Why I Quit

Today, my daughter is twelve weeks old.

For working moms across America, this is a milestone day — the end of our maternity leave.  Twice before I have reached this point and dutifully bundled up my newborn, packed a bottle tote and breast pump, and headed back to my classroom.

I have taught for thirteen years and have found immense delight and fulfillment in this work, particularly at the school where I’ve been for the past six years.  Frederick Buechner defined vocation as that place “where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need,” a perfect description of the sweet spot I have found in teaching math.  I could not have imagined a more deeply purposeful or richly rewarding way to spend my days.

Then four years ago, Nathaniel was born.

If you have a child, I don’t have to tell you how life-altering parenthood is.  If you don’t, words can’t do justice to the transformative power such a tiny person has over his parents.  Priorities, values, perspectives, identities — they’re all in for an earthquake.

For me, this transition to motherhood meant an enormous, and quite unexpected, change in how I viewed my job.  When Nathaniel was little — and again when his baby brother was born — I felt the end of maternity leave closing in on us with a nauseating blend of dread and panic. I wasn’t concerned about the work itself or about the inevitable chaos I’d be walking into after a long absence, but leaving my boys was gutting me.

I kept thinking I would get used to it.  Once we settled into a routine.  Once they were comfortable and happy at daycare.  Once we got through these early years.

And there’s the rub.

You see, I don’t want to just “get through” these years.  I want to soak them up.  There will never be a shortage of kids who need to learn their fraction operations, but toothless baby grins are fleeting and these little boys aren’t going to climb into my lap with “Star Wars” books forever. Work will always be there, but this is the only chance I will have in my lifetime to savor my children’s littleness.

Today my daughter is twelve weeks old.

And tomorrow, we’re staying home.