Seriouser and Seriouser

When you think you can do anything, you do a little of everything...

I've followed some of the discussion about Sheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In, but just so everyone knows that this isn't really another discussion of the book,  I want to be clear that haven't actually read it, and I probably won't, because reading a book from the leadership section always makes me nauseous.  I still have awkward flashbacks from mandatory Who Moved my Cheese management sessions back in the late nineties.   Also, I'm pretty sure Sandberg is talking about a kind of life I've already decided against. I have spent way too much time as a manager already, working the corporate wheeze, sending my children off in the morning and sometimes not seeing them until the next morning, thinking about my workday long before it started and far too long after it ended.   If that is the only way to lean in, I'm definitely leaning back.  But I suspect there are other ways to make use of what Sandberg is talking about when she says things like "don't leave before you leave." 

Looking back, I have to admit that I haven't usually "leaned in." Not that I haven't worked and done plenty of other things, but I've been a dabbler, trying my hand at all kinds of things, rather than turning with laser-like focus to success in any one area. 

Whenever I have a chance, I like to blame my own shortcomings on the cultural zeitgeist, and I see no reason to make an exception here.  My logic goes this way:  in the seventies, when I was a kid, there was an explosion of opportunity for women, thanks to some hard-working feminists.   Those new opportunities were celebrated , as in this commercial, proving that women could do it all. (And smell great doing it!) 




The idea that an excellent job could be combined with a great relationship and a happy family made lots of possibilities seem endlessly appealing.  Have a career, have a sex life, have a kid (or two or three, if that's what you think you need to do.) The only real mistake was limiting yourself.  The message was that I (any girl) could do it all. 


An appropriately disturbing image of trying too much at once.

This cultural propaganda was amplified by the fact that there were some things I could do well without having to try very hard.  I got good grades, As and A minuses, without having to work too hard.  I am a quick learner, but of course, this doesn't instill a great work ethic.  Why try harder, when you can just do more?  I did school plays and dance shows, worked on the yearbook, did academic competitions, any activity (yeah, no sports, you know me) that seemed like it might be fun, because why not round out my college applications, where being a dabbler had some value?  It seemed better to be "fine" at a lot of things than great at just one or two. The ability and propensity to take on activities continued after graduation, and with a couple of tragic exceptions, I did okay.  It wasn't too long before I could competently sew and make jewelry and cook and crochet and and write and do research and manage a store and make schedules and work the big espresso machine at the bookstore, and-- well you get the idea-- all without having to really exert myself, which was good, because I didn't ever like to look like I was trying too hard.

And what is that about?  This fear of showing that I am making an effort. I used to joke that, because I grew up in Southern California, I felt obligated to make everything look easy--no sweat, sail through, stay loose.  Working hard just never seemed cool.

No sweat-- I can do it all from here...

I smugly, and (thank goodness!) mostly silently, chuckled at the hard-working, stressed-out antics of the grinds, the zealots, the gung ho-- what chumps!  All the way through law school in fact, I pointed and shook my head, talking about having a balanced life when I was really running a three ring circus sometimes, trying to work, study and take care of family.  Yeah, I would think, if I applied all that effort and worked my ass off on just one thing like those clowns, I might have finished in the top ten. But I had kids and I had to work, so top twenty-five is great for doing just enough, right?  Who needs to be so serious when you have natural talent to fall back on?

This, I think, gets to the real issue, and I have to admit it: I hate to look like I'm trying too hard because, then, what if I fail?  I'll look like a dumb-ass.  So yeah, if I could get a ninety without really investing myself, it seemed better than aiming for that perfect score and having to possibly face the fact that I failed.  My self esteem has been wrapped up in how well I can do without even trying, how close I can cut it, how smoothly I can skate by.   I have celebrated the narrow escape and felt that was my real skill-- doing just enough to get by and stay in the game.  But this has begun to lose its allure for me. It's tiring really, much more of an effort than making an effort.

And middle age (I'll live to be 98, right?) has clarified the idea that there are not so many new opportunities left after, say, forty five: not so many chances to scrape by and bounce back and act like I didn't really care about what I had been doing anyway.  It is past time to focus, so maybe that's what  "leaning in" will be about for me. Because it turns out that you can't do it all-- at least you can't do it all well-- and you do have to choose, because you can only dabble your life away for so long.  At some point, if you want to feel good about what you do every day, you have to get serious, and you have be willing to say that what you do matters. 

I mean I do. I have to devote my time and effort to something that matters to me.  I have to get serious.

I'm already confronting the fact that "...and she did it so young" is no longer what people will ever say about me, but if I can't give up caring what people will say, then maybe it would be nice for people to say, "...and she gave it her all."  Now I just have to choose what I'm giving it all to.  I have a couple of ideas.  This is the first year that I didn't spend most of every week doing a job I didn't like just to earn a paycheck.  I really need the paycheck, but I know that if I'm going to put in the effort, I have to be doing something I like to do. Especially if I have to work hard at it.

Of course, I still need to be cool, so if this doesn't go anywhere, I can always claim that I could have done better, if I had really really tried. 


Alice in Wonderland image found here.  Multi hand image from here. Beach image from here.

Hello to All That

My baby, my youngest child, is five years old today.  She is a beautiful, complicated person with a strong sense of humor and an even stronger will.  I adore her. 

But this isn't about her, this is about me.  This is about me and me becoming a mom.

Fiona is my fourth child.  The others range in age from thirty to six.  I have two "sets" of children, I guess, something more and more common in this new age we live in, a time when reinvention and recombination is encouraged, and families can be created over a lifetime.  This step-wise arrangement has been a good thing for me, because I have both boys and girls and have experienced the joys (and other "stuff") of both and can talk about the differences with some authority now.  (I still fear the upcoming "emotional" years with the girls, when the waves of hormones start crashing on these shores.)  Also, I can still distinguish Legos from knock-off generic blocks and do a wicked french braid while both the braid-ee and I munch on buttered English muffins. 

And even though I just told Fiona that just because it's her birthday, she can't act like a little pischer, I don't know what I would do without her.  She calls me "Moo-shu," after the Chinese take-out food, just because she likes the sound of the words.  Even though there are times when she talks circles around me and runs me off my feet, I am thankful for her every day...usually by the time she is asleep, at least.  You see, I am utterly convinced that I could not have easily managed four children within a conventional time-span, such that I would have had four actual under-age children under my care at the same time.  Utterly convinced.  Just writing about this makes me tired.

 

Here's a fun Fiona fact:  she is the only child, out of the four, who was premeditated. 

 

Her oldest brother was a surprise. In my own defense, I was a college freshman away at school with my first serious boyfriend, recently informed by a well-respected OB-GYN how terribly sad it was that I would probably never have children without some kind of medical intervention.  Picture the heavy sigh and sad shake of head as said doc lets me know I really don't need a script for birth control.  Picture also, the heavy sighs and sad shakes of head when I revealed my college-interrupting condition to my parents.  Did I mention I was seventeen?  They were actually amazing, once the smoky clouds of shock and dismay dissipated, though I am certain my mother has never forgiven me for anointing her as a grandmother just as she turned forty.  I am certain because she mentions it every year around my oldest son's birthday.

 

I have to say, to be very clear, that the unintentional aspect of all this motherhood has never made me feel that I was making a mistake. 

My only mistake actually, was agreeing to marry my sons' father.  Though even this has to be qualified, because if I hadn't married the-- uh, him, I wouldn't have my younger son, whose impending arrival became apparent just as I was planning to take my oldest son and leave the marriage for a number of very good reasons, including my first husband's increasingly abusive behavior.  I don't know what I would do without Justin, either, and since my parents were already broken in as grandma and grandpa, and I was still married, there was much less distressed fanfare accompanying his debut. 

I will leave out, for now, years of single parenthood, during which I am sure that I have somehow scarred my sons for life.  To date, both are solid citizens and I am very proud, but I am a Jewish mother, so the worry lingers.  Whatever it is, it will be my fault.  That is all I know. 

So, advance the way back machine, if you will, to a couple of years  after the boys graduate from high school.  I'm done, I think, with the mom basics, and in the American feminist renaissance tradition, it is time to do something for myself.  My current husband and I decide on mid-life career shifts, and head to law school, across the country.  The boys are grown-ups, old enough to go through the airport security by themselves and visit when they can, so I feel good about going back to school.  First semester goes well, but by January, I can't shake the ugly flu that seems to be ravaging the other One Ls.  I just need some antibiotics... Or do I? 

You can picture the visit to  Maine Student Health, then housed in a temporary trailer across campus from the law building, where a (young) middle aged woman sits on a paper-covered exam table, convinced that a pregnancy test is really unnecessary-- really, I mean law school, stress, flu-- just get me some amoxicillin and I'll be fine.  I might have been slightly less shocked than my equally middle aged husband, who held the results up to the light to be sure he was reading them correctly.  Enter Delia, that September.   Thanks to the supportive community at the school and two solid summers of Con Law and Trial Practice, I graduated with my class, just after Fee was born. 

Why a second baby during law school?  Couldn't I have just tied one hand behind my back and refused to use electronic resources to up the level of difficulty? 

Wait, didn't she say that Fiona was the one she planned? 
 

Our advancing age, the thought of Delia having no one her age in the family, and the availability of public health care for grad students, contributed to the decision to have another child  right away.  So we did.  Kind of a miracle, given the ridiculous work-study-childcare schedule.  It was meant to be, as they say, because life would be less astounding, less musical, less everything, without my baby who is five today. 

And even though I just had to tell Fiona that, just because it's her birthday, she can't have ice cream for breakfast, even with cereal sprinkled on it, I wouldn't trade her, or any of the four, for anything.  Ever. 

Especially when they are sleeping.