I came across a great blog: Raising Smart Girls in which Casey describes her experience as a stay at home mom with three young girls. Made me think about the impact of motherhood for gifted women.
To state the obvious: being a woman is different than being a man. Lynda Silverman (among others) writes about giftedness in women and why the female giftedness is distinct from male giftedness. But Casey’s blog caused me to think about how motherhood specifically affected me and the gifted women I know. I had absolute clarity around my desire to be a mother – for me, it was a need. It is only with the benefit of hindsight that I can see the trade offs that motherhood had on my ability to take care of my intellectual needs. And, like a lot of women (and some men), I made a conscious decision that my priority was motherhood and that my career, particularly when my children were very young, would be a lesser priority. I have absolutely no regrets about that. However, I believe work can be an intellectual outlet and de-prioritizing my career also meant limiting my intellectual space. In addition, regardless of whether a mother works at home, part-time, full-time, the energy needed in pregnancy and for infants and small children will, without exception, affect a woman’s career as well as her ability to pursue her broader intellectual needs. I mean really, a lot of women with small children are pleased when they have the time to brush their teeth and hair, never mind read a book.
This is my thought: if, for gifted women satisfying their intellect is a need or drive rather than just ‘nice to have’, than motherhood must affect gifted woman in a particular way since it is that much harder to satisfy this need with less time, sleep, energy and, for some, more constrained work options. While I was pregnant and when my children where very young, I worked, went to school and continued to read; however, looking back, while I recall this time with my children as priceless it was very consuming. From the perspective of working my brain, I was definitely in low gear.
Are gifted fathers affect the same way? I’m not sure. Simply due to the biology of carrying and, for some of us, nursing a baby I would suggest that the answer is no. Socialization of the division of domestic tasks and childrearing in North America further suggests to me that gifted mothers’ ability to satisfy their intellectual needs is more compromised than gifted fathers.
So what can gifted mothers do? Sometimes it’s helpful simply to have the awareness. Finding a community of like minded women can also make a difference. Ideally, finding (an) intellectual outlet(s) would be the best solution but when you’re running on three hours sleep and your children are sick and you have no clean underwear, that’s not a realistic option. But children are not small forever and a practical, medium term plan for satifsying your intellectual needs is a good idea.
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“However, I believe work can be an intellectual outlet and de-prioritizing my career also meant limiting my intellectual space.”
That sentence absolutely jumped out at me. The limits on my intellectual space, as you so eloquently put it, have been some of the more challenging aspects of motherhood for me. My son is four, and I have really struggled with interruptions when I need to think. And it really is a need.
I have been at home with my son since he was born, but, in the last year, I have had the opportunity to re-engage in the professional world in a flexible way, and that has made a world of difference for me because it does allow me an outlet for my need to think and create and pursue ideas. I’ve only very recently come to recognize giftedness in myself (and in my son), and the self-understanding I am gleaning from that perspective is so helpful in explaining why motherhood has been so challenging for me and why it has affected me in ways that it does not seem to affect so many other women. I firmly agree that gifted mothers experience motherhood differently, and it is crucial to our very Selves that we honor our differences and respect the needs they entail. Thanks for an insightful article.
I appreciate the comments and the reference to my blog. Motherhood definitely altered many things for me, though I purposefully chose to de-prioritize my career for the sake of my children. Yes, on one hand I am sad about what I had and gave up, but on the other hand, I’d do it over given the same circumstances. My children only have one childhood. I can always re-create myself when they are older.
There has been a distinct blessings to staying at home with them. I don’t know if I would have had the time or the energy to devote to helping my middle daughter, who ended up having selective mutism and is turning out to be highly gifted as well (she started spontaneously reading at 4 and now reads second grade level and she’s not even in kindergarten yet).
Another other blessing I have is the time to devote to supplementing my children’s public school education. With many budgets being slashed to do the economic belt-tightening school districts have to do, the schools are going to be restricting the budgets for gifted programs and extra-curricular activities (it’s already starting in some places).
We do science experiments at home, we play games and I have a chance to help them understand a lot more than the teachers have time for. I don’t know if I’d have the time or energy for that either.
So, yeah, it’s a bit tricky to find the level of intellectual stimulation I used to have, I have learned a lot about human development, selective mutism, behavior and learning styles, giftedness, and many other topics of interest. Even my former scientific abilities has been useful in teaching my kids or understanding brain functioning.
One of these days I would like to cobble a career back together, possibly incorporating things I have learned along the way of mothering my young children.
I’ve already done a lot of peer-to-peer counseling due to my knowledge of gifted issues and selective mutism. In a way, that’s my current “career” (albeit an unpaid one). Hmmm…interesting thought…must keep that in mind.
Again, thanks for the thoughts.
Casey