Monday, January 03, 2005

desperate hires

I hear from folks all the time that I'll "be a great mom." Not uncommonly, these aren't people that necessarily know me very well. Consequently, I wonder how they can be so sure I'm qualified for the job. I've had similar doubts as part of numerous interviews I've gone through in the past, like the time I interviewed for a community college teaching position right out of grad school. While I was still pontificating over my philosophies of teaching, the dean stood up and rounded his desk, dropped a textbook in my lap, and pointed out the office where I could pick up my parking pass. How had he decided I could do the job?

In his case, he hadn't – hadn't decided I could do it, had simply decided I would do. And with that, his job was finished. No more would he need to spend his busy days listening to eager M.A.s tell him about collaborative learning environments. He could safely return to day dreaming about his glory days as a college football star – the ancient news clippings from the Sacramento Bee hung around the office, a young man wearing #54 circled in each one.

The vocation of parenthood has surely seen gaps in qualified candidates over the years, just look at the explosion of memoir as a genre. You don't think all those books are talking about happy childhoods, do you? I'm not sure "You'll make a great mom" is as much a vote of confidence as it may be a sigh of relief. – "Whew. You're doing it, not me. Yes, yes, children are our most precious resource. Glad the position's filled, now I'll go off back into my own life of spontaneous travel and disposable income."

The old Soviet Union used to give women who had ten children or more medals for contributing so many citizens to the State. "Hero mothers" they were called. No one asked how successful they were at it. No one asked if Maxim and Sasha played well with others, or if their mom really always wanted to be a dancer and snarled through a cloud of cigarette smoke about "at least setting the dinner table." The position was filled. If you want to talk about what might go on behind closed doors or in the recesses of the mind, nah nah la la la, we can't hear you!

If these people – mere acquaintances thinking me a fit maternal model and lazy old men posing as educators – read anything into me, it was this - that I will do my best to fulfill responsibilities handed to me… Sounds so noble, doesn't it? (Medal worthy?) Now here's the rest of the sentence: …even when it is to my own detriment. I dream of doing the right things and showing Baby joy and comfort. But my vision of these early years for me is gnarled and dark, includes putting up a face of sanity for a world that will believe it, swallow it whole, because it needs to so badly, while inside I am feeling inadequate, inarticulate, in the mood to hand off Baby to the cooing passerby who stands opposite us like some fun house mirror and will be in our life all of 30 seconds but is so certain she's witnessed the blissful beauty of mother and child. I'm trying to envision a future with Little One in which we both rise to our potential, together. I can only wait and see.

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