Remarks by a certain professional football at a college graduation in the USA (not Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia), a man telling women what they should want, has made me realize once again how proud I am of my career and the work I have done.
Since moving back to the USA, I have been under-employed or unemployed. The misery I’ve felt in this time has been overwhelming. But not once did I think, “Gosh, if only I’d had children.” Not once. Instead, I spent that time doing two things: filling out my family tree on Ancestry.com and republishing work from various employers that subsequent employees had removed from those web sites, thinking the material was no longer relevant.
In tracing my family tree, I discovered that, on my maternal side, I’m a fifth generation career woman, and I reflected on how proud my great-grandmother – my mother’s mother’s mother – was of her career and her leadership role in the Eastern Star and how much she enjoyed her social life and community standing. I reflected on how proud I am of my mother’s status in my hometown, how she is viewed per her roles working for local attorneys and local government and being a deputy sheriff. I reflected on how people in my hometown have sought out my mother and her mother to get guidance on who to vote for. In doing my professional and volunteering work, I have always felt I owed it to my Mom to be a reflection of her in the workplace, but finding out just how deep my “career roots” went made me realize I owed my attitude to a long line of female ancestors – career women. If those that have passed exist somewhere else and can see what I’m doing – which I doubt, but it’s a nice thought – I hope I have made them proud.
I don’t know much about my father’s side of the family, but I do know that I watched in awe as my grandmother put together endless numbers of Vacation Bible Schools and other church events, and listened in awe as she talked about her mother raising chickens, milking cows, making butter and trading eggs and butter to the local store in exchange for other food to feed her ever-growing family. She also worked the fields, with a child strapped to her back – one of whom died, probably from heat. All of that was exhausting unpaid work that took them away from the idealized moments of motherhood that certain someones – mostly men – think motherhood is all about.
In recovering my work to republish on my web site (thank you, Archive.org!), I restored so much of my self-worth that I’d lost in those first years in the USA. Unemployment had pummeled my self-esteem, and on the rare occasion I’d had job interviews, I could see the faces drop when I walked into the room and the employers saw how old I was: I thought I had skills and maturity and wisdom – they saw someone antiquated and obsolete (which I am NOT, BTW). Going through all my previous work and restoring it to the public sphere reminded me that I have been globally-recognized for my contributions on how mission-based organizations leverage computers, on or offline, on how mission-based organizations can and should communicate with various audiences, how to combat misinformation and, of course, volunteer management, especially virtual volunteering. I’m so glad I spent hours and hours, months and months, doing that, because the COVID pandemic made it all even more relevant. Not that I’m at all happy about the COVID pandemic…
If you want to be a Mom – or a Dad – full-time, with no career, I hope you get to be that. I hope you have the means and the ability to have children and to raise and support those children, without ever needing to work yourself or ever have childcare other than yourself, if that’s what you want. I hope you and your children have access to all of the healthcare you all will need. But I also hope you encourage your children to be educated and for those children, as adults, to pursue whatever roles they want. And I hope that, when you realize that no one raises a child alone, that everyone needs the help of other family or friends or neighbors or paid services or even strangers, and seeking that help doesn’t make you a failure, I hope you will seek that help.
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