Occupational Hazards

When I was growing up, my occupational aspirations changed from year-to-year, week-to-week, and sometimes even from minute-to-minute (thanks to an academic adviser in college who reminded me that I would be expected to pursue whatever line of work I chose for the next 40 years until I retired, upon which time she informed me, I would probably be too old and arthritic to enjoy my retirement, and then could look forward to death. No pressure there. I’m guessing any employee satisfaction surveys she completed were pretty low.)

Starting at about age five, my heart’s deepest desire was to become a veterinarian. I liked to pretend that my grandparents’ dogs had exotic canine diseases that only I could cure. If I found a roly-poly sitting in the middle of the sidewalk where the neighborhood boys were sure to crush it beneath their mammoth bicycle tires, I would carefully move it into a nearby flowerbed. Then, during writing lab in the third grade, when we were supposed to be writing about what we wanted to be when we grew up, the boy sitting next to me looked over at my neatly printed block letters that spelled out VETERINARIAN. “Ew!” he said. “You want to cut off dogs’ private parts all day long?!” And that was the end of a dream.

In the sixth grade, I had an amazing teacher on whom I thought the sun rose and set. I decided that nothing could be better than inspiring a classroom full of students who idolized me and hung on my every word, their attention so rapt that they even forgot about recess until I reminded them that fresh air and sunshine were important for little bodies. I thought maybe kindergarten or first grade would be the place for me. I could finger paint and smell of fresh paste all day. And I loved the sight of a just-opened box of crayons.  (When I actually DID decide to go into education during my junior year of college, the college wisely required all aspiring teachers to observe elementary and secondary classrooms before choosing a grade level. It took me exactly 30 seconds to know that elementary was NOT the place for me. There isn’t enough Xanax in the world, and may God bless and have mercy on the souls of those of you who do this important job.)

Sometime during junior high school, I read my mother’s old Cherry Ames books (she was a fictional character who worked as a nurse during and following WWII and changed jobs every 208 pages) and decided that nursing was a noble profession. I began volunteering at one of the local hospitals during that time, and I loved the atmosphere. So what happened to this plan you ask? Organic chemistry is what happened. Never in my life have I ever been so bored.

I went through a phase when I wanted to major in dietetics, until I realized that chocolate was not a group on the food pyramid, at which time I declared the entire profession a sham and immediately went to my adviser’s office to change my major.

I’ve always loved to write and worked on publications from the time that I was in high school, so I thought, why not try print journalism? I loved the classes and the interesting minds of the people who shared them with me. It was the perfect fit, except that it was 2001, the Internet had been gaining momentum for the past decade, and newspapers and magazines across the country were laying off salaried journalists left and right and using freelance writers instead. When I realized that the only food I could afford on a starting reporter’s salary would be Raman noodles and peanut butter sandwiches, I decided to share my love of writing and literature with others, and became a high school English and journalism teacher.

I may have changed career aspirations as often as Cherry Ames, but one part of the vision that I had for my adult life never wavered. From the time that I was very small, I knew that I wanted to be a Mom. Chalk this up to having a great mom of my own (although I certainly never wanted her to know it between the ages of 12 and 20) or my fondness for the just-out-of the-package-smell of new plastic baby dolls, but I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to have children. There are pictures of me as a toddler taking my baby doll shopping in a play grocery cart, giving my baby a time out, and pretending to wash tiny baby clothes.

It was the 80s, so I had four Cabbage Patch dolls that were among my favorite playthings. I would dress them, feed them, and rock them to sleep. My reward for such loving attention was the unfaltering painted smiles on their perfect plastic faces. My four angelic babies drank all of their milk and orange juice bottles (the kind that magically emptied when tipped upside down), always stopped crying when I picked them up, AND stayed in bed when put there, sleeping until whenever I felt like getting up to play with them again. By age 8, I figured I had this whole motherhood thing figured out. No problem.

The first time I saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test, I was overcome with a sense that I was about to do something incredibly important. More important than grading semester term papers. More important than explaining how to diagram a sentence. I was going to be entrusted with a human life. I was going to mold and shape this child into a compassionate, responsible human being. And some day, he would look down at me with gratitude in his eyes and an M.D. behind his name, and a wave of appreciation would sweep over him the likes of which he had never experienced or would ever experience again. I was going to hold the most revered job title in the mammal world- Mother.

The reality is, motherhood is the most difficult job I have ever undertaken. For one thing, most employers are required by law to allow their employees breaks each day. During this time, workers have the luxury of using the restroom in solitude. They are not required to balance a nursing baby in the crook of one arm while holding the toilet paper roll down with the other so that a toddler can’t “mummify” himself while repetitively chanting, “You go pee pee, Mommy.” At work, I am allowed to sit down to eat my lunch. At home, I stand at the counter eating the crusts off of other people’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

In motherhood, your employers expect you to report for duty at all hours of the day and night without notice, even when you’ve been puking or running a fever. There’s no complaint box if you find yourself unsatisfied with someone’s attitude or job performance, and you are sometimes required to sleep with the boss, even when he insists on sleeping sideways with his feet digging into your ribs and enough stuffed animals in the bed to suffocate a small elephant.

There are no glowing performance reviews thanking you for all of the hard work you’ve been doing. No one gushes over how you took the initiative to scrape the hardened toothpaste out of the bathroom sink or thanks you for taking the time to make nutritious meals instead of stopping at McDonald’s on the way home after soccer practice. In fact, any performance reviews in motherhood are more likely to include comments on how you could improve. (“Don’t buy me itchy sweaters anymore Mom.” “You made fish AGAIN?!” “Mrs. So-and-so said that we didn’t do my homework right the other night.”)

I liken it to working for Mussolini or Stalin at the height of their power. I sometimes even affectionately call them my little dictators. The other morning around 5:30, K toddled into the bedroom. I didn’t know she was there until I felt warm air on my cheek and opened my eyes to see her own blue ones staring at me from a half an inch away. I nearly jumped out of my skin. “I want eggs for breakfast Mommy.” I tried in vain to explain to my two-year-old that Mommy doesn’t fix eggs until the sun has come up.

Motherhood is also the most rewarding job I’ve ever had. The benefits package can’t be beat. No one at work has ever before stopped me mid-Dr. Seuss to grab my face between two chubby hands, look deep into my eyes and say, “I lub you so, so much Mommy.” No paycheck can compare to a hand-made, albeit slightly crookedly cut get well heart that reads, “I hop you git bedr Mome.” And all of the accolades in the world pale in comparison to your preschooler introducing you to his class by saying with pride in his voice, “This is my Mom.”

I’ve never worked at anything that was as frustrating, anxiety inducing, thankless, and, at times, painful as parenting my kids. I’ve also never dreamed of a job that I wanted to do more than this one, and I never plan to retire.