The title of this blog is, of course, taken from the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. When I first read it in high school, "Prufrock" struck me as the most indecipherable piece of writing I'd ever come across. Yet as my high school English teacher unraveled it line by line, bit by bit--well, if I hadn't loved analyzing literature before then, I was hooked after we reached the last line of the poem. In a way, T.S. Eliot changed the direction of my intellectual life. I went from wanting to be a lawyer to wanting to be a journalist to wanting to be an English professor all in that year: 1989, the year of Prufrock.
Thirteen years later I had achieved my goal. I'd gotten my Ph.D. in English Education and won a tenure track job at a lovely local university. Life was good, but I yearned for something. At holidays, at birthdays, there was an emptiness. And after the Trade Towers fell I began thinking about death, and regrets, and it occurred to me that if I had died in those towers that day I would have had only one regret: that I hadn't had a child.
Never one to waste time, after I wrote the first few chapters of my dissertation I started work on the next goal: children. One was readily conceived, then lost. Devastation. Fear. Despair. There are no words to describe miscarriage. Nothing but time to ease the pain of the loss of such hope, possibility.
Yet a year later I conceived my second child. This pregnancy took, and my first daughter was born in 2003, six months after I'd been offered and accepted my tenure track job. I had been granted a year's leave of absence, but it took only two weeks after her birth to know that I couldn't go back. The logistics of working, researching, trying to earn tenure and raising a child . . . well, it could be done, under the right circumstances, but I couldn't do it. My husband earned enough so I didn't have to work; my salary was, in essence, a tax liability; my husband, a conservative at heart, didn't want me to work; day care wasn't an option; my mother decided she wanted to be a grandmother rather than a surrogate mom.
So, I resigned my post. Put in my letter. Threw it all away--at least it felt like that at the time. And I became a stay-at-home mom.
I didn't know what I was doing. I was trained, from the start, to discuss literature and writing with college students. Watching my infant daughter coo on the floor, while cute for a few minutes, took on the feeling of watching paint dry. I truly felt as if I had begun "measuring out my life with coffee spoons"--and not just because I drank an inordinate amount of coffee just to get through the day. The most significant thing I had ever done in my entire life--raising a child, cultivating a life--felt like the most tedious, sometimes almost meaningless. Having lived a life that thrived on stress and, honestly, on instant gratification (write a paper, get an 'A', move on) I had no idea how to measure how I was doing at the business of child-raising.
So I wrote this to a friend: "I have a new job. My boss is cranky, whiny, doesn't know what she wants and screams all the time. Also, she's incontinent." My friend wrote back, "You have a new baby, you're a new mom. Here is what you have to know to survive: get out of the house. Every day. Do something, just so you'll get dressed, brush your teeth and see another adult human being."
But where should I go? I thought to myself. Where can I take this baby? I tried the grocery store, but one can consume only so much food. Wal-Mart, too--when I bought things that I didn't need just so I would have somewhere to go when I returned them the next day . . . I was clearly out of my depth.
In my pediatrician's office there was a flyer for a program called Kindermusik--for kids from birth to five years old. "Wow," I thought, "My daughter is definitely 'birth.' We can do this." I called, signed up, and went to my first Kindermusik class with Delightful Sounds. And there I met moms who would lead me to various stay-at-home-mom lifelines. There were moms who had their first baby and were struggling, like I was, with this new life. Just the ability to commiserate was a joy. Then there were moms who were raising their second child, or their third. They had some answers, and they were happy to share them with me. One of them was the ubiquitous, "Get out of the house every day, and not just to Wal-Mart." The other was, "Find a play group."
Little by little I took their advice, and built a new life for myself. Yes, there were a few false starts, tiny rejections. I remember one evening asking one of my old university friends to just take me out, away from the house. We went for ice cream and as we sat in her car with our desserts melting in our laps I cried, "I feel like I'm in junior high! I just got braces, I'm fat, and I don't have any friends!"
Yes, that was a low point. But it got better. I kept going to Kindermusik classes, kept learning how to play with this little lump of protoplasm that had captured my heart. I studied my Kindermusik books, listened to the music, danced with my infant, exercised with her, bonded with her. Those classes were more than just for the infants--they were for moms, too: a crash course in the basics of early childhood development. I found more books to read about raising babies; I researched like a trooper. I made informed decisions based on what I read. I also talked to more and more moms who I'd met in a local stay-at-home moms organization. I joined a playgroup and found friends who are truly the most amazing women I have ever met. Their kindness, devotion, love, and support carried me through a period of self-redefinition the likes of which I had never thought I'd experience.
So here I am, four years and another baby later. I'm still a stay-at-home mom. My first daughter, Beth, started pre-school this August; she just turned four in November. My second daughter, Christa, will be eighteen months in December. I'm still part of my playgroup. I still take both of my daughters to Kindermusik classes, and Mrs. Aimee has asked me to contribute to her blog as a guest writer.
I'd like to tell all those new moms out there that every day is happy, that every day has joy and meaning and bliss. And you know, I can say that, because every day does have all those things. But every day also has aggravation, frustration, sadness, anger, and yes, tedium. There are still days where the clock seems to go backwards, when the hours between 5:00 and 7:00 feel like days. There are times that seem empty and meaningless, days I feel I could do more good back at work than home with my kids.
But then I remember that in a few years, my kids will not just be mine anymore. They will both be at school. They will start to belong to the rest of the world. My current hold on their heart, their mind, their hours will have to loosen to allow in their friends, their schoolmates, society as a whole. They will drift from me. They should drift from me. They will learn, and they will grow, and I will always be here for them but they'll need me less and less. And when that happens, work and the world will be there. But for now, I take the time to hold them tight, give them kisses, and play cars, or fairies, or dress-up.
And, of course, to have another cup of coffee.
