JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

While I don’t usually critique People magazine covers on this blog, I can’t resist commenting on the version I spied near the grocery store checkout earlier this week. The juxtaposition of hurricane stories with the Best & Worst Dressed pronouncements seemed worse than usual to me. At first glance it’s unclear whether the clothing coverage is a feature of the Katrina coverage. The idea of judging the fashion faux pas of New Orleans disaster survivors – as suggested by a quick read of the titles while in line- repulsed me. I confess I am no fashionista and although I value beauty, I usually consider celebrity photos of best and worst dressed to be a waste of resources better spent elsewhere. The choice to include the annual Best and Worst Dressed inside an issue devoted to the courage and struggles of Katrina survivors vividly illustrates the enormous contrast between haves and have-nots in our society and further highlights, in my mind, how unessential style is, compared to desperate need. I imagine a group of editors at People sitting at a table making the decision to combine these two topics, perhaps based on marketing or a concept of what makes a magazine palatable, somehow unaware of how awkward and unappetizing they are together.

Jenn of Mommy Needs Coffee, Blogher Mommyblogger extraordinaire, went to Houston to care for her mom who may be near the end of her life – and then she had to evacuate. Her husband has updated the blog, posting after battling traffic and running low on gas, she decided to return to her parents home in Houston.

Annie linked to a citizen journalist blog in Houston, chronicling how people are coping. The calm before:

We all deal with stress differently, My wife Cynthia deals with it by baking cookies and we were running desperately low on flour and brown sugar. It suited me to go have a look around as I am going a tad bit stir crazy. I was also hoping to find some gas while I was out as I would like to top off the tank. I found none but I now know that the universal sign for NO GAS is a plastic bag wrapped around the fuel nozzle. If you see that you know to keep driving.

I was happy to hear from New Orleans native Doctor Daisy when she posted a comment on my post. We met at Bloggercon II in Boston but I had lost her current blog. Look through her blog and read how she and her brother found their parents after Katrina. Now she’s blogging about Rita.

Nancy White has continued to share insight and resources along with lots of great links. I appreciated this post with excerpt from Houston volunteer badgerbag:

As I have been following blogs since Katrina, I have been thinking about the polarity of raw, torrential pain and the healing balm of kindness and optimism. Too much pain and we go numb. Too much “cheerleading” and we fall into hollow falseness. But both are part of the experience and, in my view, needed. For the most part, blogs have offered both.

Physician and friend Enoch Choi has been preparing to go help in the hurricane-affected areas during the first week of October. He’s been posting all kinds of information, especially from a medical perspective, on his blog.

Seattle physician Peter Pereira described a New Orleans evacuee patient he saw:

Without revealing any confidential information, all I can say is, she was an educated professional who tried to evacuate before the hurricane hit, but there was NO GAS LEFT IN THE CITY for her to fill her tank to drive her own car out. So she had to stay at home and weather the storm. When the flooding occurred, she SWAM to the freeway near her home, which was above the flood level, leaving her dog in the attic.

On the radio I heard that emergency officials here in Washington are recommending people in rural areas stock seven days of food and water. Katrina proved that help may not come quickly. Bainbridge isn’t as rural as some parts of the state, but if we lost the ferry and the bridge it could take a while for help to arrive. By the way, I don’t want to imagine what it would be like if we had to evacuate across our narrow highway. Already I have half of a huge cupboard filled with food and water, but perhaps we need more for our family of five. Organizing our neighborhood would be another place to begin, as this post by badgerbag reminded me.

Ted told me about Walter Mossberg’s column This is a Test of Emergency Power Systems describing crank radios and various charger: Then, pray you don’t have to use any of these things.



In the meantime, as I’m here in my home today, doing what can seem so mundane and routine, folding socks and scrubbing pots, I can pray for the many who are not safe or in their homes, for the many who would be happy to have such simple things like hot food and hugs from family.

When my 3 year old decided it was my turn to have a spin in the tire swing, I was thrilled and decided to try to record it. This little movie isn’t the best cinematography but I think it gives a glimpse of what it is like when a young child sets your world spinning with laughter.

There was one moment at the party when I surprised myself:
Late at night and talking with two women,  old family friends.
They wanted to know who I am, what I do, etc.
I shared bits of my history and work life, including the fact I have a son, am almost divorced, etc.
One gave me a look.
”So it’s nice you have R to keep you company,” she purred.
I gave her a look right back.
”Actually, with R, it’s far more than company,” I said quietly. “Truth is, I chose him.  There
are  tons of guys out there to date, but I chose him.  I  think he’s really special.  He has the most 
giving heart.”
The women exchange glances.  Suddenly, this conversation was moving to a whole new level, one called the truth.

–suzannah anonymous writing at Fork in the Road

Fork in the Road is written by a woman going through a divorce after 26 years of marriage and discovering who she is and what she wants as she dates. This post was one of my favorites. R’s health problems affect his appearance and even his ability to participate in various activities. Yet suzannah anonymous knows that she has chosen him for who he is:

The message:  It’s not that he’s an easy meal or convenient. It’s that  I’ve chosen him.

The impact and implication of her choice is evident in the reaction of R’s relatives. I thought this was a stunning story. What is more powerful or beautiful than announcing that you have chosen someone?

A world without options results in resentment. If we do not have choices – or do not perceive our choices in a situation – we will feel trapped and suffocated. Life on automatic pilot is for automatons, not humans.

Tuesday’s New York Times front page story on Ivy League women who plan to take time away from the workforce in order to have families Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood (I first read it here, via Jay McCarthy) has resulted in a number of intense discussions( see here and here, for examples). It’s not a simple decision. The thought that this social and personal debate would have been “solved by now,” as one professor is quoted, reveals how the complexity of this issue has been overlooked and simplified.

Every day in my blog reading, I encounter pieces of this story, a story each man and woman has. There’s the concept of financial balance within a relationship, as Jory des Jardins described in The ROI of Love. The struggles to find good child care, health care and money to pay the bills all play a part in the decision. The reality of death and divorce also have influence, and leave some single parents later struggling to survive. Woven into all these considerations is the ability to have children, the ticking clock women’s bodies bear, and the reality of infertility.

Mothering has its sweet simplicity, as Meghan wrote on Saturday: She is literally the best thing about my life, and I get to be her mom forever. Every single day. I wake up and there it is right in front of me. Sometimes I really can’t beleive it. .

Yet there are also times of loneliness and frustration. Those who choose to stay at home often feel their minds become neglected – not only by the intense tedium of child care routines, but also by the prejudice of others who dismiss their intelligence. Jenny wrote in Of Bon-Bons and Soap Operas: SAHM Misunderstood: Some just do not understand that though I “stay at home” with my kids I have a mind (split 3 ways, but a mind nonetheless!), opinions (oh, I have opinions), a degree (was a high school teacher), and a darn charming sense of humor (if I do say so myself!).

What does it mean that Ivy League women want to stay at home with their children? This I’m certain could be fascinating fodder for at least a few PhD theses. However, I will not attempt to cover all the possible reasons why a young woman at university might make such statements. And I won’t dissect and discard the article for its methodology as others have done.

What I will do is describe my own story. I was one such Ivy League undergraduate. And yes I decided to stay at home with my children, although this was 15 years ago. When I started college, I was planning to pursue an intense graduate school program and career but one of the many reasons I left that path was the fact that the subsequent debt of $100,000 would have prohibited me from being able to take time off to be with my family.

My multiple reasons for making this choice might make a small thesis in itself. College for me was like one of those mysterious boxes in mathematical problems: Put x into the box and y comes out. Who I was at 17 when I started at the university was very different from who I was at 20 when I graduated. What happened in those years was due in part to another three years of life lived, but also due to intense introspection and also intense experiences beyond what I had known in childhood.

Already, at 20, I knew I wanted to homeschool my kids if I could. Growing up as a latch-key kid, I longed to let my own kids come home to someone who was available for them. And, like Annie, I had been warned at a young age – 16 – that my childbearing years could be few, if any. I couldn’t afford to wait until my forties to start a family. These are just a few of the factors. Somewhere I have a box filled with my thought processes written out on index cards so I could spread them out before me, and keep them to remember why I made my decisions.

One response I’ve seen to the NYT article – and one response I received to my own decision – was that education had been wasted on women like me, expensive education to boot. But I believe this is a perspective that fails to see the value in raising children. If we are nurturing and preparing the next generation, we need to know how to help them be the best they can be from the very beginning. Neurology, psychology, music, physiology, geology and physics become part of a parent’s course of study as we answer their questions. We need to be able to explain to them the complexities of the world around them, its history and future, the time and place they have been given to live. I’ve certainly used my college education as I’ve educated my own children. And I am continuing to educate myself during these years at home, and planning to return to employment in the future. Given our longer life expectancy and extended time until retirement, I imagine I will still have many years, decades in fact, to pursue a career.

I could take susannah anonymous‘s words and change them slightly for my own life: It’s not that staying home with children is easy or convenient. It’s that  I’ve chosen it.

Yes, I’ve heard many stories of women in previous generations who didn’t have choices. Women who felt their only option was to stay at home with kids, trapped in a hamster wheel of dead-end domestic duties. Women who sadly were denied school and employment due to their gender. Some fear we might return to that time, if women are going to choose to be at home anyway, pregnant, barefoot and scrubbing the kitchen floor after getting their diploma.

But there is power in choice. As susannah’s post revealed, there’s a difference between being stuck, making do or getting by and the act of wanting and desiring something or someone. This path hasn’t been easy or convenient. We’ve made some financial decisions (this could be a post in itself too). There have been other consequences and experiences. It’s been intense and intentional.

Through all of this, I know I have made a choice. I want to be at home with my children. Maybe some women in previous generations were miserable because they felt forced into their life. They mistakenly associated the unhappiness they felt at home with kids with the act of childcare itself, not with their own lack of options. They longed for the feeling of freedom. Although it has its moments of weariness, raising a family has challenged my intellect and changed who I am as a person in exciting ways. Whenever I feel worn out, remembering the choice I made refreshes me. I wanted this!

And I didn’t make this decision by myself. Ted and I have made these decisions together in our marriage. He too has made his own choices. And he has chosen this life with me. Many dads these days are rearranging their lives to have more time for their kids. This NYT piece fails to focus on future fathers.

Wednesday while the girls and I were waiting for a bus in downtown Seattle, a grandfather came up to me and started a conversation. The second sentence out of his mouth referred to the fact that fathers these days are more involved with their families than dads of his era. Already composing this post in my head, I was struck by his observation of my generation.

As suzannah said about her dating options, I too have tons of choices for my life. I’m grateful. I’m glad to be a woman in this time and place. I appreciate the opportunities I had and the doors that open to me. But having more choices doesn’t invalidate the choice I made. No, I believe that having more options only increases the value of the one I choose. It makes my time at home more precious and important to me and helps me give all I have, Ivy League and all, into the next generation. When women have more choices, we all benefit.

Updates:

Heather Armstrong’s decision to put ads in her RSS feed puts an interesting perspective on this discussion. After all, what if a woman can have a fulfilling and financially rewarding career by blogging or working while at home (some blogging salaries look nice!)…and allow her husband freedom to pursue his dreams?!

Letters the NYT published from readers in response to the newspaper’s article [ via Bruce Umbaugh]

Before:

Tools: hammer, geode and old sock

After:

Crystals!

(Geode bought while we were at Sunriver, one of many geology items sold by GeoCentral )