Let me say that I'm writing this from the swanky coffee shop that I love but have come to maybe once in the 7 months since Tiny Boy arrived, a place I used to go to get a good cup of coffee and borrow the free WiFi for a little bit and work. I'm sitting alongside folks who look like obvious grad students writing dissertations (oh, the stacks white pages marked up with red pen!) and faculty types. My son is at home, with his caregiver, mostly because I couldn't take another morning of working while listening to him fuss*
Really, what I should be doing is churning out the pages myself, because in 50 minutes I need to go home to be a milk machine, because I can't pump** But just sitting here is nice, and, really, how much am I supposed to accomplish considering the sleep deprivation?
I'm thinking about a comment a fellow academic mom made last week last week at day camp pick up, as we were talking about daycare and so on, something about having your real self back. Now, I know from having been on a college-wide committee with this woman that she's a MOM--maybe not in that SAHM Martha Stewart wannabe way, but enough to show up to school programs and do a lot of volunteer work and bemoan missing her kid's swimming lesson when a meeting runs late. She's also a serious scholar, working damn hard to get her next book out. From the outside, she seems to strike a balance that I'd also like, as a tenured mom of two. When she said it, I was almost offended, as if these long months of being Tiny Boy's mom somehow weren't the "real" me. But you know? Every day I am more ready for him to be in full time daycare--at a place I know he will be adored, because LG spent five years there and they are fantastic--so I can do my own thing. Sit in coffee shops and read and write and meet with students and remember who I was all those years before I was a fertility patient. It's been a long time since I've not been distracted by basic facts of biology, ovulating and bleeding and injections and crabby uteruses and now milk letting down. I'm ready to work. I'm ready. Really.
* Because he is the most overtired baby on the planet, and no, I am not being hyperbolic.
**Because the most overtired baby on the planet sucks me dry overnight.
Really, what I should be doing is churning out the pages myself, because in 50 minutes I need to go home to be a milk machine, because I can't pump** But just sitting here is nice, and, really, how much am I supposed to accomplish considering the sleep deprivation?
I'm thinking about a comment a fellow academic mom made last week last week at day camp pick up, as we were talking about daycare and so on, something about having your real self back. Now, I know from having been on a college-wide committee with this woman that she's a MOM--maybe not in that SAHM Martha Stewart wannabe way, but enough to show up to school programs and do a lot of volunteer work and bemoan missing her kid's swimming lesson when a meeting runs late. She's also a serious scholar, working damn hard to get her next book out. From the outside, she seems to strike a balance that I'd also like, as a tenured mom of two. When she said it, I was almost offended, as if these long months of being Tiny Boy's mom somehow weren't the "real" me. But you know? Every day I am more ready for him to be in full time daycare--at a place I know he will be adored, because LG spent five years there and they are fantastic--so I can do my own thing. Sit in coffee shops and read and write and meet with students and remember who I was all those years before I was a fertility patient. It's been a long time since I've not been distracted by basic facts of biology, ovulating and bleeding and injections and crabby uteruses and now milk letting down. I'm ready to work. I'm ready. Really.
* Because he is the most overtired baby on the planet, and no, I am not being hyperbolic.
**Because the most overtired baby on the planet sucks me dry overnight.
As a fellow academic and mom of 2, I completely understand what you mean. I feel like I put my "self" on hold for the past 5 years. It was all about them. Which is exactly how it should have been. But now that my youngest is approaching 2, I can get back to the things in my life that also matter, like my work, my friends, my hobbies. Perhaps this feeling is more acute for academics because we tend to let what we do professional define us personally. So stepping away from work to parent leaves us feeling like something is missing.I'm looking forward to more of a balanced life. Equally busy, but in different ways.
ReplyDeleteEsperanza wrote something about this on her other blog (picturesandprint) just the other day. She's not an academic, but the sentiment is the same ... that she's spent all of this time wanting to be a mother, and just realized that she wants more ... which isn't always OK, since women are expected to be Good Mothers even when they are WOHMs.
ReplyDeleteShe says it more eloquently than I can in this comment, though.
I don't know Esperanza's blog...I'll have to check that out.
ReplyDeleteYes, ej, I totally agree!