A Mother at Work and Work at Mothering

Shereen Taylor
Volume 23, No. 3

When I started at this mothering business, I did not have a reality-based appreciation for the challenge of managing both a career and a family. However, I did have a strong innate sense that it could be done and that I could do it, juggling act that it is. Each year has seen the addition of new balls to keep up in the air. In some years, I was so adept that if juggling were an Olympic event, I could have won a medal for keeping them all up and bouncing. Then there were others when I just looked at the thousand balls lying on the ground around me – all having been dropped – wondering if I had the strength to pick up even one. 

Although not a total anomaly among BYU coeds in 1979, I was in the minority of those who graduated after four years still single. The official Church "edict" about mothers not working outside the home had not yet been issued. However, there was an already well-entrenched disconnect in logic between the message encouraging young Mormon women about the importance of education on the one hand and discouraging them from pursuing a meaningful and economically gainful career on the other. 

In spite of the mixed messages, immediately after graduation I went to work for a large corporate law firm in Chicago as a paralegal and entered law school at BYU a year later. I never considered my law school path to be a "fall back" in case I didn't marry. 

As it turned out, I became engaged to a second-year medical student at the end of my third semester of law school and transferred to the University of Chicago Law School. The change from BYU to the University of Chicago reinforced the notion that as a woman I could and should be as dedicated as any man to working hard and succeeding in a career. 

As soon as we were married, my husband began his clinical rotations for medical school, and it became apparent that I would be the main income generator. Because we both had huge student loan debts to pay off and I was able to get good-paying summer clerkships and a permanent job in one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in Chicago, there was not a lot of thought given to "whether" I would work if we had children but "how" to manage it.

Unexpectedly, I became pregnant just before beginning my permanent job in 1984. In those days, no one but women who had already made partner had children. Even though partnership was not my end game, I did want to be taken seriously and pushed myself hard, coming back full time after a short maternity leave. 

Full-time work combined with full- time mothering a sleep-challenged son. Ryan never slept longer than three hours at a time until he was nine months old. My husband was in his medical internship and first year of a neurology residency. Needless to say, I was pretty much a single parent and sleep-deprived myself, but being young and energetic and motivated, I believed I could do it all.

I got into the mode of "managing." The major financial responsibilities in the family, which continued to fall on me, became heavier when my husband decided to change residencies and began his first year in a neurosurgery residency – the year our second child, Eric, was born.

At that time, I got out of the big firm pressure cooker and moved to an in-house corporate job. While not quite 9 to 5, it was a better "mom job" with no weekend work or late hours at night. After my daughter, Kyra, was born, I was able to cut my work schedule to four days a week. By then-after ten years of professional dues-paying-I had enough seniority and respect at my job to have the flexibility to work at home if my kids were sick or I wanted to go to a school event. With three children and a nearly absentee spouse, I worried about whether I was doing a good job anywhere – at home or at work. 

Ironically, just at the time I expected things to get easier when my husband finished his ten-year-long residency and fellowship training, my marriage began to fall apart. For years I had been anticipating being able to shift career paths to something more satisfying and spending the long-postponed extra hours with my children. As it turned out, I had about six months of not working while I dealt with the stresses of moving to a new city, settling three children in new schools, and trying to establish a new social network before it became clear that the marriage was beyond repair.

I was soon required to go back to work full time, move again, and give up on the notion of ever being a full-time mother. In those days, the juggling act of my former life would have been a welcome alternative to the dread of facing each new day. Life became very simple when it was pared down to the necessity of just keeping my own sanity for the sake of my children.

Up to this point, I had not felt I was working "by choice," so I felt exempt from guilt. However, I was constantly racked with worry about whether my children  were getting enough of what they needed from me as a mother. In this period, any traditional notions I might 
have had of what mothering meant changed. I could easily admit that I was no Martha Stewart, and I did not feel deprived because I could not stay home and finger paint with a language-challenged toddler. Making Saturday morning pancakes together substituted for "arts and crafts." My mothering was supplemented over the years by some very wonderful, loving caregivers for my children. My children benefited much from their love and the unique cultural infusion that these people provided.

Although it is hard to calculate exactly how my increased self-confidence, independence, and world awareness – as well as the communication, management, and organizational skills acquired in my career – were transmitted to my children, I have no doubts that they have been of high value. If nothing else, my more secure sense of self provides them with a necessary sense of security and safety. Being able to convey to them that someone is "in control" (if only apparently and not really) has been critical.

I recently left the working mother phase and entered the mothering-is-work realm, which I could only do with the help of a supportive partner who recognized that my children needed a full-time mother at this point in their lives and that I needed a "sabbatical" from what had become an increasingly unsatisfying legal career. It has not been an easy change. 

I am finding it far more important to be available for my older children than I did when they were younger. Is the reason that I can be with them now and couldn't then? I don't know. My daughter – more than my sons – appreciates knowing that "her mom" is the head room parent. Being available as the designated driver in the neighborhood offers an incomparable window on the world of teenagers. (They tell each other what they would never tell you). Many of these experiences are spontaneous and would not happen if I were tied to an office miles away. However, I am given to seriously doubting my self-worth on those days when all I do is drive between home and school to deliver forgotten lunches, music instruments, and homework. However, the increased calm in our home has benefited us all in unexpected ways. 

My self-image has shifted away from needing to be fed by public notice to locating that private well deep within my soul. It can be a challenging and at times debilitating job to dredge out that well and, on some days, to find it dry. Unlike the satisfaction that comes from closing a big deal, the returns on this mothering investment are a long time in coming. The fact is we may only see the benefits our children have reaped from us in how we grow and learn in the process. 

At the midway point, I have discovered a few kernels of truth:

1. A child's need for love is insatiable. Give what you can whenever you can but know it will never be "enough." 

2. Being there-doing what you say you will do and when – gives children the security that breeds confidence and self-esteem.

3. A happy mom equals a happy child. The corollary is also true. Showing our stress to our children makes them feel insecure and unhappy. 

4. There is no point in slaving over a stove for an unappreciative audience when thirty minutes and a Domino's delivery makes everyone happy. On the other hand, homemade pumpkin pie and chocolate chip cookies can make them forget a host of your sins against them.

Whether we are stay-at-home moms or working outside the home, we all have the challenge to make our own sense from the tangle of messages that we have received from the Church, from our Mormon culture, from our own mothers, and from our current cultural milieu. I've tried to take them all in, shake them up with who I am and what my life's circumstances have been, and then come up with a workable road map. On any given day, I might feel more or less optimistic about the route I've taken. 

Shereen Taylor enjoys the non-lawyerly life and chauffeuring teenagers in Chicago, Illinois. 

return to table of contents