Moving out of your comfort zone.

After years of being the exception I thought I knew how to survive in the dark dangerous zone of unfamiliarity.  I was part of the brave new world where women were equal to men. I had obtained an honours mathematics and computer science degree from the prestigious University of Waterloo.  I had obtained a master's degree in engineering and was pursuing a doctorate degree in the same subject area.

The first inkling of a flaw in my internal logic with respect to gender came while I was pregnant for the second time (I miscarried my first).  I vividly remember being in the women's bathroom of my engineering graduate school department and looking myself in the mirror and saying to myself:  "Wow, being a woman sucks."

The precipitous 'event' which was less an event but more of an all encompassing new way of life for me at that time was being nauseous 24/7. It was horrible. Horrible enough to wish I wasn't a woman. It seemed grossly unfair to me that biology had dictated not only labour (of which I was mortally afraid and as it turned out, with good reason) but also this feeling of wanting to throw up, constantly.  Morning sickness became a cruel euphemism ridiculing my constant state of gagging. I wonder if Princess Kate had this same realization.

Upon reflection I see that this nausea was perhaps a biological reminder that by becoming a parent, you move so far out of your comfort zone that a warm up sure doesn't hurt. Science doesn't seem to support this idea but how could it?  How could this idea even be tested?

Yet, if you ask any parent if they believe having children moved them out of their comfort zone I believe you would get 100% concurrence on this sentiment as well as an addendum:  "Most rewarding thing I've ever done."

So, forgetting the science, ask yourself what is making you uncomfortable, right now?  Could it be something that if you persevere it will end up rewarding you?

I'm grappling with these questions even as I type these words.  Some of the reading I've been doing about the art and practice of writing suggests that if you are painfully extracting words from deep within, you have found your voice. I am all too familiar with this notion yet constantly reject practicing (i.e. like maintaining this blog). 

Well, that was awkward. Not.

"We had lunch at Timmies."

I looked down to the voice that was directed, quite obviously, but not rudely, towards me.

In the hilarity and confusion of the preceding moments I hadn't realized that this little person had managed to weasle his way closer to me.

On the other side of me Daughter was holding a green tinged wrap.  The kind they call a spinach wrap. The kind that people actually believe counts as a serving of vegetables.

We were at an event that had tables of food and Daughter was wolfing down a very late breakfast/lunch since she had chosen to not eat before we left the house at noon. She had remarked that she was starving and I had also said that it was no wonder since she had chosen to skip breakfast.

I had just made a comment to her and the group around her that I wanted a picture of her with the green tinged wrap with another stringy bit of green limp lettuce flopping out of it.  And I had said that I wanted the wrap hanging out of her nose.  I felt that the effect would be marvelous when contrasted with her crisp black graduation gown and hard covered cap with the orange tassle dangling from the left side.

This comment had all of us laughing at the image of her with the green  wrap dangling out of her nose as the perfect accouterment to the dangling orangle tassle  - aided greatly by Daughter acting out the motion of placing said wrap close to her nose. And then this little person's voice piped up directly below me in order to to tell me, not the group, where he had had lunch.

I guess it was a big deal for him. Coming down to the big city to see his half sister graduate. The half sister that he worshipped and had since birth (the feeling being mutual).  He got to take the afternoon off of school and go to lunch alone with his own mom and their shared dad since his other full blooded sister couldn't come due to a conflicting track and field competition.  And the three of them had went to Timmie's for lunch.  The whole day had likely taken on a magical quality for him and perhaps, as at another graduation ceremony over four years prior, this young child had felt the need to share something with me, the other mother. The one that wasn't his mother. The one that mothers his idolized sister.

The difference between this graduation for Daughter and the last is that the ensuing four years has brought a maturity to me that cannot be erased. Four years ago, at Daughter's grade eight graduation, I had a friend accompany me. I could not face it alone. By it I mean the reality of the anger and rage that XHusband projects onto me.  The rage that he shared with Daughter via nastily barbed words about my failings as a mother - both in his home with his 'new' family and at family gatherings with his extended family. So at that graduation, when the same little voice approached me, I was moved to engage with Daughter's half brother by asking him some questions and conversing directly with him. An olive branch, as it were.

But this time, when the little voice offered up it's morsel all I could think was "I am not your mother little boy. I am so grateful that my child was not raised in a house of hatred.  I am sorry that your parents have not allowed you and your half sister, my daughter, to have a joint relationship with me and that they have portrayed me to be something evil. Because I see that you, little boy, recognize me for what I am: The mother of someone you love dearly and because of your love for her you want to reach out to me because you know that you and I share this worship factor. We both worship Daughter and for that I am delighted.  But I am not your mother and I have nothing to give you right now."

Of course, I didn't say any of this.  I merely looked into the innocent eyes and said "That's nice" and continued to focus my attention on the object of my worship.  Daughter was looking resplendent and glorious in her gown and cap and gobbling down a green tinged wrap while sharing an awkward moment with her two estranged parents, step mom and half brother.  These moments have come few and far between in her life. Her continuing giggles attested to the inherent discomfort of the situation and she was relieved when her father mumbled something about getting on the road to return home.  Their backs were swallowed up by bodies in the hectic gymnasium as they found their way back to their mini van and their small city life in Kitchener.

One of the best parts of worshipping Daughter is getting to be a voyeur on her social life and I spent the next half hour soaking up the shrieks and shrills of her gang reuniting.  Daughter's high school graduation made me feel more like a grown up than I ever have.  And I mean that in a very positive way.

There are no rats in this race. None.

This missive serves as a formal thank-you note to the parenting warriors I know.  And no, you do not need to be a parent in order to be named a parenting warrior.

All of us wear, as a public front, the results of our parenting.  So if I directed you here I was informed by you and your actions as to my own parenting choices. I likely talked about you with Daughter in the form of "There is this really cool person I met from a food thing/school thing/random thing (including the internet)...this is their story or why they are cool". And some of you I know more intimately than that but I might not have directly named you in my story telling.

The internet allows me to mask identities with Daughter if I have intimate knowledge of something and I was to pass along a great story but not reveal true identity.  More often than not I have chosen to share stories of action rather than stories of identity so I guess that means I've fully rejected most notions of idolatry .Which also happens to make me a really great atheist, eh?

There are tumultuous times as parents. Birth. Toddler. Preschool/early school. Grade 6 (for estrogen heavy children especially). And then, finally, the holy grail of parenting: Teenagehood. A last childhood stage that hopefully finales with a goal towards further education (formal or otherwise) and intelligent voting (I'm not joking).

Daughter moved away to university yesterday. She and I both entered a whole new world. One where my role as a parent will have shifted away from one thing to another.  And, according the to the God (Dr.) Seuss :  Ah, yes of course. Thing 2 would like to clarify that just because he wears the number 2 does not imply in any way that he's inferior to Thing 1. 

And like everything else in this world, when life is tumultuous one tends to turn to others in order to support and inform. And sometimes literally carry you (extra long hat tip here to The Parents, luckily both still alive and healthyish).

So whether or not you knew it, if I've directed you here then you were part of my own personal strongly social media infused Information and Support Team: Parenting Branch. (Brief Aside to an interesting fact. I first went online in 1993 seeking out parenting support after a devastating miscarriage. This makes me an original netizen).

You were the people on whose backs I often trod. And most of you know I'm kind of addicted to learning so many of you were just plain teachers. But the best kind of plain teacher is the one that you actually learn from. So thank-you for teaching me even if you had no idea I used you for my parenting role model (especially if you are not a parent lol).

Parenting was the biggest challenge I ever took on and I had heaps and heaps of learning to do on the subject since I was not part of any large familial structure as a first generation Canadian. An extremely grateful Canadian, now.

Some of you I do not or can not name because our interactions were so brief I failed to obtain a name.  And some of you I do not name because you do not getz the social media internetz thang (remember, I am 45, GenX - we GASP wrote snail mail in our youth and many of us still do...not me though lol).  But I might actually snail mail a few of those sorts of characters.  And, of course in the age of social media, some of you I name, but do not know face to face since we have never actually met.  And sadly, there is one dear friend who I especially wish to thank but she recently passed on. She was, ultimately, a fatal victim to her own childhood demons.

Memory, being what it is, will forget some. And memory, being what it is, will enlarge some.

Be that as it were, I now attempt to name you here via various sorts of social media avenues including good 'old fashioned' email. Because, you see, in the land of social media I can now name my not-necessarily-blood-related-clan. And not only name you but sometimes to also publicly thank-you, without a face-to-face ceremony. And ceremonies traditionally employ food and it just so happens that I've broken bread with most of you. And much of it good healthy AND tasty food at that :)

I am transitioning to stage II parenting now. And I certainly feel a ceremony should occur. So this is mine.

My transitioning parent ceremony will occur over the course of the entire month of September and I will attempt to blog here regularly about my reflections on parenting as I drive across Canada from Vancouver to St. John's along the Trans-Canada Highway.  I'm also hoping to get a few cross Canada harvest food related stories up on my newish food themed blog (but not recipes: they are here).

Namaste and again, thank-you.  Go forth and multiply the intelligent and humane sorts of folks that we are capable of creating.  Be a seed, as it were.  Plant yourself, flower and prosper.

My angel will grow wings.

I had a nice day and evening planned for myself yesterday.  And none of it happened.  I'm delighted.

I feel like I was released from a sort of purgatory.  And I guess, in a way, I was.

Being the parent of only one child and being on my own for nearly her entire childhood had me in a state of purgatory.  I've known this for years and really felt quite powerless to change the feeling.

Oh wait.  Do you know what purgatory is?  My catholic upbringing gave me some propitiously delicious analogies and I forget that not everyone has access to them.  My childhood was filled with images of chubby unwinged (for they are not holy angels, the poor wee craters) and unbaptised babies happily whiling their infinity away in the in-between-heaven-and-hell state of purgatory.  So by using an analogy to purgatory I'm not referring to something negative.  On the contrary it is quite blissful and all the more so because of one's own ignorance about the other two greatly opposing states of heaven and hell.

So back to the end of my own purgatorial frolicking aka single motherhood.

I've blathered about Daughter leaving for university before. Well. It's happening. Tomorrow.

And yesterday I decided in the morning to throw away all the day's plans and take action on a crazy idea that's been simmering for a few weeks now.  And boom.  Bam.  That crazy idea looks like it is gonna happen.  I'm tickled pink.

The funny thing is, once I shared my idea with Daughter (over our Last Supper alone together since boyfriend is coming over tonight), she exploded.  I got a blow-by-blow account of every resentment, every flaw, and every fear that was simmering away inside her 17 year old self against moi, the far from perfect mother.  It was all laid at my feet.  And after a few passionate exchanges between us she finally blurted out:  "I'm petrified of moving away to university."

And there it was. My baby still needs me. Gratitude washed over me. But Momma needs to push her out of the nest.  I didn't share that with her but I did tell her that I won't dismantle said nest just yet.  Upon reflection this morning I am struck by how normal this exchange was.  And that leaves me with a feeling of enormous satisfaction and the sense of release from my personal and unconsciously self imposed state of purgatory.

And oh yeah...my idea?  A cross-Canada drive....from Vancouver to St. John's with this really cool service.  Crazy, right?

Losing our saviour

I was 29 years old.  It is 1996.  I have broken down in front of a priest.  I am taking the rite of reconciliation without the comfort and anonymity of a vestibule.  The new fangled modernity of catholicism allows (encourages) the face to face airing of one's dirty laundry to people with testicles. I am beside myself with desperation.  Weariness.  Loneliness.  I have a heartbreak that is nearly 2 years raw.  I regularly believe I can no longer go on.  I weep today with the memory of it.  It is still palpably raw and only a heart beat away.

Ironically, my figurative marriage to the mother church was sealed by my literal marriage to XHusband.  I thought both would endure infinity.  I was encouraged to believe this.  Indoctrinated at the baptismal font.

The old priest thought he was being helpful.  "Of course you're upset. Your life is hard."

Crack.  The first fault lines appeared.  He had no idea.  He had nothing to offer me except shallow words of empathy.  I had no sins to confess.  I had no time for sin.  A single mother with a high needs two year old.  I was exhausted.  I had nowhere to turn.  Mother church, why hast thou forsaken me?

Fast forward to 2001.  Annulment received in 1998 like a new baptism.  Phoned anulment priest (not the old one) for a letter of reference for a contract position teaching math in a catholic school.  Job badly needed.  Priest unwavering in refusal to give letter. I begged.  He refused.  Fault line cracked open wide.  Over the next decade everything fell into that chasm, including parts of my soul.

"So much for my happy ending."  Avril Lavigne (2004)

Darwin's Penetrative Force

"OMG, I allowed that man to orgasm in me. Without protection!  I wantonly willed it!"  My (68 yo) mother and I (45 yo) shared these thoughts together, yesterday on the phone.  We have both marvelled at the wonders of the biological clock over the years and at the choices we made when our own clocks were a buzzing.

"that man" is my XHusband (and "that man" for my mum is my Dad, her XHusband).

My mother, the slut (sarcasm alert), conceived me before an actual wedding date was set.  So my very being necessitated a hasty marriage to my Dad.  A marriage that was prompted by a cleverly planned emigration from Ireland (so no one was told of my conception).

This forced-marriage-emigration ploy by my parents was followed by a turbulent 15 year marriage.  An emigration to Canada (wtf? why not somewhere warm and kewl, like Australia or exotic like South Africa?).  All of which was finally sorted, for me, in my thirties (yup, it took me twenty years...longer than their feckin' marriage).

XHusband and I were married nearly 3 years when our first child was conceived (I was 26, he was 27 and this was the early 90s, so quaint).  The child that miscarried.  He impregnated me with Daughter a few months after that miscarriage but also started his dating life with his current wife.  I was very needy after that miscarriage.  I know he tried.  But he wasn't in it for the long haul and today, after 17+ yrs, I have to admit that I wasn't in it for the long haul for the right reasons either. BTW, it is only hindsight that allows me to admit this.

XHusband texted Daughter this week asking if she needed the money he had for her upcoming university gig.  He, a 46 yo grown man, texted his 17 yo daughter and asked her if he was allowed to use her university money for house renovations.  The house renovations that involve eliminating a bed in his house for her. A renovation that leaves her homeless if her other parent, moi, chose to do the same.

And today, all I can think of is:  A mother's instinct never fails.

Daughter needs protection from this imbecile I allowed to impregnate me.  And so, I will.  Continue to.


In whatever way I am able.  Just like my Mum has done for me.  


And I'm the first one to admit that I'm not perfect and I'm not enough.  But it's all we got.

One squirt and the job is done, for far too many.

I had a Haitian-Canadian co-worker who had had two children with two different fathers by the time she was twenty-six.  She had her first at seventeen.  The second father had bankrupted her.  She worked two full time jobs and her mother looked after the kids.  I met her in her teacher job and we went clubbing together a few times.  She was intelligent and stunning and wise beyond her years.  We were quite sympatico as younger single mothers and we shared some good times.

In one memorable conversation we talked about how easy it is for fathers to walk away.  She'd had two "baby daddies" walk (my term, not hers) and I'd had one and both of our mother's had 'lost' our own baby daddies too.  Her French accent made her words that much more powerful when she used hand gestures to describe the birth of the child and she drew in the sky a line that represents the umbilical cord.  She said:  "You see this?  The umbilical cord???  It is attached and even though it is severed it represents the 9 months we have been attached to the child but once it is cut it is not like we can walk away...the infant is attached to our breasts then.  We mothers are attached.  And the fathers?  What do they do?  They squirt up here [use of hand gestures to illustrate this].  And then they walk away. Nothing is attached. Ever. They can walk away because they ARE NOT ATTACHED!!!"

Awakening the privilege within

I snapped last night.  Publicly.  And then, like a "typical woman", I started crying.  I use quotes because that is what the man said after I had snapped at him and then started crying.

Here is what went down.  I was attending a community cafe event.  He was being critical of the food being served at the event and while he was talking I brought out the food I had brought.  Because,you see, the food that was being served at this event didn't meet the criteria of the diet I follow because I have MS.  He did not know this and unthinkingly made another negative sarcastic comment about the fact that this was some kind of cafe where people brought their own special food.  Yesterday was a challenging day for me on many levels:  emotional, physical and professionally.  Suffice it to say that his comment upset me and contributed to the isolation I was feeling on all of the aforementioned fronts yesterday.  So I snapped.  Not in a freak out way.  I merely addressed his unthinking comment by angrily informing him of my truth.  And my truth is so painful and was so pervasive to my every ounce of being that yesterday it brought me to tears to face it publicly with this unthinking and unaware man who is likely living in his own circle of fear and oppression and had the misfortune to try and vent that on me last night.

His truth probably involves watching (yet another) group of mostly white middle aged women 'helping' out the people in his poverty stricken area of the city by sweeping in with their 'high-falutin' ideas and feeding people cheap food (his earlier negative comment was to do with the fact that he felt that the $5 meal price was a bit high for the quality and quantity of food he had eaten...I responded by saying that I was sorry to hear that he felt that way and I would tell the organizers this feedback).  At the table where we were both sitting were a few of my other friends from outside the cafe that were both in attendance for their first time to this event so there was other socializing occurring beyond the interaction I had with this man.  So when his next comment was delivered after I had hauled out my own food (again, feeling very isolated in the community cafe with respect to the diet choices I have made, in full agreement with my neurologist, since I could not partake of any of the prepared food on offer).  All of these thoughts and feelings were floating around when this man made his unthinking and uninformed comment.

So I snapped.  I told him that the only reason I was eating my 'special' food was because that I could not eat any of the food on offer because I follow a special diet due to having a medical condition that prevented me from eating many ingredients.  He said, in a slightly sarcastic tone, "What, like one of those food allergy things that is so popular nowadays?"  The anger was palpable in my voice when I said, no, I have multiple sclerosis and follow a diet to hopefully prevent going blind or ending up in a wheelchair.  At that point the emotion overtook me and I started crying.  I then said that the day had been really rough (which it had) and this was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

I was humiliated.  I have never broken down so publicly before in a setting where I knew people in a quasi-professional way.  But what happened next was that I was engulfed by arms and hands that immediately reached out and across from the two friends at my table. Immediate support was offered.  Kleenexes were offered by a stranger at the end of the table.  And all this was offered to me, the white middle aged woman.  Not to the man whose anger and isolation was so much less apparent to anyone looking just on the surface.  

This man's comments will forever remind me that yes, to some it may appear that those of us that call ourselves social justice activists are just privileged (mostly) white folk.  There are many that have had a long life time of poverty and seen repeated cycles of efforts by people of privilege coming in to 'rescue' them from their plight. And, in all honesty, that includes people like myself, because even though yesterday was a rough day, my life is basically charmed.  And I got the immediate arms and hand of support - and the kleenex.

We are all in this together. And those hands and arms that reached out to embrace me last night need to be there for all of us in the literal and metaphorical sense.  I have had many dark days in which I felt there was no arms or hands out there to help me and in many ways that was my truth as a single parent struggling with health issues that went undiagnosed for years.  As someone who still faces a mountain of challenges I am grateful that I was given an opportunity to receive immediate support in a setting that is hoping to be the first community cafe in the city of Toronto.  A cafe that is meant to support the people that live in the area.

Daughter and I, Ottawa, 1995

Food Warrior Mother

I live in what's called an inner suburb of the city of Toronto.  What does this mean in practical terms?  Well, I have a 7 minute walk to the subway line or a 1 minute walk to a bus stop that will take you directly into the subway station with a very short ride.  Ergo I have easy and affordable access to all that a world class city like Toronto has to offer.

My daughter has 4 more days of high school classes.  This morning I reflected upon her years of education in the big city and my choice 13 years ago to move here and raise her in the most populous city in Canada.  A place in Canada that bears the brunt of criticism by the rest of Canada.  I myself was raised in a Toronto suburb and lived in Kitchener-Waterloo for over a decade and still can't understand why people hate '416' so much.  I love all parts of Canada and have visited nearly all of our all major cities and find the criticism well, rather childish really.

As a breeder I am thankful that 13 years ago my 32 year old self had the foresight/good fortune to recognize the advantages of moving to the city for my daughter's public school education.  As a breeder who did this on my own I am especially thankful.  Unlike the children of many of my suburban and rural parenting peers, once my daughter was old enough, she started walking to elementary school.  She was in grade 4 and started crossing a moderately busy arterial street without me and there is no crosswalk or lights (gasp!).  In grade 7 she went to an inner city alternative public school for middle school and took the subway everyday for this - she was 11 the fall she started doing this on her own (horror!).  Thus, starting in grade 7 I no longer had to transport or 'taxi' her to activities.  I have had years of being free of this duty.  I merely dole out money for TTC tickets and await texts of details of her social life and departure/arrival times and I don't even have to be home to receive these.  And I don't know how I'd even start to estimate the hours saved of me sitting behind the wheel of a car on the busy streets of the suburbs surrounding Toronto or the long drives from rural homes to lessons/friends/shopping.  I dated a suburban guy and recall many hours driving with him and his children and little else from the time we spent at his suburban home.  I don't recall any activity that didn't involve at least a 15 minute drive to get to out there.

Another significant advantage to raising her in Toronto has been the access to a large assortment of fantastic public schools including specialty schools for the arts and technical skills. Two personal favourite's are Bendale Business and Technical Institute's Horicultural Program in Scarborough and The culinary program headed by Chef Keith at Thistletown Collegiate Institute in Rexdale.  My own daughter went to three stellar public schools in this city:  West Prep, Horizon Alternative and Harbord Collegiate Institute.

I could go on and on but this is quickly becoming a melancholic soliloquy from a soon-to-be-empty-nester. I will sign off with two pics I took yesterday while on an urban farm tour.  There are many reasons to love the city of Toronto.  Urban parenting and the thriving urban agriculture scene in Toronto are at the top of my list today.  These two streams of thought are more connected than you might think.  A core philosphy in my parenting has been the choices of food I've fed my child with.  Fresh local food has been a central component of our  little family's diet and allowing other families affordable access to this is a passion for this particular Food Warrior Mother.

Artichokes growing on the rooftop of AccessPoint on the Danforth - a ladybug is the red spot.

A Newfoundland flag caught my eye across from one of the H.O.P.E. Community Gardens in Parkdale.

An only

In my lifetime I have seen the disappearance of the large family in the socio-economic landscape of North America.  We all know of them.  The families with 4 - 10+ children.  An old neighbour of mine, 10 years my senior, is the eldest of 14 children.  Both my parents came from small Irish 1940s-50s families...four children in dad's, six in mum's.  The largest families I know today have four children and they are anomalies.  Most families only have one or two children...sometimes three (gender 'triplets', as often as not).

In most modern North American families the parents decide when or if there will be other children.  The miracle of birth control has allowed this decision making to be easily enforced and the availability of safe access to abortion makes any errors in judgment or failures of birth control remedied effectively (if desired).

However in some families there are choices made, either by nature or nurture, that disrupt this parental decision making pattern.  I was raised in such a family and it is only quite recently that I have accepted this.  I had one sibling, a sister, for nearly forty years and then, she disowned us.

Seeing the starkness of that last paragraph brings a lump to my throat.  You know that saying, "You can choose your friends but not your family."  Well, my sister wised up to this about five years ago and got the hell out of her own personal Dodge which included the entirety of her blood relations - and all connections to Canada.  So although she did not choose her family, she claimed personal freedom by firing the lot of us and moving overseas.

I played some part in this and tried to own the whole thing, for many years. I only recently realized that as usual, I was overcompensating.  Trying to take blame on where blame was not due.  In fact, there is no blame to be had anywhere in all of this.  It is comforting to finally realize this.  In my small 1970s immigrant irish catholic family we were victims.  Each and every one of us. Victims mostly to a society that has changed with an alarming and ferocious speed since the dawn of the industrial era.

I admit to being overwhelmed by sadness at times about this loss.  I also admit to being angry that I am left to deal with aging parents on my own.  I find I have a grudging admiration for the tenacity it takes to follow through on this.  A tenacity that I feel, for myself, is best directed at other things.  Like staying off the smokes and exercising daily. 

Throughout the course of my life I have often been overwhelmed by feelings of being trapped.  As a single parent this was manifested quite magnificently.  Wisdom is now allowing me to see that the only thing that ever traps me completely is my own attitude and by blanketing myself with the feeling of being trapped I am unable to see anything to move forward towards.  Being trapped is a very safe way of being.  A comfort zone, if you will.

In order for me to loosen and start to remove the blanket that traps me I know I don't need to fire my family.  But I do need to acknowledge that I really am now an only child. And there is no-one and nothing to blame for it.  It just is.

Click pic to find source:  an excellent blog post about the
advantages of being and raising an only child.

Mice and Men.

E. and I were walking beside the St. Jacob's Railway tracks after attending our duties as long term Teaching Assistants for an Organizational Behaviour course.  We were both PhD students in the Faculty of Engineering, Department of Management Sciences at the University of Waterloo.  I was walking towards my car to go home and he was walking towards  the married students residences that were a very short distance from the campus.  The very same residences that I had lived in as a newlywed, earlier in my career as a graduate student.

My husband and I had moved out of these married student quarters just before finishing my master's degree.  I had applied for funding to do a doctorate and we were uncertain as to whether we would be able to stay in the residence and besides which we were ready for a non-student dwelling after many years of living the student life.

As it turns out, I did get funding for that doctoral research.  I also started teaching sessionally at Wilfred Laurier University.  So, a mere year after moving into our first 'real' apartment, my husband and I were able to purchase our first home in Waterloo knowing that we would be having a baby and I would be finishing up graduate work and this would take a few years.

But as the saying goes, the best laid plans....

By the time E. and I were walking alongside those tracks I had had my baby and my husband had left.  I was basically an emotional and intellectual trainwreck yet I clung desperately to the original plan.  This particular afternoon walk took place within a year of my husband leaving and I was suffering also from great shame.

E. and I had worked together for a number of school terms by this point.  He was a mature married student from Thailand and our department had many social gatherings embracing the myriad of international students so we were on good casual terms with each other.  In fact, we may have both served on our student council team.  We were both outgoing and involved.

I think this walk was the first time I was alone with him subsequent to my baby and then marriage fiasco.  I have noted the casual and friendly nature of our relationship yet he felt it necessary to ask me this:  "Do you think that the fact that you chose to have a baby during your doctoral research might have been the reason your husband left you?"

You know what?  16 years later and I'm still gobsmacked by the question and the emotional rollercoaster it sets off in me.  Researchers look for tidy answers to explain the lack of female representation in STEM.  This story is one of my contributions (yes, there are more) to the not so tidy answers I suspect litter the STEM landscape for women.

My year of living civically

I wonder if Canadian data would be similar?

When your source of employment evaporates, almost overnight,  what would you do?

In August 2010 that choice was put before me.

So I strapped on my boots, printed up a few business cards, and headed out.

Part of my motivation was the ole' networking thing.  Maybe something or someone would turn up that could offer me employment or at least some contract work.  But, to be truthful, a much larger part of myself was excited at the prospect of just getting out there.  Being involved.  Being aware.  Being engaged with the citizens of my community in a way that I was deprived of for most of the past 12 years living in the city.

I moved to Toronto from a community where I was actively involved during most of my adult (post undergraduate) life there.  I was on the board of the community band.  I volunteered at my child's preschool.  I was on the board of the food cooperative.  I started exploring alternative community based groups such as a local bartering system.  I got involved in a fledgling political party.

When I moved to Toronto my life went into a kind of warp drive of frenzied employment search and then the life of teaching seemed to suck the soul right out of me.  Couple that with a diminishing physical ability due to a degenerative illness (undiagnosed for years) and a lack of child care options led to a huge gaping void in my life that I was unaware of until last year when the option to renew this core part of my life was put before me.

My first civic minded involvement came early.  I recall launching a class endeavour in grade 3/4 (I did both grades in one year).  We staged the Wizard of Oz for a performance to the the younger grades with minimal help from our teacher.  Years later, in middle school, our catholic school religion department became infested with hippies and my life as a protestor started in earnest.  I recall signing my first petition and proudly wearing my first protest button in the late 70s (the boycott Nestle movement).  I attended an anti-nuclear protest shortly afterwards. Besides being roped into a pro-life march or two, the civic engagement training provided by my religion (hippie) teachers throughout middle school and high school was most informative and taught me the importance of being civically aware AND involved.

So, after almost 12 years being trapped in my own home due to unavoidable circumstances, my sudden and unplanned state of unemployment was like a gift.  My life literally opened up.  My child, now old enough to feed herself occasionally and also quite active with her own teenage social life, no longer needed me around and my time was like a blank slate.

So I got out there.  I had already been dabbling a bit with the Toronto Food Movement and had spent a year on the board of one of the food co-ops.  I had petitioned my councillor about urban chickens.  I had attended a few local food policy events.  So that was my starting point.  The fall of 2010 also had a municipal election so I became aware of my local issues and joined the only local resident's association (which isn't very local).  I jumped into the spring 2011 federal election by volunteering to be a campaign manager.  I was a founding organizer of a local arts festival.  I volunteered for three different food organizations.

I figure that in one brief year I managed to cram in about 5 years of community involvement.  Not one job offer but a wealth of experience was gained.

I've learned that politicians can be slimey.  Even the ones that purport to be your friends (my local councillor has recently blocked me on facebook and so did his provincially elected father, I have supported both of these men so the blocking is rather puzzling and irritating since I no longer have access to community information).

I've learned that young people make up the backbone of the food movement which startles me (a bit) since they are not the ones actually feeding the next generation, yet.   My own food awareness was basically launched the day I gave birth so perhaps that clouds my judgment.  I do believe there should be more representation from people actually feeding families and perhaps events should be orchestrated to facilitate this.

I've learned that most people are on a payroll of some sort when they are civically engaged which means that there is always an ulterior motive and/or agenda.

I've learned that volunteers might be recognized but they will never be given more than a terse thank-you.  I've also learned that most volunteer jobs should be paid employment - and that especially is applicable to the alarming rate of growth of the Canadian internship industry.  And many perpetual volunteers are unpaid women in my general age range.  Male volunteers/organizers [unpaid] are few and far between.  They tend to get paid for their civically engaged gigs - maybe not directly but in the form of future speaking gigs or book sales which are promoted at the volunteer gig.  I've also learned that stating this fact does not make one very popular.

After my month pseudo-unplugged I decided to reign in my civic involvement.  I've beefed up my resume a bit with these experiences and I have no regrets.  I've met some very interesting people and look forward to watching some of their personal endeavours blossom.  And I suspect that this past year will act as a bit of a reboot for the rest of my life since I don't think I will ever let my civically minded inner champion disappear like that again....at least not without one helluva fight.

Opting out - maybe there is no glass ceiling?

I find this article powerful. (thx Javed!)

I am one of those women he writes of.

I opted into motherhood in 1994 and my life was irrevocably changed.

At the time (1994) I gave birth, I was enrolled in a PhD program in engineering....in the area of Management of Technology.

At the boom of the internet age I was at the leading edge in a world class university (University of Waterloo)...but giving birth to a child changed all of my priorities ...I did not finish that doctorate. I have yet to see a female authoritative figure in this field and wonder if all of us just opted out.

My child is now 14.5 years old and I am re-emerging and wondering how many other women have made this choice (not choosing 45+ hour week day care and opting to stay mostly at home during formative years)....perhaps some of you have made similar choices?