Wasting My Education

http://amysrobot.com/archives/2005/09/ny_times_on_sta.php

Let me get this straight -- if I have a quality university education, and then choose to actually raise my own kids, I'm foolishly wasting my education and betraying feminism because I'm unable to think outside the traditional box? If I don't get a university education and choose to raise my own kids, I'm sub-intelligent, outside the bounds of feminism, and following in lockstep some Stepford vision of womanhood? If I have a quality university education (or even if I don't) and I work outside the home I'm less than a good mother, abandoning my children to daycare and classroom "parents for hire?" And if I choose not to be a mother at all, I've chucked my womanhood altogether?

When DD was born, I went through a long, lonely stretch of the baby blues. I didn't recognize my life. I didn't know how to be DD's mommy. I didn't know how to be me, at home, sans career. . . The biggest adjustment of new motherhood was missing all the familiar, external cues by which I knew who I was: good student, loyal employee, creative person, good friend. The routine of baby care was numbing and exhausting. It took all day, and at the end I had little to show for it (although we both were breathing, clean and fed). And, though my friends and family may have tried to tell me, I didn't hear, "you're still you, you're just doing something different for a while." I had to come to that realization for myself.

Now I have a happy, bright 3 year old and we're in a good groove together. The baby blues are a bad memory. I'm more engaged with the world -- friends, hobbies, and books are back in my life. And I still work my butt off mothering.

I've worked for over 25 years in various capacities outside the home. I have an undergraduate degree from a Seven Sisters college. I have a graduate degree, too. I'm a feminist. I am a SAHM and homeschooler with a 3 year old DD and a 7 year old DSS. Am I wasting my education when I teach my DD to read, or show my DSS how to use an atlas? Am I wasting my education homeschooling my kids -- finding interesting things to read, schlepping to the library and the Y, going to park days and homeschool co-op days, reading everything I can find about how humans learn? Am I wasting my education attending homeschooling conferences, participating in workshops, sharing with other parents? Am I wasting my education viewing parenting as a vital effort to contribute to society? Perhaps a deeper question is whether it's a waste of time to spend it with children. Feminists Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler comment that "feminism is the radical notion that women are people." Is it really so radical to notice that children are people? Am I wasting my education spending time with children (mine and others') -- talking with them, sharing myself, teaching them about values, listening to their concerns, guiding them to find answers to their questions, helping them contribute to their families and community, treating them like valuable human beings? When my kids are older, I bet I'll be back in the workplace, with even more wisdom to contribute, courtesy of the time I'm spending with children. So am I wasting my fine university education?

I wouldn't say that spending all day, every day, with a child, or a bunch of children, is always gratifying. I have needs that my children cannot (or should not) meet. I have interests beyond my home and family. There are myriad Catch-22 decisions to make as a mother, and each day brings new challenges, hassles, discoveries and amusements. Raising a child is alternately boring, fun, exhausting, exhilarating, overwhelming, satisfying, nerve-wracking, and lonely. It's hard work with no guarantees about the outcome.

Why this culture doesn't value the hard work it takes to raise a thoughtful, kind, creative, contributing citizen is beyond one blog entry. I do know that until mothering is valued, women and children won't be valued, and the vision of feminism won't be realized.