Redesigning Motherhood

I even used my calculator to make sure I was right.

Assuming he kept her 8pm bedtime, we’re at 6x4=24 hours, Monday through Thursday, with another one Friday morning. My ex-husband would spend 25 hours a week with our daughter. If I got home by dinner time Friday and left after bedtime Sunday, I would be at 26. The numbers were almost equal. No problem.

I had applied to a doctorate program at Harvard and kept it a secret from my family. I flew to Boston for an interview and didn’t tell anyone. Now, I had gotten a phone call letting me know I was in. I kept telling myself it wasn’t worth bringing up until I knew it was a legitimate option, not wanting to have a fight that would ultimately not matter. How could I possibly be both a doctoral student in Cambridge and a mother in Orlando?

That time had come, so I was preparing for the ensuing battle the only way I knew how — with numbers.

“Remember when we started dating?” I set him up. “I told you that one day I would want to go back to grad school and you would have to be okay with that. You said you were.” (Granted that was before Yasmin, our then 7 year old, was born. Before we were married. Before we were divorced.) His eyes opened a bit wider and I knew he recalled his promise as he took a deep breath and waited for me to finish my thought.

In a way that seems only possible in sitcoms, we had found our way through an emotional separation and divorce back to where we should have been all along — best friends raising a child. My schedule was the craziest between us, with evening events and frequent travel. The unspoken rule was that Yasmin was with me when I was in town, and was with her father when I couldn’t be there. If I had a light week or two and he wanted her, all he had to do was let me know. We negotiated holidays as they came up but the deciding factor was always the same: how could Yasmin spend the most time with family? To avoid the handoff sometimes the three of us would just travel together and I’d go with him to his grandparents thanksgiving dinner after he had thanksgiving lunch with my parents.

But this, this was different. At least it felt different.

I wanted it to be the same: simply a twist to my already travel-rich life. That was the point of the numbers. I’ll fly home every weekend, I assured him, and we’ll basically see her the same amount of time — 24 to 25 hours a week. I could feel in his face that those numbers weren’t convincing, so I pulled out the next set. It’s an academic calendar. The 2 years of course work is really just 4 semesters. Summer, thanksgiving week, Christmas vacation, spring break — we don’t have classes in January and have a bunch of long weekends. “When you add it all up it’s only about 48 weeks,” I said. “Less than a year.” With that, I thought, I had cut the distance in half.

He needed some time to let it all sink in, so I gave it to him. Trying to find more ways to minimize my absence I scrolled through my google calendar. Over the last few months I had travelled a lot — I had spent 5 weeks in southeast asia and was about to spend 10 teaching a class at Stanford. With the other weekend and weeklong conferences and meetings I would end up being gone almost 18 weeks that school year. I shot that off in a text, followed by a winky face. See — we’ve basically already been doing this. But now I’ll be home every weekend!

Still he needed time. I could tell my approach wasn’t quite working. I enlisted a mutual friend as a double agent and learned the question he was asking had nothing to do with hours or weeks or years. It didn’t much involve many numbers at all.

For him, Yasmin was number 1. Was she not for me?

I wasn’t calculating numbers to convince anyone that this was a good idea, I realized. I was trying to convince myself.

I was once asked once to list 10 ways I describe myself. Easy, I thought:

1. Entrepreneur

2. Bias to action

3. Fun

4. Smart

5. Confident

6. MIT Alum

7. Puerto Rican

8. Trustworthy

9. Risk-taker

With just one spot left, I gave in.

10. Mother.

Technically, I know I am. But I can’t bring myself to own it. I know what it means to be a good mother. I had a front row seat my whole life — my friends always jealous of my mom. The 6 chairs at the dining room table were always full, even though only 4 of us lived in the house. I’d come home after practice and find out that one of my friends had already been there for an hour, talking through her latest boyfriend issues. My moms calendar was simply a carbon copy of mine — she was at every game, every ceremony, every performance. I’m not sure anyone knew her name. For the few folks who didn’t refer to her as “mom”, she was simply “Christine’s mom”.

So this was my definition of successful motherhood: an all-consuming, identity-engulfing role.

When I was seven months pregnant with Yasmin, her dad and I bought our first house. Yellow with a white picket fence. When Yasmin was born I took an indefinite amount of time off from work to be home with her. For over a month I didn’t sleep for longer than 3 hours at a time, insisting on only breastfeeding. I used cloth diapers and cooked dinner every night (tried anyways, mostly unsuccessfully, even after I was begged to stop). But soon I found myself rationing my errands so I would have an excuse to leave the house every day — taking the route to the grocery store that didn’t go by the dry cleaners.

It wasn’t until the first mommy and me class that I fully lost it. I looked around the circle at the ponytails and yoga pants, grabbed Yasmin and made a run for it. This was just not me and at that moment I was determined to be okay with that. We kept cloth diapers at home, but used disposables when we were out. Formula and a bottle were used at abuela’s house. I stopped trying to teach myself to cook and decided to finish my masters degree. Days after Yasmin turned 6 months I opened my second business.

I convinced myself that I had figured it out — how to have it all, how to live a balanced life, how to be myself while also being a mom. It was all about compromise — one for me, one for her. As long as the scores were always tied, I was winning.

But now, this decision has reminded me that there is no having it figured out. There is no way to have it all. There is no such thing as balance. Sometimes being my best self means not being the best mom — at least not in the way I had defined it, not the kind of mom my mom was. Yeah, I’d set an example for her. Yeah, she’d get to spend time in Cambridge and I’d have summers and holidays totally off. But I’d miss teacher conferences, girl scout award ceremonies and piano recitals. I could be sure, when I was in town, no one would be referring to me as “Yasmin’s mom.”

Now I’m finishing up my doctorate program, and when Yasmin left me at the airport last Sunday she didn’t cry. She cried the night before, but at curbside drop-off her eyes were clear.

I had a flash back to when she was 3. She would start crying as soon as her teacher opened the door to our car in front of her Montessori school and would refuse to get out. For months I had to stop using the car line (since we started to cause traffic) and instead park, carry her in, hand her off to her teacher and rush out the door while listening to her cry. Her teacher would tell me it would stop as soon as I was gone and that she was happy the rest of the day.

I’d tell myself I was doing what was best for her even though it took an emotional toll on me.

That made sense to me — sacrificing myself for my daughter. That, after all, was what motherhood was all about. Me deciding to go to grad school 1,279 miles away, that was for me.

And that was okay.

I publish this piece as I avoid working on my capstone that is due to my committee in a mere 48 hours (I call it productive procrastination). My research focuses on how we can leverage the power inherent in all individuals to tackle the most intrenched forms of inequity. We do that by reminding folks that racism and inequity are products of design and can be redesigned. And that at the end of the day, we are all designers, whether we realize it or not. (Check it out on medium at equityXdesign)

It wasn’t until tonight that I recognized my research in the story above. This, after all, was just the story of me realizing my agency and power. The story of me realizing that I can design motherhood for myself and finding peace.