His Sexist Remark Changed My View on Motherhood

If Professor Frost were a villain in a comic book he would shoot deadly icicles out of his eyes. As it was, he merely reduced me to a puddle of tears after EVERY. Single. Class.

He was a poetry teacher and with limited class options at my school to get my minor in creative writing I had to take his class not once, but twice. It was agonizing. I was pretty sure he thought I was a talentless hack, but when he hurled an insult directly at me at one of our one-on-one sessions, he inadvertently changed my life.

First, let me preface by saying that I always did more than was expected of me. I was terrified I was misinterpreting the prose, my count was off, and my rhymes were weak. Poetry had only ever been something I used, like most teenagers, to spew the pain of my fairly non-existent problems.

He asked me, “Where are you planning on going to graduate school?”

“I’m not going to graduate school,” I replied sheepishly.

“What are you going to do then, stay at home and have babies?”

I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say. Being so young and a budding feminist this was the worst insult you could hurl at a college girl. You were after all in college to get a degree, a career, to better yourself.

Finding The Voice I Didn’t Have Then

I wish I could remember what I said, but since that was more years ago than I really care to admit, here’s what I’d like to tell him today.

Dear Professor Frost,

I am a FAILURE. I’ve totally wasted my talent. I’ve held a few menial marketing jobs, but now I just “sit home, raising my babies.” I’m a “mommy blogger,” which I might assume is the lowest level on the writing totem pole in your eyes.

I’m not even successful at that. I am starting from scratch. I’m not even popular, at least not yet. Days like this morning, I want to cash it in. I want to give up. I want to say, “Ok, I’m a Stay At Home Mom and that’s the best I can be.”

There are days I feel like a FAILURE as a Mom too. There are days when my toddler kindly pulls food out of her mouth to throw at me. There are days when my son screams he hates me. There are days when my oldest daughter tells me she wants to be a writer and I cringe inside. I want to tell her to pick something else, anything else.

I never wanted to be anything but a writer though. From the time I was my daughter’s age (she’s 8) I knew not just what I wanted to be, but who I already was. Oh, I have fought it, run from it, and pretended it didn’t exist.

I never did believe I could be successful. I wish I could blame it entirely on you. I wish I could point to that moment you blew up my would-be dreams of being a “professional” writer.

Instead, I’m a “professional” mom. You were right!

I wish you had called me a talentless hack. I wish you had told me to find something else to love back when I was a young girl, just starting out. I wish you had done me the courtesy.

Instead, what you did was inadvertently imply that I had skills, maybe even budding talent that would be wasted if I never pursued it further.

I had other professors who loved me. I got great grades and graduated at the top of my field. I had another writing teacher who praised me on my short stories, but your words stuck in my head.

Perhaps you actually liked me enough to push me to strive farther. Perhaps you made me cry EVERY SINGLE CLASS because you saw something worth pushing, worth pursuing.

But here I am, just a Stay At Home Mom raising three beautiful kids. I don’t regret the choices I’ve made.

Here’s the truth:

I had nothing noteworthy to write about before I had kids. Sure, I’ve experienced life. I’ve dealt with loss. I’ve even fallen in love with an AMAZING man and worked hard at my marriage, because it doesn’t survive on love alone.

But really who was that girl back in college? She was the prologue in the story of my life. It hadn’t even started yet.

I didn’t really exist before my Hannah, Jayden and Sydney were born. I am a writer, but I’m a mother first. I’m not the star of this show anymore. I’ve been recast in a supporting role, but it’s a good one. In fact, it’s the BEST one.

Moving Beyond Failure

So you see Professor, I might be a failure as a writer. But I haven’t failed entirely.

I took your suggestion to heart, even if it wasn’t meant to be a suggestion. Because when I had kids everything I thought I knew just fell away. What was left, was a better me. Now I’m “just a mom.”

But I am “just” someone’s (three someone’s to be exact) ENTIRE world.

I may have failed in so many ways. In fact, I worry EVERY SINGLE Day that I’m messing them up. I worry that I fall short and don’t deserve the blessings that they truly are. I couldn’t have become the person I was supposed to be without them.

They made me a Mom. So even though I feel like a FAILURE A LOT, especially when I compare myself with other, more successful women I want to thank you.

Thank you for making me realize that the things you truly LOVE you will do for free, for no reward, for no financial gain, and for no accolades. You will do them when you feel lost and hopeless and like a complete failure.

This is what it means to be a mother and if I never become a successful writer, that’ll be ok. And when my oldest daughter goes off to college with BIG dreams of becoming a writer, I won’t tell her to find some other major. I’ll resist the urge to tell her that it’s almost impossible to be really successful.

I know that it doesn’t matter what you say. A person is what they love.

That can’t be changed or swayed with mere words.

Erin Johnson a.k.a. The No Drama Mama can be found blogging at her Blog The No Drama Mama and Hudson Valley Parent Magazine when she’s not wiping poop or snot off her otherwise three adorable kiddos. This frugal, “tell it like it is” mama has NO time for drama, so forget your perfect parenting techniques and follow her on Facebook or Twitter for her delightfully imperfect parenting wins and fails.