentoring students.
And then I stopped.
I stopped to do something I wanted to do way more than history, way more than teaching, way more than accolades, or even finishing a PhD.
I stopped to be a stay-at-home mom. It was one the best and hardest decisions I've ever made.
Of all the female alumni who have come and gone through my alma mater's history department and then opted to leave the field for full-time motherhood, you'd think a few of them would write in.
I have yet to see one.
Maybe they are all sitting home feeling, momentarily, like losers, afraid that their life updates might be frowned upon by those who have done more in the profession.
So I decided to start a movement. It will likely be a short-lived, one-woman movement because I doubt the alumni newsletter will lower their standards to print my kooky personal update. Lucky for you, it will still be published...because I have a blog.
Scooper {Class of 2000}: An assistant professor of American History at {anonymous university} and curator of an 1840s anti-slavery church, she traded in her college classroom three years ago for school around the kitchen table with her three children {Blondie, 9; Brownie, 6; Cupcake, 2} She’s still teaching history, among other subjects, but she can now send disrespectful students to their rooms if necessary.
Being a full-time mom is a lot like trying to get tenure: The hours are long, the pay is lousy, and it’s hard to get respect…but it’s a virtuous and rewarding job and that’s what keeps one going.
In her spare time, she hides from her children and plucks out an assortment of posts on her blog, the place where she dumps what’s left of her brain. In a sense {and to use some of her old graduate-school vernacular}, she is living out traditional constructs of motherhood and domesticity within the context of a modern, one-room schoolhouse.
She will be forever nostalgic and grateful for the four years she spent at {anonymous university.} The faculty and students there were among the most gracious and generous folks she’s known, great mentors in the craft of doing history.
You may think that's a joke, one of those letters you write just to vent and then toss in the trash. Think again. With fear and trepidation, I hit "send," breathed deeply, and embraced closure. It's like I broke up with, once and for all, an identity that I almost married but then cheated on and broke up with. And we all know that breaking up is hard to do, even if you know it's for the best.
Wiegand asked herself, This is not my real life? If this is an interlude, what exactly is the real thing? Something that pays? Something with a title? Something that requires a degree?
As she muses about what she would be doing with her life if not for said Childrearing Interlude, she arrives at an important conclusion: Thank God, who saves us from what we think we want. It's one of my favorite quotes of all time, one I've considered often as I've toyed with what might have been, despite contentment and peace with what is.
It didn't take long to get to the root of my newsletter lament: Pride {mingled with a bit of legitimate nostalgia.} Just when I think I've moved on from something, a silly prompt proves otherwise. It's ever-so-difficult to find that elusive balance between desiring good things, that we are actually good at doing, and yet daily dying to ourselves and the vain ambitions that can consume.
Our callings, as women and as mothers, don't all look the same. And honestly, I love the diversity that we each bring to the table. But one characteristic remains universal: Motherhood demands sacrifice and a realignment of priorities, whether we work in the home or out of the home. I know. I've done both.
Just this morning, I've scraped oatmeal from the floor, wiped bottoms and noses, uncovered a covert painting project in the garage instigated by none other than Cupcake and disciplined all three children for everything from sulky attitudes and excessive screaming to the aforementioned slinging of oatmeal.
But seriously, we all know that the hilarious and heart-warming moments outshine the difficult and disgusting...and that one day the difficult and disgusting are remembered as the hilarious. {Please, Mom, keep reminding me of that.}
Wiegand says it well, In dying to ourselves we give up the lordship of our own lives and thereby make space for his.
Maybe I should retract my newsletter update. Maybe I should scribble it all out and simply write:
Making space for his lordship, which is, in fact, a full-time endeavor and not in any way, shape, or form an interlude.
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{If you would like to read "A Childrearing Interlude," I found it on-line and you can read it here.}
