Why I Feel Guilty All the Time: Performing Academic Motherhood

November 2004: It's 4:00 on a sunny, Sunday afternoon--one of the last gasps of Michigan autumn--and my six-year-old daughter, Wren, is continually interrupting me to show me her Polly Pockets, the oppressive clutter in the house beckons, and the sun streams through the window, reminding me that soon we'll be in the grasp of the bone-chilling grayness that will remain well into April. Oh, and I'm trying to respond to a few of the more than one hundred Emails that fill my inbox. I am simultaneously ridden with guilt at not having written this piece before now and struck by the delicious irony of the whole thing: I HAVEN'T HAD TIME TO WRITE ABOUT BALANCING MOTHERHOOD AND ACADEME BECAUSE I'VE BEEN TOO BUSY DOING IT! Oh, I have my laundry list. Why, this past month alone, I gave invited presentations in Michigan and Texas, fulfilled administrative duties as the co-director of Women's Studies and the faculty Service Learning liaison at my academic institution, and coordinated a political campaign for my rural county (which included running phone banks several times a week for two months, creating the first ever Democratic headquarters in the town, and supervising over 40 volunteers on election day). Of course, I still managed to teach my classes and spend some time with my family. Barely. I've always been a procrastinator. And a perfectionist. Not a winning combination. And I've always felt a sort of generalized guilt because, well, I'm Jewish and it's in the genes. But since my daughter's birth in 1998--an experience that I will always consider the most profound and important of my life--I have felt intensely guilty most of the time, no matter what I'm doing and with whom. Apparently, I am not alone. Lerner notes that "Because the myth of the 'good mother' denies the power of real-life ambivalence--of love and hate--mothers feel ashamed of acknowledging their 'unacceptable feelings' and their limits" (250). Shame. Guilt. Sleep deprivation. These are a few of the many wonderful intangibles of motherhood that never appear in What to Expect When You're Expecting. I feel guilty right now, for example, because Wren is downstairs watching a movie while my husband Mike is demolishing part of the basement and I'm writing this. I don't think Mike feels guilty. I haven't met any father--even the most involved fathers, and I know many, including Mike--who feels this way. I feel guilty because I'm not playing with Wren or helping with her reading or spelling or Kindermusik. And when I played with her this morning for just a few minutes, I felt guilty because I was not writing this, or rehearsing my other two NCA performances, or adapting the show I'm directing next term, or answering Email. And undergirding everything is a gnawing sense of inadequacy. I'm not a good enough Mom because I live in a town of stay-at-home Moms who throw themed birthday parties and run the PTO. I'm not a good enough teacher because I'm using old class notes and exercises and throwing in updates haphazardly. I'm not a good enough scholar because since my book came out last spring, I haven't started the several other projects I'd planned. I suck. I suck because I don't seem to be able to do anything well enough. I suck because I can't seem to stay in the moment EVER without degenerating into a multitasking frenzy. But mostly I suck because when I play with Wren, I'm usually longing to get something else done--whether work or not. I never have time to spend with Mike, let alone by myself. Let alone by myself. So to speak. Indeed, time has become the most elusive, most sought, most desperately needed remedy for stress. My quest for time began when I first told colleagues of my pregnancy and learned that the college had no formal maternity leave policy. Women comprised less than a third of faculty at the time, and very few were junior faculty with children. Rumor had it that back in the day, female faculty had been told simply to have their babies in the summer. …