Here’s a selfie with my dear mother from December, when we
visited the Winchester Mystery House, a tour I enjoyed immensely even though my
better half thought I’d hate it. I’ve been
reading a lot of think pieces written by people with terrible mothers and it
makes me so sad to realize that my comfortable experience was truly its own little
bubble, and not one shared by all. I
strive to be the kind of mother who doesn’t get think pieces written about her
on mother’s day in about 20 years. My only request for mother’s day was to not have to mother—to
be left alone to sleep the sleep of Jenny Curran from Forrest Gump, and to
luxuriate in my own filth and laziness.
I have, for the most part, been allowed this. Natan gave me some bonus chocolate covered
strawberries, which I ate while horizontal in bed. I did cave in to some story reading. I brought some extra caterpillars home from
school and we’ve been really into talking about butterflies in our house, which
required some Eric Carle reading this morning.
The school year is almost over, and for the first time in
many months, I am feeling an unburdening.
This year was my hardest teaching year yet, rivaled only by my first
year, which was firmly in the awful category.
It was also, weirdly, my most successful, with an invited talk and a
small write-up in the local paper (an occurrence that was hilariously surreal
because the last time I was in the local paper was when I was an 8-year-old
girl scout). Part of the difficulty of
this year was due, no doubt, to becoming a mother of two. I used to think that teaching was a
family-friendly career, and my experience has been that it is not. The inflexible hours, high amount of emotional work, unpaid overtime, and
hours of work that have to be done just to take one day off seemed insurmountable
to me this year.
The interesting thing about motherhood is that it constantly
asks you to reassess your choices.
Sometimes choices that are right for the married version of yourself
aren’t right for the married mother of two version. Choices that are right with small children
might not hold for teenagers. As a full time worker, work is often the
choice I reconsider. I think teaching
was OK for me as a mother of one. It was
hard, but I could tag team it. The
summers offer the perk that other professions don’t have—the chance to grow
with your children and give them family experiences, and for that I would never
take a job with limited vacation time.
As a parent of two, however, the sick days, preschool activities, and naps
double--all things that inflexible schedules make difficult.
I guess this is a long-winded
justification of big and exciting life changes—I’m (for the second time in my
adult working life) changing careers!
They say they average person does it 7 times, so I’m right on track. I’m going to be teaching part-time next year
while I work on my (second, oy) masters/licensure in school psychology. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m
making the 100% perfect choice for myself and my family. I ordered my summer course textbook and
already started reading it. I have never in my life done such a thing. There were, in fact, quarters in college when
I did minimal (read: no) reading for a course I was registered for. At the age of almost-40, I am becoming a
self-actualized human being! I am integrating personal interest with my
professional interest. Will it work? Am
I too idealistic about it? We’ll
see!
The program I’m doing is awesome and the right fit for us as
a family. I’m too old and have too many responsibilities
to go where the wind takes me. I’m doing
a program that’s made for working people and focuses on helping migrant worker
families navigate the public school system.
It’s also fully funded for me, which I learned is a rarity for masters
programs outside of science.
I’m also excited for my teaching load next year because I’ll
just be focusing on teaching two classes of APES and developing a science research class. I really like mentoring kids on science projects,
and I feel like this role is perfect for me.
Plus, I get to stay in my awesome school community while I dip my toes
into a completely new field (with insurance requirements? And a whole new set
of professional organizations to join?).
And did I mention I will get to enjoy more time with the kids? That’s the real mother’s day present from
Natan (encouraging this life decision).
This guy is very joyful. He got super sick about a month ago and I had
to take 3 days off from work to be with him. He had a high fever that
wouldn't go away until the fourth day.
We did Seder with our plague puppets! Theo was really into them, but he kept getting confused on who the bad guys were (it's the Pharaohs). It's a little jarring to be at a Seder and have your four year-old exclaim, "the Jews are bad!". Somehow, his Jewish preschool education failed him on this count.
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