Someone's gotta give

In my mother's day it was assumed that the woman needs to put family first and the man needs to pursue a real career. My mom always worked but as a cook, a waitress, and then eventually a secretary. I can't imagine those jobs were exactly thrilling. But they fit into the lifestyle of focusing all her attention on her kids and husband. She happens to be a very talented seamstress and is extremely creative; I remember being amazed at a painting in our house that my mom did. Now that her kids are all grown she has allowed herself to dream and she is actually a very ambitious women, with so many ideas of how to pursue her creative passions. She sacrificed so much for us. I think of that moment in Peter Pan when the mother explains how the father put all his dreams into a drawer and sometimes pulls them out to admire...

However, because my parents had children so young, my father also didn't exactly get to pursue a career he was enthralled with. He was a butcher for a while and then went back to school to get a slightly better job at a factory. He has worked there ever since, working his way up though, to now having an essential position there. He managed to work some of his passions into what he does; the more executive position he now has involves more work with programming and design. But for a very long time he too sacrificed for his family.

Have you ever been told a job is a job and it's supposed to suck? Do you believe it? I definitely think my parents subscribed to that for a long time. But now both are or have already attempted to make it not suck so much. My husband sometimes feels that is just going to suck, but I know that he is often very satisfied with his job. He is challenged by it (hard for him, mister off-the-charts smart guy) and he'll talk on and on and on about what he's doing. So I think what he means is that at times you get frustrated, bored, wish you were somewhere else doing something else... Which is true of pretty much everything when you do it for 8 or 9 hours every day.

Back to my parents, because of their sacrifices for me and because of the society I grew up in I always imagined that I would one day be a mother but I also always expected to find a career I was passionate about and to try to become successful at that too. I know other girls my age did not grow up with the ingrained idea of motherhood, I'm not sure if it was my true desire or if that was very subtly put on me by the world I was raised in. In any case, a few years into our marriage I started dreaming babies. Simultaneously I was planning my career. I tried out serious academia in the form of a master's degree and realized I did not like many aspects of it. So I went to teacher's college and discovered I love teaching. I love it. And I'm good at it. I can command the respect of a classroom and I'm very good at connecting with the students. I even enjoyed marking their work, I like seeing what they come up with. Of course there were times when I wanted a break, when I'd love to be home watching tv instead, just like my husband, but for the most part I was seriously passionate about teaching.

But then I didn't get a job, not even supply teaching. Apparently I went to teacher's college at the worst possible time in the past 20 years. Even the next year was better (when I was visibly pregnant with baby S). But also it was incredibly difficult to be a working mom. N was in daycare for 8 months while I went back to school for my B.Ed. It's not that I found it difficult to leave her. A lot of people assume that would be the issue. I got over that quickly. I saw how the ladies were with the babies and I knew she was well taken care of. It was more the whole, who's going to clean the house and cook with both parents working full time? How do you working moms do it?!? When is that precious family time where you all just hang out at the park or play on the floor together? When I wasn't doing school work or prepping for my student teaching I was cleaning the piles and piles of dishes and laundry that developed while I wasn't looking. Our house became just a place we used for shelter; it was not a home. And when I was hanging out with the family I was half thinking about them and half thinking about what I would be doing in class next week.

or how well my children behave, but, let's face it, that is kind of what defines me now. And then I always end up feeling like a failure.

And when I look to the future, when both kids are in full day school, I'm surprised to realize I don't want every B.Ed. student's dream, the full time teaching contract. No thank you. That year when I was in school was so very hard that I don't want to repeat that again. If I feel like a failure when all I do is be a mom, how will I succeed at motherhood and working? I've heard from a lot of other moms that they always imagined they'd go back to work but are now preferring to stay home if at all possible. I, like many other girls, was encouraged to want it all, but no one explained just how hard that is. And now there's quite a few of us, highly educated and aiming much lower than we ever expected because we prioritize our children and realize that it is simply unfair to have a professional, full-time job and only dedicate about 30% of yourself to it. I hope, and I mean hope, to be a supply teacher. That would seriously be ideal. Part time, no homework, no stress about the long-term development of the students. Just get in, do the job, and get out with full mental capacity left to focus on my family.

Of course I would be giving up one of the things I loved about teaching: the pride in watching the love of learning develop in some kids (and I mean only some). And also the creativity involved in lesson planning. I surprised myself a few times by creating some pretty awesome lessons, and that felt good. Really good. And then when the students responded really well to the lesson, now there's your sense of achievement! But you know what, I would so give that up to gain the ability to focus more on my family. I would definitely take on the treatment that high school kids give supply teachers in order to not have any prep work. When I first thought about teaching I never "dreamed" about supply teaching... and yet here I am.

So I follow many women before me and forgo the ideal career in order to be the primary caregiver for my family. Because having it all, well, I just don't believe that exists. At least not for both parents. If I have to choose one thing to make sure I succeed at, I choose my family. Maybe my parent's spoiled me by raising me in a family that functioned well. That kind of family doesn't just work with no one paying attention to it. Someone's gotta give, and it will not be my kids.