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hen I took my, then 8 month old, son with
me to an art exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Faith Ringgold’s Dancing at
the Louvre, the first story quilt in her The French Collection, became clearer
to me. As we entered into the special exhibit space, the silence was too
deafening for my son. He knew that screaming and shouting with joy would fix
that problem. His small, happy voice became increasingly louder as it echoed
through the halls in stark contrast to the silent viewers of the still pieces in
the art museum.
This is how I began my seminar paper for one of my last graduate
courses. I began with my son. My work and my son wouldn’t stay separated from
one another. All things seemed to come back to him. The transition from being
purely a graduate student to a mother-graduate student was more challenging than
I would have ever realized, especially because I was in school part-time and at
home the majority of the time. The first semester back to school, Elijah was one
month old and I was teaching one class and taking one class and nursing once or
twice a night and working while Elijah took his three naps of varying lengths
during the day or during whatever snatches of time I could smuggle at night or
on the weekend. He wasn’t in daycare yet; my husband adjusted his work schedule
while I taught twice a week in the morning and a family member watched him once
a week while I was in class.
The paper in which Elijah inserted his presence was an examination of visual
artist Faith Ringgold’s The French Collection. One of her personal challenges,
which she paints and writes about on her story-quilts, is how to be a mother and
an artist at the same time. Of course, this isn’t a new challenge; women have
always tried to discover the best way to handle this balancing act. It’s just
that Ringgold painted this challenge on a mural sized un-stretched piece of
canvas, and then wrote a story around the visual scene and made the challenge
into art. I thought it was beautiful. Later, I realized it was me who I saw in
those story-quilts.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to be the best mother, or the mother I want
to be, and complete my PhD and find a career (either in academia or not) that I
love that will let me the mother I want to be.
My challenges while working on this degree were remembering everything and
getting everything done. I would often forget something for my students, and
once I just apologized and blamed lack of sleep for my incompetence; they were
annoyed, I quickly forgave myself and got over it. I decided to just finish the
semester; I assigned less homework—homework they didn’t want to do and I didn’t
want to grade and dedicated more time to writing their papers, in-class
revisions and questions. And we got it done.
For the class I was taking, I didn’t get all of the reading done. I made sure I
read and understood enough to be a part of the conversation. I started on my
final paper very early because I knew that working on it for 2-3 days straight
wasn’t an option. I could only depend on a little time here and there to get it
done. Needless to say, I did very well in my class.
The most important thing was being home with my son. I got through those moments
when I couldn’t get him to sleep or couldn’t get him to stop crying or when I
thought he was breastfeeding every 30 minutes. I was glad that I had been home
with Elijah, making sure he wasn’t bitten by a 16 month old at daycare for those
first few months or made to sit in a swing, bouncy chair or his carrier for
hours on end. I was able to hold him, sing to him, read to him, and stare at him
at any given moment. I had been able to fulfill my personal goal of staying home
with my child the first year of his life.
What made it wonderful and challenging (for both semesters I was mainly at home)
was being able to have so much time with my son and still have this other
outlet, this other self.
Now, at fourteen months and with the first year over, Elijah is in daycare
fulltime (another adjustment we are both making). And though I feel guilty more
often than I’d like to, I know that finishing my PhD will give me more
flexibility, more control over my time in the long run as Elijah continues to
grow and as we add to our family. I was studying the other day in a coffee shop
and started to tear up when I saw a mom with her two really young kids enjoying
coffee with a friend. The little boy caught my eye, and we flirted (smiled and
waved); I immediately missed my own son’s smile and laugh. Then the kids started
going wild and the mom was no longer enjoying her coffee and with frustration
threw up her arms and said let’s go. All of a sudden I was glad that I had the
time and space to complete my own work.
The best time of the day is picking up my son from daycare and having him reach
for me (I still hate dropping him off). And I cherish his smile, laugh, cuddling
and love so much everyday. Although, sometimes it’s just about getting something
done (grading, reading, writing); it’s the whole picture, the challenge, the
balancing act -- doing my work and actively loving my son-- that is beautiful.
Yvette Green Pittman is a PhD
student in the English Department at the University of Maryland College Park.
Her specialization is in 20th Century African American literature with a focus
on visual culture in literature. Yvette has a fourteen month old son, Elijah,
and a wonderful husband who does all of the cooking.
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