I just recently met Hyacynth at Cupcake10, and she is just as lovely as her name. She's also a babywearing ninja and can probably wrap a baby with a blindfold and both hands tied behind her back. And as a music lover who is often forced to listen to Sesame Street Live ad naseum, I get her!
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"Taken out of context, you know, I must seem so strange.*"
That's how I feel as a guest blogger since we probably never have "met" before. Hopefully, this will be less awkward than meeting your blind date right before prom and then moments later having to pose for pictures. Anyway, I’m Hyacynth from Undercovermother.net. Nice to meet you. Now smile, and look at the camera while I make pleasantries during Erin’s first week back at school …
My house often vibrates with on-and-off-pitch singing as my two year old and I sing songs and nursery rhymes from the time we wake until our heads hit the pillow at night. Sometimes we sing them easily and effortlessly as we go about making lunch, playing and driving. And sometimes I actually tune in and listen to the words my oldest and I are harmonizing.
And when I actually take note of what I'm singing, I laugh to myself because a few short years ago I never would have imagined singing so passionately about London bridges, itsy bitsy spiders and ants that march through the rain.
As a music junkie, sometimes it still surprises me that I even sing these songs at all. I've always been the type of person who lives life in her own personal musical. I've always heard the perfect song in my head for each moment and quietly let it play in my mind as I lived out my daily life. So before I had kids, I swore up and down that my babes and I would listen to real music -- the kind that makes your heart swell up in your chest and nearly skyrocket out of your mouth in the form of lyrics and melody.
And I heeded my promise for quite some time. My two year old had a serious appetite for Jimmy Eat World when he was just a little baby. There's a song on the Futures album that made him completely dissolve into fits of baby giggles every time he heard it. But, we found, he had the same affinity for The Itsy Bitsy Spider and The Ants Go Marching. And because I loved to see my baby smile and giggle more than I loved music (my pre-mommy self would gasp in shock at this admission), I began singing songs about insects and muffin men and blind mice just to see his smiles.
The older my first-born grew, the less I found myself listening to what I deemed passionate, quality tunes; I only sneaked in some music during showers because, honestly, I'd rather listen to Bingo than an irritated toddler screech demands for his music over the luscious melodies of Death Cab for Cutie. Slowly, I relinquished control of the radio. And when my second-born arrived this past September, I pretty much gave up ever trying to listen to anything that didn't chronicle the sounds that dogs and pigs make or the woes of five monkeys who've been jumping on the bed. My previously rockin' entire-life soundtrack became quite tame. And I succumbed to singing about all the bugs my boys so dearly loved even though I longed for a a bit of the Beatles or Caedmon's Call during the waking hours with the little guys instead of the hum-drum nursery rhymes we sang on repeat. My heart sank when I thought about how I wasn't passing on the love of some stellar music to my boys, and I found myself hoping that someday I would be able to turn them on to some of the amazing songs and bands that had so lovingly guided me through breakups, accomplishments, falling in love and even losing people I loved.
A few days ago, though, I stumbled across my oldest singing alone in his playroom while he played with toys. He was very passionately belting out the lyrics to The Itsy Bitsy Spider (while playing his "guitar," which is actually the TV remote control) when it hit me; I didn't fail at passing on my love for music. I'd actually succeeded. Maybe the boys don't love all of musicians and songs I think deserve a spot in their hearts, but, goodness, they do love songs. I saw the same emotion in my two year old's eyes as he sang about that poor little spider who gets washed off the spout by the rain but decides he's gonna give that spout one more go that I have seen in my own eyes when I'm accompanying Ani DiFranco and harmonizing about the little plastic castles being a surprise every time for the goldfish who have no memory. And now that I think about it, maybe, just maybe, those songs the boys love aren't too far off from the one nestled deep inside my heart.
*Ani DiFranco, Firedoor (See, I told you I think in music, like, all of the time. Even while I'm guest blogging.)
The other day a friend and I were talking about how Moms must be hardwired to feel guilty. We always seem to find something – some reason to feel guilty and beat ourselves up, whether that reason is big or small. The small reasons differed for each of us, but the biggest reason was the same: WORK.
When I went back to work after my first son was born, I felt guilty about leaving him at daycare. My first day back wasn’t until Wednesday, so Monday and Tuesday were “test runs,” and the first day only for 4 hours. Instead of going home I went to Walmart and wandered the aisles like a zombie, counting the minutes until I could pick him up and flee back to safety. I also cried the entire time. Luckily I picked the only store in the city that was deserted on a Monday morning, because I was a complete and total wreck.
A couple months later I started a new job. This one paid enough that my husband could quit his job and stay home with our son. Woohoo! BUT…it required me to travel. So, instead of feeling good that I was providing a way for one of us to stay home, I felt guilty for traveling. It only got worse when I discovered that I loved the job. Then I got to feel guilty for being away from home and for not hating the job that kept me away.
Once my sons were old enough to realize I was leaving on trips, I’d feel guilty when they would cry. Obviously it meant I was a horrible mother for leaving. When my trips became so frequent that they DIDN’T cry, obviously it meant I was a horrible mother for letting them get used to my not being home. When I started working from home and traveling less, they started crying again when I would leave, which meant I was back to feeling guilty for leaving.
Good grief! I’m exhausted just writing about it. Why couldn’t I be happy that I had a good job that I liked, that provided for our family, that allowed my husband to be a kick-ass stay-at-home Dad? Why couldn’t I stop feeling guilty and focus on the positives?
I’m happy to say that after 5 years, I’m finally finding some peace in what I do and how I do it. I’m good at my job, and this setup (me at work, my husband at home) works for us. I’m dealing with it.
But the guilt isn’t limited to the big issues like work, is it? Oh no, it has to creep into everything. When it was our turn to bring snack to preschool, I felt guilty for having bought the cupcakes instead of making them. At Christmas I felt guilty because between work and home, something had to give, so I didn’t get Christmas cards out. Just this week I felt guilty over deleting something I had written because I didn’t like it enough to put it on my blog.
Well, guess what? I don’t bake. I’d like to, but I don’t. No one died because I didn’t get Christmas cards out this year. No one will die if I don’t get to them next year either. And the blog thing? Yeah, that’s just bizarre. There must not have been enough big things to feel guilty about this week. See what I mean about finding reasons for guilt?
As moms, we have strengths, and we have weaknesses. Let's file this under "Life's too short" and stop feeling guilty for both.
My first teaching post was a nightmare. At 21, I was an incurable idealist who looked younger than the students and behaved with more maturity than half the staff. My first teaching job taught me that schools lie and that teachers don’t always, or even usually, care. It taught me that the more adamant you are that schools try, the more work you will have thrust upon you, until you burn out and become the colleague you hate or leave the field entirely. Despite all this, I loved teaching. Because of all this, I left the country.
I left the country because I needed to leave that school and, with regulations on state-to-state teacher transfers/certification becoming increasingly strict, it was easier to get a well paying teaching post in England that anywhere in the US. (Totally messed up, I know). I left the country because I wanted to travel and live and do things worth talking about, and I knew if I stayed where I was I would never be more than a mound of ungraded exams.
And leaving the country was fantastic.
In England, I taught in a school that cared and worked and strove for excellence—and it was not a wealthy or privileged school. I had colleagues and students I respected, and I learned more about myself and my teaching than I had in the whole of my collegiate study and early career combined. I met people and traveled and, eventually, was led to a master’s program at the University of Oxford.
There is much I could say about my early career in both the US and England, and about my master’s study, but, after all that, what I really want to discuss is where I am now.
Following the completion of my masters, I returned to the US. (Not so much willingly, but my visa had expired and I had no other option). (PS- I don’t hate the US, even though that is totally how that sentence just came across, I was just not ready to leave England.) The assumption was made by myself and my family that it would take 3-6 months for me to find a job, until then, I would move back home with my parents in my home town of Detroit. (Yes, I did say return to the country after living abroad and having a brilliant time to live with my PARENTS. I am THAT cool). Unfortunately, my triumphant return was accompanied by the complete collapse of the economy, and, over a year and a half later, no job. Well, I do have a job, so I’ll clarify—no job in my field.
I made the incorrect assumption that a degree from somewhere like Oxford, somewhere that offered me countless experiences and ideas and open doors, would appeal to American schools and educational organizations. In reality, it gets me blacklisted. Schools fear ambition. It labels me a boat-rocker and climber and everything else schools dislike. It makes me an ideal candidate for volunteer opportunities and low/non-paying philanthropic positions that I wish I could take, but, sadly, I have bills to pay, which is not acceptable when you are supposed to be ‘working for the kids.’
Somewhere between interesting and depressing is the fact that I am conducing this job search (or should I say social experiment?) in Detroit, America's fastest dying landmark. Though my career hunt is nationwide, it is impossible to discount or ignore the grandeur of the destruction in my back yard. And, in a lot of ways, watching Detroit fall is like watching American Education.
Detroit has issues on a variety of levels (See TIME’s year long expose on the city and its problems and excellent photos of decay here). Between the decline of the car companies, the embarrassing behavior our of elected officials, the deeply rooted racial issues still effecting social, economic and political decisions, and the recent attempted terrorist attack, it is hard to find someone who doesn’t have thoughts on the city, and I am no exception. Certainly the problems are many fold, and certainly there is almost no answer in site, but what I find most striking is the similarities between the field of education and my dying hometown.
Like watching a friend sink deeper and deeper in to a dangerous addiction, the fear and anger pulling at your heart and lungs and brain until you can’t think or breath or act, I’m watching the field for which I’m passionate and the city I call home knead themselves into an incurable state. Both are chained by budgetary constraints; both are shackled by expectations and ideas and dictums passed down by those not directly involved in the day to day operation. Detroit has failed to develop an identity outside of race and cars. Pain from deeply rooted racial wounds prevents progress socially; the inability to break free from the mustangular mold of industry prevents progress economically. Education is caught in the bars of finances—do it better, cheaper and faster—an impossible combination. And, in both cases, the decisions made are all wrong. Education buys out experienced teachers and replaces them with inexperienced, staffing whole buildings young teachers and no one to guide them. Detroit refuses help on racial lines and continues to elect corrupt officials. Education resorts to teaching through worksheets to prove to governments that standards are being met on a daily basis and throws inspiration in the dumpster with old textbooks; Detroit legalizes and encourages gambling in a population where 30-50% are unemployed and 1/3 of the city’s residential addresses are vacant. Education points fingers at teachers; Detroit points fingers at everyone else.
I don’t know what my role is in this garden of destruction, or if there is still a place in society for someone who wants to save the world in spite of itself, or herself, as the case may be. For now, I keep sending out resumes. Mostly, I sit at my desk watch it all burn.
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