I’ve recently finished reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming. I wanted to read it because I admire and respect her. It ended up being well-timed ahead of my return to work after my 13-month maternity leave.
In the book, Ms. Obama shares her journey, struggles and triumphs to find her voice and identity as a professional, leader, mother and finally First Lady of the United States of America. One of those journies was figuring out how to balance the dichotomy between two women she grew up admiring – her mother, a stay-at-home Mom and Mary Tyler Moore, a fashionable, career-oriented woman. How could she be both?
I had a lightbulb moment when I was reading this. I also have two pillars in my life and a similar tension of how to live up to both of their legacies. My Nanny, Ruth and my mother, Dianne.
As I’ve shared before, I grew up on a cul-de-sac surrounded by my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was about as an idyllic childhood as you can get. I was raised in a village that poured so much love into me.
My Nanny was a stay-at-home Mom for most of her life until she went to work at a department store part-time. Even then, she always made sure there were fresh loaves of bread and cookies for everyone and every Sunday she cooked for all of us. I’ve lived with my Grandparents off and on my whole life. When I lived there (even when I was in my twenties), Nanny did all my laundry, packed my lunches, cleaned my cat’s litter and a long list of many other things. She devoted herself completely to caring for her family and still does to this day. I saw the power that this care had on my family and beyond and have relished getting to flex that same muscle with my loved ones.
My Mom leveraged a mostly complete secretarial certificate into a career that led her to be a regional leader for a federal agency and a national expert in the organization for real estate holdings. She was honoured many times with awards and invitations to special national leadership meetings. She also volunteered on countless field trips for my sister and me and on parent leadership initiatives at school. She’s where I get my quick aptitude for learning and a strong work ethic.
This trope of women “having it all” isn’t a new one. How do we get to be both Ruth and Dianne? Wave a wand that adds more hours to the day? I’m not sure I have any answers yet. I know that I admire how both of these women raised me and I want similar things for my daughter. I also know that they were actually two people and its impossible for me to replicate both of them completely on my own.
Tomorrow I head back to work. To a challenging job that’s meaningful and will have a direct impact on my family – one of the benefits of living where you work. I also shift from being my daughter’s 24/7 primary caregiver as she heads to a day home.
It’s bittersweet. I have no doubts that I’m meant to work. I love the professional side of my life and how it fills me up. I’ve also loved this time of just getting to devote the last 13 months to my family. I’m sure it will be a bumpy road as I figure out how to bring the parts both of these women have bestowed on me into the world in all facets of my life. I know I’ll figure it out as they both embedded a strength in me that has risen up time and time again to many a challenge.
I’m also lucky that I have the comfort of knowing I can tag them in whenever we need them to bring their superpowers to the village we’re now building for our daughter.
Being a Force for Good 