Not Becoming My Mother

What happens to gifted women who do not pursue meaningful work?  Ruth Reichl’s thoughtful biography of her mother suggests that because she lacked the intellectual outlet of meaningful work, her mother became frustrated, embittered, bored and ultimately clinically depressed. 

In some ways, Not Becoming My Mother is about the experience of women in a particular time and place: 1950’s America. In Reichl’s mother’s case, Miriam Brudno was congenitally unsuited to domesticity – according to her daughter, she was a poor cook, housekeeper and mother.  But she was a bright, educated woman who ran a book store and corresponded with literary greats before her marriage.  Miriam reminds me very much of my own grandmother.  My grandmother is an extraordinarily intelligent lady who, when she was young, wanted to be a nurse.  I suspect had she been part of my generation, she would have wanted to be a doctor.  When my grandmother graduated high school at 15 in 1939, her father told her that there was only enough money for one child to go to university and that child would be her brother.  My great grandfather’s logic went like this: because my grandmother would ultimately get married and have children my grandmother had no need of an education or a career, unlike her brother who would need to support his family.  Seventy years later, my grandmother is still as angry about her father denying her an education (even though she did pursue university degree in her fifties) as if she’d had this conversation with her father yesterday.  My grandmother is many many wonderful things but domestic, she is not.  My mother talks of coming home from school for lunch, walking into the house and smelling something burning because my grandmother had gotten lost in a book and forgotten she was cooking.  No doubt my grandmother and Miriam Brudno are two of many women of that time, gifted or not, who we’re frustrated by the limitations of their gender but Reichl’s book was particularly relevant to me as it describes a distinctly intelligent and intense woman, out of step with the world around her.   And Reichl makes her point very clear: her mother’s life was less than it could have been because she lacked the intellectual outlet of meaningful work.

As I wrote in an earlier post, Highly Intelligent Mothers, I believe motherhood is a complicated thing, even if one chooses not to be a mother or is unable to be one.  And I believe that motherhood for gifted women has particular implications as work can be an intellectual outlet which being a mother may limit.  I read Reichl’s book with mixed feelings.  Though Miriam Brudno lived in a particular time and place, the dilemma of managing work and motherhood remains relevant today.  Many women I know have given up paid work to stay home and take care of their children.  Even more women I know have put their career and/or themselves on the backburner to take care of their children.  For most women, taking care of the children also means assuming primary responsibility for domesticity.  I suspect Reichl’s point was that, had her mother found meaningful work, she would have been a more fulfilled person and, therefore, a better mother.  And that may well have been true for Miriam Brudno.  However, I was unclear if Reichl was implying that motherhood cannot be fulfillment for an intelligent woman  unless she also has meaningful work?  I’m not sure.  This may not have been Reichl’s intent but to me, Not Becoming My Mother seemed to diminish the value of motherhood and domesticity. I have always been sensitive to this perspective  as I believe taking care of children and our homes is necessary and important but not recognized.  Leta Hollingworth, a pioneer in studying intelligent women points out: there is no eminence in housework.  And Virginia Woolf made the same point before her: domesticity is a time consuming job, limiting a woman’s opportunity to pursue skills that are publicly recognized; populated by many artists who create, for example, a fine meal, beautiful spaces that are private and temporary in nature.  So maybe Miriam Brudno was unsuited to domesticity and would not have been fulfilled but I wonder how many women, whether they work outside the home or not, are affected, not by lack of fulfillment but by the lack of acknowledgement in taking care of children and their homes.  Personally, taking care of my children and home may not be ‘meaningful work’ but it provides me with significant satisfaction, much more so than my professional life.

Yet, Reichl specifically uses the phrase ‘meaningful work’ and its been stuck in my brain since I read her book over a week ago as I do work outside the home but I do not find my job MEANINGFUL.  The challenge of finding ‘meaningful work’ is difficult I think for a lot of people.  Layer in being a gifted and a mother….I think it’s that much more so.  Personally, I have trouble buying into the values of a traditional work environment because there are so many things that don’t make sense to me.  The politics.  The competitiveness.  The structure.  The repetitiveness.  In addition, I’ve had trouble finding work that challenges my mind.  Maybe if I found work that challenged my mind, I would be able to manage the the things that don’t make sense to me, but I don’t know.  So while I value my role as a mother, I wonder if I and other women use motherhood as an excuse to avoid the responsibility of identifying meaningful work.  Nature/nurture, I’m not sure but many women are more comfortable in the service of others: our children, our extended families, our partners.  The energy it takes to identify and pursue ‘meaningful work’  and also a ‘meaningful work environment’ also, is daunting and, for me, has often seemed insurmountable, particularly while taking care of my children and my home.  At the same time, though I cherish my role as a mother, I do question if I personally have used motherhood as a reason to abdicate responsibility for finding myself meaningful work.

So I pay homage to the women like Miriam Brudno and my grandmother who did not have the luxury of choice that I have.  And I’m aware of the many women, in different circumstances than mine, who right now are not afforded the same choices I have.  At the same time, I respect the decisions mothers make, whatever they are, firmly believing that, as a society, we fail to properly acknowledge the value of motherhood and taking care of a home.  But for those of us seeking meaningful work, Reichl provides us with role model  According to her bio, Riechl herself is a mother.  And she’s had a very impressive, non-traditional career (and a really great cookbook

that I use all the time).   I choose to read her book as cautionary tale of the possible frustration and waste when an intelligent woman does not/is not able to pursue meaningful work.  Miriam Brudno was able to wish and encourage her daughter towards an intellectually fulfilling life that she was not able to give herself.  How many gifted mother among us continue to do the same with our children rather than finding our own fulfillment?

Tagged as: adult, career, gifted, Gifted Parents, Intellectual giftedness, intelligence, Intelligence quotient, IQ, job, motherhood, parenting, Work