Career Change Helped Me Understand My Parents

My mother stayed home with the kids and spent much of my youth making art and volunteering her time in early education settings, and my father worked in STEM for as long as I can remember, first in the military and then outside it. From a young age, I saw this dynamic and struggled with accepting the dichotomy, between my parents and within myself. I was a sensitive child who wanted to be accepted, loved, and respected no matter what I was interested in. But I learned that in my family the only way to be respected was to leave the house every day to do a white collar job and bring home steady money. Volunteering didn’t earn much respect within the immediate and extended family units (on both sides). I learned that spending time with kids was not respected while not spending time with kids was respected.

To stay true to my artistic side but still have the potential to earn respect by going out and bringing home money, I started thinking about career early on in life. With the help of my mother, I started exploring career options and decided on graphic design. In my family, college is the first step to getting that white collar job that earns respect. I was going to go to college, study design, and then work a job in it where I collaborate at an office in a big city and finally feel important. My mother would respect my art and my father would respect my self-sufficiency.

I did those things… sort of. The pandemic may have been the redirection I needed. I went to college, studied design, and then fled back home where I struggled to find an important and respected job that used what I learned. But I found sparks of happiness where I never would have thought to look; I was doing things that didn’t earn respect by my family’s unspoken standards, but brought me the balance I needed to get through a tough time. Later, through a stroke of luck, I did land respected office job. It was remote at first (thank you, pandemic), but I was clocking in to do office-worker stuff at a company laptop where I put together presentations, emailed people, and had meetings. Very important. Very respected.

Though it started remote unlike the office jobs my family had before me, I was finally able to communicate with my father almost like an equal. As he had been in managerial positions for a while, I could say things like “quarterly report,” “compliance,” and “that should’ve been an email” and we could bond. I was starting to understand the stress and monotony my father had been feeling for decades what with office politics and trying to stay useful enough to stay in employ. What a strange and stressful world he had been living in! Yet, he was able to stay in it and climb those zig-zag ladders so he could support the family. I got it. Just because my father had been doing it for so long did not mean it was easy. Far from it! The mental toll of that kind of work was grueling because it was nearly invisible until it compiled into an unbearable weight. Poor dad.

That office job did not last for me. I was able to go back to the things that kept me happy, working with wine and making art; and in the meantime, I kept looking for full-time work to pay the bills. By another stroke of luck, I found a place in something I didn’t ever anticipate going into since it was the kind of work my mother and her mother did while I was growing up: early childhood education. I had already been deconstructing my internalized misogyny towards it since I was interested in pedagogy after teaching adults for a while (andragogy lacks joy), and I’m getting to finish that deconstruction as I continue to grow in the field. At the point that this path was presented to me, I was ready to accept it and try it in earnest.

Once I started in the early learning setting, I could talk with my mother about work. I could tell her stories about the kids and their triumphs and struggles and ask her what she did in similar situations. She recommended sensory toys, suggested ways to gently discipline, and shared in the joy and difficulty that comes with being a strong, safe space for young children. I realized how hard it must have been for her to balance her own mental health journey with being the grown-up for so many kids, how much of a positive impact she got to have on young kids and how few fellow adults got to recognize her achievements with that. Childcare is work. Early education is work. It’s tough work. It can send you home crying one day from overwhelm, and the next day can be full of precious moments you hope you never forget.

I understand my parents’ individual struggles a little better since getting to experience fields each of them could relate to. My father must have struggled with transitioning from the office to home, switching from manager to father; my mother must have struggled with not feeling respected for the important work she does, and balancing her time between being a teacher and being mom. I am grateful for the opportunity to experience a piece of their lives firsthand so I can understand my parents more. The career changes I’ve gone through have been worth the chance to get into their heads, even a little. I’ve been able to see and feel some of their identity struggles, work struggles, and personal struggles because I feel a bit of it too. I also have a better sense of what they each value in themselves and others just based on their work and their attitudes towards it. I’m in the middle of understanding my own values, but it helps to know where they might unwittingly come from. So far, I value a bit of what each my parents value—knowledge, discovery, joy, helping others, and expression. I don’t think I would have known that about myself if I hadn’t gotten to know my parents first, and I have my career change to thank for the insight.