Yesterday Was Mother's Day

Ah Motherhood.

I've been pondering my journey down this path to Mom-Life. Come along with me...

When I was a teenager I decided that if I were to get pregnant in high school or college I would get an abortion. I had too many aspirations, too much to do. I wasn't ready for a kid and I knew it. I wanted kids, one day, but I wanted a doctorate in veterinary medicine first. My plan was in place. School and career first, marriage and kids later.

In college I joined a pretty fundamentalist religion and I made some big life choices around the concept of my future family and kids. Veterinary school seemed like a lot of work, a lot of debt, and I didn't see how I would healthily balance a career as a vet with all of the family responsibility that comes with motherhood. So I took a step back from my childhood aspirations and became rather gloomy while I thought up a backup plan, because I am Type A and I NEED a plan. Always. 

(I wish I had felt less desperate to push forward and progress toward my career, marriage, and kids. I wish I had taken a year off to travel or explore different fields. Alas, my drive and my Mormon beliefs kept me away from a bohemian adventure and I marched forward with my need to check items off my lifetime to-do list.)

My backup plan was a teaching credential. Teaching seemed like an ideal career because I could eventually work in the same school district that my kids attended so we would have the same schedules - My life and career would be perfectly set up to revolve around my kids. And so I began the process of becoming a teacher. While I preferred the idea of a single subject credential so I could teach high school science, my college of choice didn't offer that program right away. I COULDN'T possibly wait twelve months to pursue the science teaching credential, so I jumped into an elementary credential program that began sooner. I enjoyed the program, I made friends and learned bunches, and landed a teaching job just a couple months after graduating. 

I also met my now-husband during that time. We were dating. I was thinking about marriage and kids.

I taught elementary school for a few years. I loved the experience, I loved my students, I loved my coworkers. The job was time-consuming, challenging, emotionally exhausting, yet rewarding. I got married during that time. A couple of years after that, I was pregnant with my first kid. I reached out to the district superintendent and asked if I could work part-time in a job-share the following school year because I loved my job and wanted to keep it, but I also knew that I would want more time at home with my child. The day I came home from the hospital with my newborn daughter, I checked the mail and found out that my request for part-time teaching was denied. I decided right then and there that I would quit teaching and stay home with my kid. 

And I did. 

Writing this out, I am startled to realize that I started sacrificing my career plan and my individual identity to my children BEFORE they were born, BEFORE I HAD EVEN MET THEIR FATHER. I was carving off pieces of Sarah to make room for kids, to shape me into "Mom" well before I had a grasp on what that would mean. What the hell was I thinking? Who the hell am *I* after shaving off so many bits of me along the way? 

Damn the LDS Church and the greater patriarchal American culture for making it so completely acceptable to me to sacrifice myself at the altar of motherhood before I was a fully formed creature. 

Thankfully, I did not entirely let go of my hold on veterinary medicine. I worked as a veterinary assistant through college, through my teacher training, and on Saturdays while I was a school teacher. I am a veterinary assistant still, today. That job never got pushed aside or cut away. That piece of me is still in tact. What a shame it pays garbage. It's one of the few thing that I know I do entirely for me. 

All this being said, I love my kids. I really do. I'm lucky to have them and grateful for them. Yet it is fascinating to take this time to step back and marvel at how many choices I have made (and will continue to make, *sigh*) in the name of their well being while burying my own along the way. 

Happy Mother's Day.