Sometimes, every once in a while, I wish I were living in the 1950s. I can imagine myself a stay-at-home mom, in love with my new vacuum cleaner and washer/dryer, like a scene out of Mona Lisa Smiles. There's something about the orderliness of it all, the simplicity. Cookies with milk after school. Dinner on the table when husband comes home from work. But of course, it's not that easy. It wasn't then, and it isn't now for women.
I think something that appeals to me, strangely, about that time frame is the lack of options. There was little wondering, at least for middle and upper class, White women, about whether to stay at home or work outside the home. There was no sense of feeling like you're either shorting yourself or your kids. There was instead, for some, stagnation and a sense of being stuck because of the lack of options. And for others, who were fully happy, there was maybe a wondering of what could have been, had circumstances been different.
Last weekend, I spent two nights with my sister, another working woman, at a professional conference for English teachers. We presented a workshop together, played in the snow for while, and spent a few hours trying to find food after the whole town shut down for the weather. Our presentation was very well received, and Laura and I began envisioning future conferences, other workshops, a dynamic duo of presenters -- me the researcher, her the practitioner. When I got back, I went to a dinner for prospective PhD students at Peabody. They told us at the end of the night that they'd begin sending out letters later this week.
So I've been thinking a lot about options. I'm thankful that I live in an era when women have so many options about what to do with their lives. It makes the decision harder sometimes, but there's a privilege in having the opportunity to make the decision for yourself, not made for you. I really hope I have the option of continuing my education and becoming an education researcher and teacher educator. I know that I have a lot of other options if that one's not there, but I hope it is.
*Thanks to Laura, for not taking off points for my late posting :)
1 comment:
You will simply have to spend some time in silent lunch. One day of penalty per day your submission was late. Your late entry was not an academic error. You delivery was still good. You communicated what you intended. Your tardy behavior, however, needs to be rectified.
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