Last month, my oldest daughter graduated from Temple University Beasley School of Law, my alma mater. It was a beautiful day and ceremony, and it reminded me of the many, many things I love about the school. The compassion and open fondness the teachers share with the students. The palpable understanding that nobody gets through law school alone, that we’re all in this together, invested in and gratified by one another’s success. Most particularly, the fact that the school invites alum to accompany their graduate across the stage to receive their diploma.

It was a super proud moment for me, but, as someone who’s been a stay-at-home mom these past many years, it wasn’t uncomplicated.

I’ve Considered Myself Privileged to be a Stay-at-Home Mom

At the conclusion of the ceremony, as the faculty and speakers and other notables filed from the stage to process through the center aisle, a blond-haired woman smiling broadly in my direction waived and mouthed the words “How are you?” I had absolutely no idea who she was. I assumed she was waiving at someone else and didn’t respond. 

But as she passed by me – I was seated on the end – she tugged my sleeve. “It’s me!” she said, shouting her name over her shoulder as she moved down the aisle. “We went to law school together!” Once I heard the name I remembered her, but by then she was lost to the crowd.

In my next spare moment, as one does these days when wondering how an old friend or acquaintance’s life turned out, I googled her. Her face popped up immediately, competent and composed, the headliner of her firm’s website. The website touted her multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements, the three languages she speaks, the many practice areas she’s mastered, her superb AVVO rating and raving client reviews. It detailed the breadth of her experience: the many awards she’s received and publications she’s been featured in; the classes she’s taught and bar associations she’s joined; the local radio and TV shows she’s hosted; the boards she’s served on, the many civic and charitable organizations she’s committed to, and even the financial, real estate and commercial businesses she conducts outside her legal practice.

Still, my Daughter’s Graduation from Law School Made me Consider the Road Not Taken

I read the long list of my former classmate’s accomplishments with a sense of awe and . . . I don’t know. Something had started to gnaw at me when I stepped back into the lobby of my old school. It solidified somewhat as I chatted with the dean at the private alumni pre-graduation reception. By the time I accompanied my daughter across the stage to collect her diploma, it had congealed into a little knot in my gut. But it wasn’t until I read the glowing list of my schoolmate’s achievements that I could actually put a name to it. It was the feeling of failure.

In some ways, the stage for this pang of regret was set long before I ever set foot on Temple’s campus. My father grew up poor and intuited early on that education was the path to financial well-being. He was the first in his family to attend college. He did so at night while working as a UPS driver and raising a family that expanded alarmingly quickly to include one son and five daughters. Even though he came from a time, and a neighborhood, that considered it a waste to educate girls – Why? They’re only gonna get married and raise kids – he made it clear that we were all expected to go to college. The college of his choosing, but college nonetheless.   

When I expressed interest in the law my senior year my father was thrilled. His daughter would be the first professional in the family. It wasn’t just a bragging point to him. I think he loved the idea that I would acquire valuable expertise, that a “J.D.” after my name would bring me instant respect and credibility and, maybe most importantly, that I would always be able to find a job. 

I Had Not Been Raised to Consider Mothering a “Real Job”

He was distinctly not thrilled nine years later when I told him that I would be staying home to take care of our first daughter, who had been diagnosed with apnea. He was horrified and openly critical. Why would anyone throw away a promising career to be a stay-at-home mom?

His confusion was understandable. He’d never had to make a choice like this. He’d been able to raise a family and have a stellar career. He didn’t see why I couldn’t do the same. (Never mind that the family part was only made possible by my mom. Also never mind that I did not have a wife but a husband who was also a lawyer and worked a punishing number of hours.)  

Plus, I don’t think he considered being a full-time mom a job. In his mind, it was defined by the absence of a job. Had he considered what the “job” of being a mom looked like, I doubt he would have seen it in lofty terms, as charting the course of a childhood or sculpting the emotional, moral, spiritual, and educational experience of another human being or anything fancy like that. I think he would have seen it more as physical labor: making sure that all the kids in the house were fed, clothed and alive at the end of the day. Something you can easily pay somebody else to do. 

I had a different vision.

And I Did Not Have the Long List of Accolades my Peers Had Accumulated

My vision prevailed, of course, though I thought of it as more of a meaningful pause than an offramp for my legal career. But, by the time baby number one’s apnea resolved, we were already expecting baby number two. Then, as way leads on to way, one child led to another. And now, ages and ages hence, I realize that whatever promise my career might have had, whatever experiences or opportunities or accomplishments it might have yielded, have been scattered beneath the undergrowth of a road not taken. 

Don’t get me wrong. I feel absolutely blessed and privileged to have been an at-home mom for the past twenty-eight years, and I know my kids and my family have benefitted from that decision. But it was a sacrifice as well. And there are moments, more and more it seems lately, when I get a glimpse of the paths other women have taken and I see those paths littered with accolades and achievement and I just feel . . . bad.

And I started to wonder, why?

It Made me Wonder What I Had Actually Accomplished

Maybe, I thought, it’s because I’m ambitious. I like the idea of climbing the ladder, of achieving something and forever after being able to point to that something, even if only to my own self, and say, See that? I did that. 

And it’s not like I’d been raised to see mothering as a noble and valuable choice, a job to be approached with the same level of rigor and commitment as any other. In my parents’ day it was the default, the only seat left at the table for women who were neither educated for nor offered the professional opportunities made available to their husbands. My childhood was steeped in that ethos, but that, too, I think of as more of a me thing.

But I know it’s not all a me thing. I remember standing along the windy edge of a lacrosse field next to one of my daughter Max’s friend’s moms, an accomplished OB/GYN. Her daughter happened to be struggling a bit at the time and we chatted about the things kids go through before the conversation finally petered out. She silently watched her daughter scramble around the lacrosse field for a long while, then very quietly said, “I wonder if she would be better off if I’d decided to stay home.”  

I suspect that most of us, whether we’ve leaned into our careers, scaled back to accommodate our kids, or focused our energies entirely in the home, experience these sigh-inducing moments when we wonder where a different road, the one we left for another day, might have taken us. So why was I, who was proudly happy of having had the opportunity to stay home with my kids, feeling so uniquely empty handed?

I Realized That the Difference Between me and my Professional Sisters was That They Had Kept Track of Their Achievements

I looked back at my classmate’s glowing website and realized something. Women who’ve maintained some sort of professional life while raising their kids have a record of it. They can produce a resume, point to promotions and skill sets and awards and bonuses and quotas and on-the-job experiences to prove how much they’ve grown, how far they’ve come, and what, exactly, they’ve accomplished.

When I puzzled right down to the bottom of it, that’s what was bothering me. I’d approached parenting my kids with the same intensity and commitment to excellence I’d brought to my professional career. But where was my list of successes? My highlight reel? My snazzy website and client ratings? Women who’ve maintained their professional lives while momming might also wonder about the road not taken, but at least they can say where the path they chose took them. 

And I had Not

It occurred to me that I needed exactly what my long-ago classmate had: a cannon of my life’s work. A tallying of my efforts and experiences, my achievements and areas of expertise. I needed a list that leaned heavily into my wins so that, even if nobody else in the world ever laid eyes on it, I could pull it up on a gloomy afternoon and say to myself, See that? You did that.  

I needed a curriculum vitae. 

So I Created a CV for Myself

So I wrote myself one.

I made compensability my touchstone. I didn’t include loving and worrying and going to games and shows and smelling fevers and lies or anything like that. That’s the quintessential mom stuff that only we can do. But if, in my absence, we would have had to pay someone to do it, it went on the CV. Even then, I’m sure I missed a lot.

I can’t tell you how uplifting and validating this exercise has been for me. Rather than try, I strongly encourage you to do one for yourself. Especially if you’re dedicating big chunks of your life to raising your kids and are feeling a little shaky on where that leaves you in terms of being a valuable person in the world. Especially if you’ve ever told someone at a cocktail party that you’re home with the kids for the time being and their eyes suddenly glaze over and they nod politely into their martini and assure you that it’s the hardest job in the world before bolting off to find someone else to talk to. Especially if you’ve forgotten even a little bit what a badass you are for committing so much of yourself to contributing one more decent human being to the planet.

It Reminded me How Valuable My Time as a Mom Has Been

What I can tell you is that drafting my CV reminded me of three really important, but sometimes forgettable, things.

First, my kids aren’t the only ones who’ve grown these past twenty-eight years. I have grown and learned and changed a ton. I’ve expanded my knowledge base and skill set into areas I never would have even considered had I not invested as much as I have into parenting. 

And That, if we Really Treasure Moms, we Should Measure What They Do

Second, if we really want to see and value all the work moms do (which I would argue we do for sooooo many reasons) we should at least be able to identify what that work is. If we really want to leave behind this idea that momming is just something a woman does around the edges of her “real job” as opposed to an important, independent job of its own – one on which our entire society depends – we need to recognize and value the skills it demands and hones.  

And third, my husband absolutely cannot afford me.