During my first pregnancy, I always planned to return to work. While I wasn't thrilled about putting a 4-month-old in day care, I had started looking for an affordable babysitter, maybe a student, who could watch my little Sylvie during the day. Some folks told me I would change my mind when the baby arrived, but honestly I don't think I would have. Having an income-earning job, even an unglamorous, making-a-pittance job, was an important part of my identity. I knew pumping would be a pain, but I was determined. I was even in the process of figuring out how to stretch my meager 4 months off so that I could come back part-time initially. Then I ended up only taking two weeks off - for bereavement leave.
When I returned to work, I was a mess. I was still in such grief and could think of little else than starting a family. I still loved my job, but my priorities had shifted. And our financial situation was steadily improving. I decided that if and when I became pregnant again, I would stay home.
I have questioned that decision many times. Not only did it go against my original plan, it goes against my sense of self. Even now, I feel weird telling people I'm a Stay at Home Mom. Not that it is not an important - possibly the most important - job, but I feel like they might make false assumptions about me. Like thinking I read Martha Stewart and put flowers in ice cubes - wait, I do that. I enjoy domestic activities - cooking, baking, cleaning. Those are the easy parts of my job! But as important and challenging as being a SAHM is, it is not all of who I am. Being a mom is big part of my life, but not the only part. I am many other things.
My salary and lack of a high-powered career provided no compelling reason to go back to work. No surprise considering the meandering of my career path. When I graduated with a BA in anthropology, minor in psych and theater, I somehow thought I would just find the right position. Maybe at a museum or a zoo. Turns out those jobs pay nothing (sometimes literally) and are still often held by people with advanced degrees. Graduating in a dismal job market, I took what I could find.
Babysitting had been my go-to job in high school, so I signed up as a substitute teacher. All you need is some college credits and a lack of criminal history. I quickly discovered that I loved working with young children and I was good at it. I once taught a kindergarten class with no lesson plans for a week and just formed my own on the spot, teaching basic addition and subtraction with popsicle sticks. The kids loved it. So I got a full-time job as a preschool teacher. But I still wanted to do anthropology. I began to think that an academic career, researching primates in the jungle and being a university professor, would be the perfect job for me. I applied for graduate programs. Most respected PhD programs literally only accept 1 or 2 physical anthropology students a year, so I ended up going for a Masters at Hunter College with hopes for a future PhD.
I was happy to move to the city for school. I fell in love with living here. But it's not like I had a stipend from school, so I had to find a job. And since any anthropology-oriented position I could find was volunteer and my experience was really in one area, I got a job in a private Manhattan preschool. I worked full-time teaching very wealthy 4-year-olds on the Upper East Side whose parents wanted to know why their kids couldn't read yet while going to school at night and writing a 75 page MA thesis. It was a bit intense. Almost as intense as raising two kids. But not quite.
I learned a few things - that an MA gets you nowhere in anthropology. You need a PhD. And anthropology isn't just watching monkeys in the jungle. That is the fun part. I was fine (more or less) with using a hole in the ground as my toilet, bathing in a potentially crocodile-infested river, and sleeping under a mere tarp open on all three sides in an area where clouded leopards, dangerous sun bears, and (my biggest fear) scorpions roamed. But much of being an anthropologist is not so... glamorous. It is writing grants, waiting around in government offices for papers and funding to come through. Plus, it involves being away from people you love - or often any people - for long periods of time. And that's if you're lucky enough to find any job at all. Many PhD graduates from top notch programs just cannot find positions. It is not a lucrative profession, probably the one thing all my former jobs have in common.
When I found my job at NYU, college administration in the Anthropology Department, it seemed a perfect fit. While I was rather ridiculously over-qualified (not to brag, but a graduate degree or any background in anthropology was very much not needed), I felt at home. I liked being surrounded by anthropologists, some of whom I had quoted in college papers. I loved the academic environment. And I loved the location. Every day the weather permitted, I would go to Washington Square Park for my lunch hour. Yes, a whole hour. I miss it. I miss that lunch hour, the ability to take sick and vacation time, reading on my subway commute, getting to go to the bathroom whenever I needed!
I honestly feel that my current job is the hardest job I have ever had. You get almost no time off and often no credit for the constant hard work you do. I have had people make off-handed comments that I should get a job, as if I don't have one. I have had some moms tell me that they do all the night wakenings because their husbands have to work in the morning. Um, this isn't work?! Could have fooled me. I have considered, and am considering, going back to work merely to get a break. And I know other moms who have done just that, some with far more challenging jobs than I had.
This job sure isn't easy. But I'm managing some great projects and, while they can be very difficult, I really love the people I work with.