Guest post: Lost In Motherland
Beatrice Scudeler on the tension between little children and big dreams
I love this essay because it’s about unexpectedly finding a new vocation, in giving up a previous dream. Something similar happened to me: I was terrible at every job I ever tried my hand at, had more or less given up on having any kind of career, and was happy with the idea of being a stay at home mum. Only then I accidentally became a writer, which is where you find me now.
Who knows what the future will hold? In any case, there are all kinds of vocations out there. But while YMMV, for me at least being somewhat constrained by family commitments was not an obstacle to finding my vocation, but an enabling condition.
Easter break note: It’s both Easter and school holidays from the end of today for me. Stay tuned for a big essay after the weekend, that I’ve been working on for some time. Other than that I’ll be taking a little time off, so updates will be shorter / less frequent than usual until mid-April.
Wishing those of you who celebrate a very happy Easter!
Lost In Motherland
I first got pregnant at 23, barely out my master’s degree and only three months after getting married. It wasn’t exactly what we’d planned: we were about to move to Canada for my husband’s first job after finishing his PhD. I always knew I wanted children, but it never occurred to me that I would have them so soon. I had ambitions of doing a PhD in English, of becoming an academic. Then the children would come, I thought.
But the children, of which I now have two (a two-year-old and a newborn, yes, it’s marvelous, but no, we’re not getting any sleep), had other ideas.
Don’t get me wrong, I love being their primary caregiver. But I also often hate it. There, I said it.
At first, getting pregnant didn’t derail our plans. We still moved to Toronto. We travelled and lived the big city lifestyle. We had our son. It was a big adjustment, but my husband’s work was flexible, so we managed.
In the meantime, I’d got accepted into my dream doctoral programme, and so we moved again, this time to South Bend, Indiana. The first few months were tough, but we kept going. My husband had hopes to find another postdoc there, and my son started sleeping better. Then, during my second semester as a PhD student, I got pregnant again, and this time it upended my life.
I suffered from unrelenting hyperemesis gravidarum for the first four months of the pregnancy, and barely made it to the end of the academic year. By this point, I’d already developed serious doubts that English studies was a discipline worth pursuing (I’ve written about this). Once we travelled back home for the summer, I knew I couldn’t have another baby abroad with no help. Not for the sake of finishing a PhD. Not when the chances of getting a permanent academic job were so slim.
Fast-forward a few months and we’re back in Oxford, where my husband and I got married. I suppose I’m now a stay-at-home-mum-turned-part-time-freelance-writer, though I still find both those labels strange. My husband is now the one working full-time, and just as I didn’t envision myself being a stay-at-home-mum, he’s taken on a job that was not necessarily his ‘dream’. Most of my days are spent between bath time and play groups and nappy changes, with little bits of writing getting done at the edges of the day, when someone else can tend to my kids’ needs and I’m not just ‘mother’.
Don’t get me wrong, I love being their primary caregiver. But I also often hate it. There, I said it. Think of me as a horrible parent if you wish.
Last week, in the depths of sleep deprivation with my newborn daughter, I read Jessie Munton’s article in The Point from last year: ‘Slaves to Love’. It made me weep. Drawing on the British psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott, in particular from his essay ‘Hate in the Counter-Transference’, Jessie argues that small children treat us as extensions of themselves. They failing to recognise us as individual beings with our own needs. It can be infuriating. This struck me as exactly what I’m experiencing.
I remember telling my husband after we had our son that I felt like I was disappearing, my whole life subsumed into his constant desire to be nursed. Having two children has amplified and extended that feeling. My single friends are traveling to Sweden on a whim to learn new languages, attending conferences on the other side of the Atlantic, and going to the gym at 6am one day, 10pm the next, just because they can. They contemplate adopting a ‘cat baby’ to prove to themselves that they are responsible adults. But if they change their mind last minute it’s ok. After all, they’re only in their mid-twenties and that’s when you’re supposed to be irresponsible, right?
Meanwhile, I’m here at home in an unremarkable commuter village, 26 years of age, and, to paraphrase Jane Austen, six inches deep in baby spit-up. My idea of fun is playing boardgames with my husband at the weekend. I get excited on a Saturday when I see my mum friends for a glass of wine, or when my husband takes the kids so that I get to sit and write for a few hours.
I don’t live the life that my parents or my peers expected I would in my twenties, with a fancy job during the week and traveling to ‘find myself’ in my time off. I don’t really even have ‘dreams’ anymore. And guess what, neither does my husband. We both know we have certain gifts that make us more suited to certain kinds of work. But beyond that, we’ll both take whatever jobs or do whatever form of work that serves our family. Both of us, and me especially as the mother, have indeed become slaves to love.
Both of us, and me especially as the mother, have indeed become slaves to love.
Many might read this and find my life depressing. My generation has been brought up to think that comfort and pleasure and self-fulfilment are the greatest joys life can give. But for most of human history, most people couldn’t afford dreams. My grandmother, although an excellent student with a natural talent at maths, was taken out of school at the age of 10 and put to work. She didn’t go to university or become a brilliant mathematician. The language of dreams and fulfilment just didn’t exist for her. Nor does it exist for many people in the UK today who, as Mary wrote, “don’t have careers; they have jobs.”
Now, I’m not saying dreams are bad. I’m grateful that I’ve had this luxury, unlike my grandmother. But the leisure of chasing dreams has its costs, too. What happens if your original dream turns out not to be your vocation? I had a dream of being a successful English professor, and that didn’t pan out. But beneath that, I’ve always longed to be a writer, whatever form that might take. Motherhood made it all but impossible to accomplish the academic dream; by closing that door, it also pushed me to take up writing seriously. In fact, the very first essay I ever published was about the experience of giving birth to my son.
Motherhood made it all but impossible to accomplish the academic dream, but by closing that door, it also pushed me to take up writing seriously.
So, I’m no longer embarrassed to say that my life revolves around my children. They have made me stronger, and more resilient in all kinds of ways, from the physical pains of childbirth to the mental discomfort of having to prioritise their needs over mine. They made me braver, too. Before having them, I was too scared to leave my little academic bubble, even though I was unhappy in it. I would never have become a writer if it wasn’t for them.
Over the past two years, I’ve become well and truly lost in motherland, but that’s a good thing – in many ways the best thing that ever happened to me. Giving up on old dreams is a normal part of growing up, try to escape it as we might. But having small children to look after might just give you the motivation to pursue new dreams, and better ones at that.
Did you give up on a dream to be a mother, only to stumble on a better one? Share in the comments.
If you like Beatrice’s writing, you can find more of it here.
If you’d like to contribute an essay to Reactionary Feminist, send me your ideas! You can reach me by replying to this newsletter (or any of them).
"My single friends are traveling to Sweden on a whim to learn new languages [BORING], attending conferences on the other side of the Atlantic [TEDIOUS], and going to the gym at 6am one day [DEAR GOD], 10pm the next, just because they [LACK DISCIPLINE AND ARE HUNGOVER]can."
There, fixed it for you : )
This is a lovely essay, and I can say the idea of parenthood closing doors while opening others applies to fathers as well. I find myself in a similar moment in life to Beatrice. Dreams of an academic career have been shelved in order to prioritize living in a place that best serves the needs of my young family. I am currently in the process of working instead to become a fireman, a career I would have looked down my nose at a few years ago, but one that in parts of the US offers both sufficient financial security and a flexible schedule that will allow me to be actively involved in homeschooling my children. And ultimately, perhaps this better serves my community as well. Does the world need one more academic waffling on about something or other? I find myself energize by the prospect of having a real and tangible positive impact on my community in a way that a career in academia wouldn’t have allowed.