Embracing “Mom”
BY DEBORAH PRITCHETT
Photo Courtesy | Deborah Pritchett
I grew up on college campuses. When I was a toddler, like my daughter is now, my dad worked at a small bible college in my hometown of Eugene, Oregon. I loved visiting my dad’s office growing up. It smelled like books, and he had a Budapest box on his desk that I could never quite figure out how to open. He always let me try, though. He had a really kind assistant named Freida who reminded me of sugar cookies because we made them together sometimes.
The college’s campus was an extension of my home. I belonged to my parents, and they belonged to that college. By my family’s extension, I belonged to a few different colleges growing up. Eventually, I attended one. When I graduated from high school, my dad was working at a college in Texas. I didn’t even apply anywhere else.
I didn’t have an easy senior year of high school, but my transition to college life on a small bible college campus felt like coming home. I was finally an actual student myself. Everything in sight was intended for me. The café where I ate my daily breakfast burritos, the music rooms where I could spend hours rehearsing or creatively procrastinating, or the study room, where I could recline with a book but doze off into a nap instead – all for me.
It didn’t take long for me to fall in love in that comfortable, home-like setting. Derek and I both loved having long conversations about important things over café lattes, and he liked studying while I rehearsed (or while I napped). We got married in the college chapel the weekend after finals week, and Derek graduated and got a job at our college that same week. My music professor and my best friend played the music at the ceremony. Another professor of ours officiated. The cafe was open. I graduated a year later in the winter, and six months later on a hot June afternoon, I found out that I was pregnant.
Being pregnant at 22 made me feel maternal in a way that I did not like. I avoided visiting Derek at the campus, because in my mind, I felt like my pregnancy had estranged me from the place that so recently felt homey enough to nap at. College campuses had always felt like an extension of my home — until I became a mother. From as early as when my Walgreens pregnancy test revealed an unmistakable plus sign, I didn’t feel like myself anymore.
I successfully avoided visiting the college for much of my pregnancy, and then again for a solid year because of the pandemic. Presently, I force myself to visit on occasion since my husband is back in the office. I normally end up there spontaneously on days when I’ve been out running errands. I’m usually either desperate for my toddler to have something to do, or I’m desperate for face to face conversation with an adult. Ninety percent of the time my hair is unwashed, my clothes are far from business casual, and I’m a little out of breath. I don’t love having people see me in this state. The visits, I remind myself, are mostly for my daughter, Penny.
Sometimes, I sit and watch her from a seat in a corner of my husband’s oddly triangular shaped office while I catch my breath. I can tell from the looks on her face that she loves this place, just like I loved the college in Eugene. She lights up when she sees the familiar long hallways because she knows they lead to people she enjoys. Freida isn’t there, but Megan (Dad’s boss) is, and Penny’s eyes always open wide with amazement when she sees her Zoom buddy in real life. As she climbs on the decorative office furniture, she receives attention at every angle from adults who adore her.
I pondered something the last time I scrunched my un-showered hair into a bun and drove the half hour with Penny to visit Dad’s office. There’s someone else she and I get to visit when we go and see Dad these days.
My mom.
She works at the college now, too. She was qualified enough to do so when I was young, and I know that she worked as much as she could with young kids, but for the most part I remember her home with me.
I don’t remember where my mom was when I used to visit my dad and Freida. She’s a licensed counselor, so maybe she worked out a way to drop me off to have an appointment with someone. Or maybe she was like me, un-showered and flustered, visiting so that I’d be occupied with something long enough for her to catch her breath.
Since my mom now works at the college I attended, a lot of my friends and past professors know her well. They don’t call her “mom” though. Instead, they call her by her name, “Julie”, and describe her as wise and comforting, but also goofy and hilarious. They really know her, and they benefit from both her skills and her nature.
When I look at myself in the mirror these days, I don’t recognize myself, and I wonder sometimes how the people who know me would describe me right now. Personally, I would use words like exhausted, pudgy, awkward…etc. I’m sure other people would say nicer things. But still, there is some temporary sacrifice made to our personalities when we first become mothers, isn’t there? It’s so much harder to be goofy, wise, creative or whatever we are when we are simultaneously chasing down a stinky toddler who’s in possession of an Expo marker (Or whatever the crises of the current moment is). Or, if you’re like me, it can be so difficult to chat like a normal adult when toddlers are your most constant company. So much of who we are as individuals is put on hold when we become mothers. Not just our skills, but our personalities, too. For a season, our identities are both growing and waiting at the same time.
Someday, Penny will see me in my element like I now get to see my mom. Maybe, hopefully, that day will be soon. Currently though, she most often sees me braless, on a couch or near a stovetop, smiling through the pain as she requests to listen to the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” for the twelfth time in a day. Eventually, I hope to recognize myself in the mirror again, to shower more regularly again, and for my personality to flourish again. The small voice within me says those days are ahead, and that I will be more of who I was always meant to be when they do. Right now though, I have to remind myself that these years where my skills and personality are on hold are formative too, especially for my daughter. With each messy arrival that I muster up the energy to make, to the park or to church or to visit Dad at the college, each time that I stop staring at myself in the mirror and choose to just show up, I’m learning how to make sense of my identity as “Mom”, and my daughter is finding her place in this world.
DEBORAH PRITCHETT is a stay-at-home mom who lives in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. She has a daughter, Penelope, is married to a really cool guy named Derek, and is expecting another baby girl this Spring. She entered motherhood at a young age, one month before a global pandemic shocked the world. Now, two years into mothering, those circumstances are still defining her unique parenting experiences and inspiring much of her writing.