Big News

Originally posted 3-8-13

I’ve been neglecting my blogging duties.  Things have been crazy around here.  I haven’t been able to figure out how I used to get things done before my mom came to visit. She spoiled me.  On top of that, in the past few days Tess has suddenly decided she will only go to sleep if I’m holding her.  

"But mom, I sleep so well when you're holding me!"

But that is a whole blog post for another day.   There is something else that has been largely consuming me the past couple of weeks, and I’m finally ready to announce this major development in my life:

I quit my job.

It is so crazy to me to even write those words.  It hasn’t really set in yet that I’m not going back to my lab… I wonder when it will? Maybe I should go back in and re-create the scene from Half Baked and be all "F you, F you, F you, you're cool, F you... I'm out." 

For anyone who doesn’t know about my professional life (if anything about me can be described as “professional”), I am a postdoc at Emory.  I finished my PhD in neuroscience there just about 2 years ago, and have been continuing to work on some research I started in my final couple of years of grad school. The abridged version of what I study is the molecular mechanisms of memory formation.  Being a postdoc is quite possibly the most thankless job in the universe – you’re massively educated yet at the bottom of the academic heap, you work long hours battling impossible experiments that hardly ever work and are paid a pittance to do it.  People suffer through it in the hopes that it will lead to bigger and better things, a professorship, a job at Pfizer, the NIH or CDC. Something along those lines.  And while being a postdoc feels absolutely pathetic most of the time, I’ve actually really felt lucky to work where I did.  I had a boss that I admired and respected and colleagues who supported me and made me laugh.  

But as much as I love my colleagues, I love Tess more.

I brought Tess into work to meet everyone.

This was her reaction when I told her how much I'm paid.

I have honestly never been happier in my life.  Don’t get me wrong, some days are tough, but mostly its amazing.  I love this damn baby so much! And I love spending every waking minute hanging with her.  And now she’s starting to really learn things.. its phenomenal to witness. 

I could watch her do this for days.  DAYS!

I have never been more fulfilled by anything in my life.  Of course I would still be a dedicated mother if I went back to work, but I see how few hours Andy gets to spend with Tess because he works, and it makes my blood run cold to think about having the same schedule.  We put Tess to bed at 7, so if I got home by 5pm that’s only 2 hours before she goes to sleep!  MANY mothers do this and are happy and fulfilled, or put their babies to bed later - and I’m not trying to make a comment on anyone else’s life or decision – I am just simply saying that for me that isn’t going to work. Not right now at least.

Dad and Tess time on the weekends.

Dad teaches Tess all kinds of important things when they have weekends together.

Like Red Sox history.

And England rugby history.

She's such a good student!

Because I have all week with her, 

I am more than happy to turn her over to Dad on Saturday and watch this.

Having said that, this decision hasn’t come lightly.  It’s not so much that I love my day to day in the lab so much, in fact… most days I want to tear my hair out.  But I want a career for myself. I’ve worked VERY hard for my degrees and don’t want to take time off to have babies and be unable to re-enter the workforce.   I also have a paper I have been working on a LONG time that is SOOO close to being finished, and I was afraid if I left the lab now I would lose that authorship.  This could develop into a long discussion of scientific papers and how it all works, but in the interest of staying on topic I’ll just say that papers are the currency of what we do, and having your name first on the author list is the most valuable kind of currency. At this stage at least. I didn’t want to risk my work being turned over to someone else and my name bumped down the author list.

The truth is, those cheeks make me forget all about author lists.

For weeks now I have been in turmoil over this – what to do? Leave my full-time motherhood, something that has made me happier than anything else ever has in my entire life to go back to doing something that most days pushed me to the point of tears? Or walk away from a life that I have dedicated 8 years to building and possibly not be able to pick up where I left off?

"I can do it myself, Dad. Gawd!"

I finally talked about it with my boss, who is the most incredible boss anyone could ever ask for, and he was very supportive of me spending more time at home with Tess.  I am going to continue to work on my paper from home, at this point my experiments are done - I am only waiting on some data from my collaborators and writing it all up.  It should hopefully be ready to submit in the next few weeks and we will see what the reviewers have to say about it.  We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but for now it actually seems like everything is perfect.  I will be taking a hiatus from science, but I will (hopefully) still have a paper published this year so it shouldn’t tarnish my record too terribly. 

I’m also working on setting something up for this summer. I don’t have all the details worked out yet, and haven’t made any final decisions yet, so I will wait before saying anything more about it… but it sounds like it could be a good opportunity.   And while it will still be difficult to leave Tess at daycare this summer, at least I will get to spend 6 months at home with her.  Its also very possible that by the summer I will be sick of diapers and tummy time and will be desperate to not use my “baby voice” all day long.  Even if my baby voice is awesome.

Tummy time.

You get a bit of my awesome baby voice in this vid.

Enough can’t be said about this issue of motherhood and working. I have been incessantly reading articles and blogs about this very dilemma.  I doubt there is a single mother who doesn’t struggle with the decision one way or another (well, other than Marissa Mayer at Yahoo! apparently). Stay at home moms feel judged and discriminated against and so do working moms.  Everyone appears defensive about their decision.  It’s mostly understandable – there are a lot of judgmental assholes out there.  And the decision itself gets at the core of some heavy existential shit.  What is my worth as a person and a mom?  Do I love my kids enough?  Do I love myself enough?  Will I regret risking my career?  Will the daycare girl get to hear her first word and not me? 

I’ll admit, I’ve had to do some intense soul searching, and I’m not even close to being done.  I mean, I went to Smith College for Women for Christ’s sake!  My fellow alum Betty Freidan highlighted the widespread unhappiness of suburban housewives, and sparked the feminist movement with The Feminine Mystique and here I am, throwing away 29 years of education to change diapers and read Fox in Socks?!  Am I serious?!  

Fox in Socks is modern-day Shakespeare though, it has to be said.

Have you read it recently?! Its genius! 

Ultimately, my decision came down to what makes me happy right now. And being at home with Tess is making me happy.  It may seem irresponsible to just think only in the moment, to not think of my future and only how I feel and what I want today. But honestly, I have never done that. I have always done what I think I SHOULD do, what’s best, even as a kid I was focused on my future and my goals. It feels good to be selfish and to do what brings me joy. What’s more, I only get one shot at my first baby’s infancy and I want to fully immerse myself in it. I am in the luxurious position that we can make it work financially so I am taking advantage. And I have an opportunity to get back into the workforce this summer without any major setbacks to my career.  If eventually I decide I want to be a permanent stay at home mom, then I will do that.  But I’m doing what I need to right now, and am keeping my options open for the future. 

This. What I need.

I am incredibly happy with my decision and am so excited for this spring with my girl.  Let’s just hope she doesn’t expect me to hold her constantly until June… although once I do start leaving her at daycare I probably will wish I had.

Seriously. Could I leave this face?!