In the next few weeks, I will turn 40. I know it is very cliché to have a mid-life crisis at 40, but apparently there is something to it. I guess I have been moving toward this moment from the moment I was born, but there are several moments that obviously have moved me along to my crisis and hopefully to my resolution of sorts.
When I was 9, I was told that I was really smart. Really smart. From then on I was the smart sister and the good student. School was easy for me and I loved it! Through junior high and high school, there was never a question of attending college. I just had to decide where. My mom was a stay-at-home mom and my dad completed one year of college and worked for a utility company. They were a united front on the option of college: there was not an option. Somewhere in those years, I also decided I would get a Ph.D. Again, this was not an option in my mind.
In high school I had few boyfriends, but in college I met the love of my life. We met at junior college when I was 19. We had a rocky courtship that last 6 years. During those years, I finished a Bachelor’s degree in drama and a Master’s degree in teaching. He was not fond of school and took an extended approach to college, working and supporting himself. But as soon as he finished and found a job, we married. My only condition was he had to find a job near a university where I could get a Ph.D. That’s how I ended up in the doctoral program in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Arkansas. I graduated the day before my 29th birthday.
Unlike the certainty of a terminal degree, I was ambivalent about having children. I had a stepson (Remember the rocky courtship?) and that seemed enough, but my Ob/Gyn said I was getting old and should start trying if I wanted a child. I remember sitting in a Mexican restaurant telling my mom we thought we’d try, but if it didn’t happen, I was not going to be devastated. Besides, I didn’t really feel fertile. I got pregnant the first week of trying.
With a baby coming, my husband and I wanted to return home to Texas. He began looking for jobs while taught adjunct and hated almost every minute of pregnancy. His field was not hiring in Texas and I started looking. I had always thought I would stay home like my mom until my kid was 3 then go back to work and then it would be education outreach at a theatre or something cool. I was offered an assistant professor position in a town 2 hours away from both our families. I took it.
We moved and adjusted. He stayed home with our son and I worked, came home and nursed, taught, came home and nursed and finally our son ate solid food! At the end of the year, my husband said he could not do another day and he had found a job. We found nannies and had two more kids and found daycare and bought a house.
At work I excelled and found leadership roles I enjoyed. For years, I worked at home on Tuesdays and Thursdays with my kids there. As I moved into more leadership, I had to shift. I am now an associate dean and my youngest is in daycare all week. I feel like I let her down but am hoping she doesn’t remember. It has been in this last year that my work and home lives have clashed. I feel guilty wanting to work and grow and take on more leadership. Dare I say I might even want to be a dean one day? As a mom of 5, 7, and 10 year olds, I think I need to be with my kids more. I pick them up every day from school. I feel inordinate joy in their laughter and their thought processes. But at the same time, I am pushing the limits of expectations of being at work from 8-5.
I did not have a working mom to model and I have fought for the illusion of balance too long now. So here’s what I have come to:
I have to be me. Denying the fact that I am smart and achievement oriented makes me unhappy. If I deny my need for achievement and stay at home, I am doing my kids a disservice. On the other hand, I have set my boundaries with work. The minute I am asked to account for every minute between 8-5 I am done in leadership. I would not be an effective leader if I worried about my kids all day. There is no balance. One day may be entirely centered around my kids and the next two around a work deadline.
All I can do each day, every day is to be the best me I know how to be and honor the gifts I have been given each day. In doing that I think I am the best mother I can be. I am modeling being true to yourself to my children. They see me do things I enjoy and I hope they remember that. At work, I am modeling to coworkers that family is important and is part of who I am. I can only hope I can make a difference while being me. Amen.
-Submitted by Amanda
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I love this!!
Nicely said. Thank you for this!