Identity

When I was a very young mother (and I was very young) my entire identity was as the mother of my kids.  When my daughter was in hospital (in a different city to where we lived) I had to travel to see her but leaving my son at home with parents.  I distinctly remember (in amongst all the angst of having a critically ill baby) the 'loss' of travelling without a baby or toddler in tow.  I didn't quite know what to do with myself.  (As an aside - the hospital that she was in - which was so far away  at the time and seemed to take endless bus travel to get there .. is up the road from where I now live.  Of course it is now medium/high density housing now but they have kept the beautiful and imposing sandstone facade.)

Anyway ... as I grew older and so did the kids I became weary of being so and so's mother - but that was okay because then I had a professional 'face' I could wear.  That 'face' became increasingly important and when I resigned and went to study I went through the whole "I-have-no-identity or who-the-hell-am-I" routine all over again ... I was too old to play the student ... was the mother of adolescents (nuff said) and was doing relief teaching - another sure fire way to shoot down any sense of self-worth. 

The professional 'face' changed slightly (different expression more than new face) and I was recognised as an expert in a very very tiny field.  (Ex= has been ... spurt = drip under pressure).  In the top 10 in Australia ... not terribly meaningful when there were probably only 11 of us.  Then a series of 'new' areas ... where I learned a lot - writing books, making films, writing curriulum (of course) - all of which came in terribly useful later.  But it was in the APS ... and the glass ceiling was alive and well and I was bumping against it after just a couple of years ... with 25 working years to go!!!

Off I went to the wider world.  A friend/mentor/colleague said to me that I was the "Africa expert" - the sulky little girl inside me whined and said (under my breath of course, in the tradition of sulky little girls) "But I don't want to be the Africa expert".  Same friend/colleague introduced me at a conference once as an expert in several different fields ... with the above quote in mind - about a drip under pressure ... I figured that what she really meant was that nobody else had stuck it out for as long  - in other words I was the last(wo)man left standing! 

The next phase was that of a freelance consultant.  Now there is an identity (or at least a stereotype): we are perceived as high maintenance - mostly a matter of over-crowded TORs and a limited time frame.  When I came home once a year the identity was very clear cut ... daughter, mother and grandmother and because of limited time in-country this was a full-time identity.

But now I live in Australia ... and while I have a clear-cut identity when I am working that is very often tied to an absence from home: when I am home I don't really have any identity at all.  I look like hundreds of other middle class "women of a certain age", my interests are predictable so any identity is banal to say the least.

So here is the question: are we nothing more than the sum of our parts - is our identity only that of our work and our relationships?  And what happens when this is not enough?

Comments

[Nick]

Ahh, Pam, serious post - and one that deserves more than a few lines on a blog page. However, if advise from 'little' brother is worth anything - a lesson I've learnt (several times and mostly the hard way) is that you are not defined by your occupation. This is a typically western way of thinking and I believe the root of depression/min-life crisis in middle aged men. You are judged by others by your impact on them not on how well you do what you do. However we don't seem to judge ourselves that way - we are very 'results' focussed. When it comes to your performance in those things - those that care about that, don't matter (associates, acquaintances) , those that matter (family, those who love you), don't care.

[pamela]

Too true ... and I htink you are right about the mid-life crisis aspect (increasingly amongst women now that they are more focussed on career and therefore defined by it). The underlying question still remains ... are you more than what even how you are defined by family?? Cannot wait till you are back closer and we talk endlessly into the night and drive everybody else crazy!!!!