I have a doctoral student right now who is thoughtful, serious, quick, conscientious, but also just an interesting and lovely person to be around. It is not hard to find Ph.D. students who are intelligent -- most are very bright. But to find somebody who is actually deeply thoughtful about things, can avoid knee-jerk reactions, and is open, truly intellectually open, that is a rare set of qualities. Anyway, she posted recently on FB about her mother:

"I have been thinking a lot about being a woman--and am very grateful for having a mom who zoomed all over the country and did what she wanted, back when women were explicitly supposed to do what they were told. Thanks for paving the way, Mom."

I cannot say how great it was to read something like that. It was actually kind of a wake up call to be reminded of that perspective. The thing is, I have a lot of guilt about how much I work and travel. And it's not even been that extreme, I mean, the kids have not been in that typical DINK situation of being in care 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. M-F. Even now at almost 3, they are only in preschool 4 days a week. I work every Sunday so that I can stay home with them every Wednesday, so that they get 3 days a week at home with a parent.

But I still struggle with it. This week the kids' schedule moved around so that they begin their class day outside in the playground instead of inside in the classroom. For some reason this has thrown Milo off so that now he clings to me and starts sobbing when it is time for me to leave. (Before, he was just happy to play and barely noticed me leaving). And every night Nora asks me, "Are you going to stay? Are you going to stay a lot a lot?" Yesterday out of the blue Milo asked, "Are you not going to go on any trips now?"

I don't think Jake has any of this guilt, so I don't know what my problem is. Probably all those messages about what a good mom is supposed to look like.

The fact of the matter is, I don't stay home. I don't sew clothes or costumes. I don't do a whole lot of art projects. Jake doesn't build toys or furniture for them. In other words, we are not my parents. So I am not doing it the way I myself was raised, so maybe therefore I think I inherently suck because I don't adhere to the model I grew up with, which was a great model!

But anyway, seeing my student post that reminded me that there are wonderful things about doing it my way too. Maybe Milo & Nora will grow up with a different model and that'll be just as good. Maybe Nora will be grateful for having a role model who shows her that you can be strong and successful and love your work and love your family. Maybe Milo will naturally assume that moms (and women) matter just as much as dads (and men) in the workplace, that you don't automatically defer to the guy's job, career, needs. And maybe he'll take those assumptions into his own relationships with women (assuming he has relationships with women) and it'll feel natural for him to carry his share at home, to be willing to relocate for his partner's career, etc. Maybe Nora will struggle a little less with this balancing stuff, or at least maybe it'll feel okay for her, because that's what her mom did. Maybe not, of course, but I think that these could potentially be some benefits to growing up in the kind of family that we have right now.

I think it is helpful to remember that there are lots of good ways to arrange a family. The way I grew up was great. But the way I'm doing it isn't inherently worse. It probably has its own sets of benefits that I shouldn't discount.