Pearls of Wisdom: Great Expectations

“Where do you live?” and “what’s your major?” may well be the two most common questions you’ll ask and be asked during your four years at Stanford, but as soon as you graduate, the inquisition shifts into a very different gear.

As anyone who’s ever watched the authentic workplace depictions of “Grey’s Anatomy” or “The Office” should know, residence and area of study mean next to nothing in the real world. Rather, after two years (Aug. 2004-June 2006) and four weeks (Mar. 30-present) as a high school English teacher, I’ve gotten used to constant questions about my love life. No, I’m not married. No, I don’t have a boyfriend. No, the date I brought to Winter Formal was only a friend (OK, he was an ex-hook-up, but fourteen year-olds definitely don’t need that kind of an education).

Last Friday, however, on our school’s Community Service Day at a local farm, the personal questions were taken to a whole new level.

As we walked towards the malodorous sheep barn we were about to muck out, the parent chaperone gently pulled me apart from the kids. “So, did I hear that you’re expecting?” she asked conspiratorially.

I almost fell into the pile of manure in front of us.

I am TWENTY-FOUR, for God’s sake. My biological clock has barely gotten used to the notion of circulation, let alone started ticking. Last I checked, it had just completed lap #1 around the dial, warming to the idea of entering an honest-to-goodness relationship with another human being. And by “another human being,” I mean a fully-grown male adult (with emphasis on the “fully-grown” piece of the description. Any possible leads on such a rare find should contact me at the email address below).

In some ways, the woman’s question was not entirely illogical. I am, after all, a maternity leave replacement, so it’s reasonable to assume that the words “pregnancy” and “Lisa Mendelman” have been linked in conversation. Moreover, just about every female teacher at school seems to be carrying a future bundle of joy. Hell, one of the other maternity leave subs is on the verge of taking a maternity leave of her own. Lunchtime conversation generally revolves around morning sickness, random cravings, weight gain, and water retention (particularly in the hands and feet). Indeed, if the school is looking for another way to promote safe sex, they should just sit the students at the faculty table.

Blame it on the impending holiday (note to self: send e-card to Mom on May 13). Definitely fair recompense for twenty-four-plus years of love and nurturance), but maternity seems to be uppermost in everyone’s minds these days. First, there’s been a plethora of high-profile reviews and articles about Linda Bennetts’s controversial new book, The Feminine Mistake, in which Bennetts argues that women who forgo work for children are making a huge (economic) mistake.

Then this Tuesday’s Daily featured a tandem of articles on the rise in the number of female professorial hires and the new childcare funding program for junior faculty.

The latter report and new initiative are good news for a woman who’s about to apply to Ph.D. programs, I suppose. Although my wildest dreams feature a return to the Farm as a professor, I know that will probably only happen twice: once for my twenty-five year reunion and once with my own future Stanford applicant (let’s hope the numbers are slightly more in his/her favor by then; I’m going to have to get my act together soon enough to beat the baby boom of the current college population).

For years, I was critical of my mother’s decision to work full-time (and then some). Our house was no stranger to babysitters, although we definitely had our fair share of strange ones. There was the one who read a blank book — for hours, the one who spilled yogurt in the silverware drawer — and didn’t clean it up, the one whose child bit me… the list is endless. But for all of the short-termers who became family jokes, there were also an impressive number of absolutely amazing mainstays, many of whom I’m still in touch with. Only when I started working myself did I realize that, for all of my years of commentary about lost after-school time and home-cooked meals, I will make a version of the same choice.

I don’t feel as strongly as Bennetts — I don’t think women who choose children over work are setting back feminism or inherently at risk of becoming husband-parasites — but I also don’t want to choose. Perhaps my plan (teach and write until I have children, give up teaching but keep writing while they’re young, return to teaching when they’re slightly older) is no less naive than that of my male friend who wants to have five (yes, FIVE) children, a successful law practice, and time to work out five days a week. His envisioned daily schedule features roughly six and a half hours of sleep and, so far as I can tell, no private time with his wife. And then there’s the question of who will be getting the kids ready for him to take to school every morning (he’ll be working out during this time) and who will prepare the dinner the family will eat together every night.

I have no answer to any of those questions. But, at the moment, I don’t have to. Although the first of my friends is due in August (the first of my friends to marry, she is, for the record, Mormon, and hence an outlier on the bell curve of mating rituals), I am nowhere near ready to hop on the baby-stroller-wagon. I want both kids and a career eventually, but at least for now, the only things I’ll be giving birth to are a statement of purpose and grades and comments for my 72 eighth graders. I think that should be more than enough to keep me busy and awake at all hours of the night, at least for the foreseeable future.

Lisa Mendelman blissfully expects the arrival of your email at lisame@stanford.edu.