At My Pace: Lessons from Our Mothers (Book Excerpt by Contributor Evelyn Starr)
The Art of Self
I often express my love for my two children through berries. Strawberries are their favorite. On school mornings I wash and cut a ramekin’s worth for them as part of their breakfast.
I am cutting fewer berries these days. Three weeks ago we dropped my son off for his freshman year of college. I cut berries just for my daughter now. Fewer berries to cut, fewer berries to buy.
This milestone in life – the first child off to college – is foreseeable years in advance. Yet the transition you go through emotionally creeps up on you during the latter half of your child’s senior year in high school and becomes undeniable as you drive away without them on drop-off day.
But while my new reality at home has unsettled me, it has not rocked my world. I have my mother to thank for that.
My mother is an artist. She also taught art at the high school and junior high school level in Brooklyn before I was born. After I came along she switched to substitute teaching and continued after my sister was born as well.
We moved to New Jersey in time for me to start kindergarten. My mother’s New York City teaching license was useless in New Jersey, so she drove into the Bronx one or two times a week to continue subbing.
When she got the call to substitute, she called an old woman named Mrs. Podluski to babysit for me and my sister. Mrs. Podluski was a female curmudgeon who bored me. I did not like it when my mother left us with her to work.
To amuse myself and to pass the time I concocted all sorts of mischief. I “cooked” brews of water with unconscionable amounts of salt and pepper. I asked if we could go to her house, only to request returning home 15 minutes after we had arrived. One of my earliest memories is of her glaring at me and asking if I was this much trouble for my mother.
You might think that this is the price a child has to pay for a mother to contribute to the family income. But you would be wrong. Because there was no income. In later years, my mother confessed that with her meager substitute teacher earnings and what she had to pay Mrs. Podluski, she barely broke even.
Why trek into the Bronx and go to the trouble of leaving your kids with a sitter if you end up with no earnings at the end of the day? To stay sane.
After my brother was born, my mother stopped commuting into New York but she continued to find ways to keep her hand in teaching and in art. While my brother was a baby she substitute-taught for the cooperative nursery school that my sister attended.
During my elementary school years, my mother took art courses at Parsons School of Design, The School of Visual Arts and The Arts Students League. Once all three of us were in school, she got a job at the Lillian Kornbluth Gallery, where she learned to frame artwork and mount exhibitions. Early on when my father needed our single car for his carpool into New York City, Mom would bike the two miles to work.
When I headed off to college, Mom decided to go back to school herself and enrolled in a Museum Studies program at New York University. When my brother’s departure for college fully emptied my parents’ nest, she took on the presidency at her temple.
As a child I noted my mother’s activities peripherally but was too self-absorbed to consider them further. As an adult I began to realize that this was more than just a sanity play. Mom advised me to have some things that were mine, to be more than just a mother, so that when my kids were grown I’d still have those things. But I came to see that her message went even further. Invest in yourself and know that the investment is worthwhile.
The full impact of her message hit me when I became a mother 18 years ago. My initial plan was to take time off from my marketing career to learn about motherhood. Shortly after my son started sleeping through the night, I caught myself analyzing the intervals between feedings. I was desperate for something to analyze or write or think about.
There’s that need for something that is mine I thought. After my return to the traditional work force world didn’t pan out, I knew I needed to keep looking.
Her message steeled me again when I started my own company. Friends and colleagues were bewildered at my decision to keep my children in daycare before I had any paying work. I knew I couldn’t network with the kids around. And that I was investing in myself.
Now that my nest is starting to empty, my appreciation for my mother’s lesson has amplified. This jarring change in our household might have unhinged me if I was routing around for something to do to fill the void. My almost-17-year-old company and my writing steady me.
My 22-year-old marriage is a joy in my life and another steadying force. Both my husband and I recognized the need to invest time in us while we raised our children.
And for now I still have my fabulous daughter at home to enjoy and to serve berries to each morning.
About the Editor
Jill Ebstein is the editor of the At My Pace series of books – At My Pace: Lessons from Our Mothers (Nov, 2016) and At My Pace: Ordinary Women Tell Extraordinary Stories (2015). She’s the founder of Sized Right Marketing, a Newton, Mass., based consulting firm that helps Fortune 500 companies use the customer voice to develop workable strategies that will yield results. She holds a BS from Washington University and an MBA from Wharton. Learn more at: http://www.atmypacebook.com.
