Get the feedThe Great Equalizer
Thursday, Oct 02nd 2008
“One tall latte please.”
I’m at Starbucks with my neighbor Jill after planning this morning meeting a while back. I always want to stop and chat with her, but with eight children between us, we often find ourselves waving to each other from across the street as we’re corralling kids into our matching minivans.
Today, with her 2 ½ month old baby Clark, and armed with good coffee, we head to the benches outside – appreciating the last days of al fresco dining before the New England chill completely takes over. As we sip, we chat about a lot of things, but mostly about kids.
One by one, approximately a dozen mothers – come by to say hello…mostly to Jill, who is obviously quite popular, and to ogle over Clark who is a mom magnet. One woman Jill met when her daughter was a baby, another, when they had worked together at a big investment firm, before children.
It’s typical here – well-educated moms who worked at “important” jobs for good money, who exchanged that life for their current no-paycheck job. This job includes 3AM breastfeeding sessions, crunched cheerios underfoot, and wiping bottoms all day. What’s funny is, we moms often have little idea of each other’s experience before children.
Together, we mingle on playgrounds and outside Starbucks, trying to figure out successful discipline techniques, ways to conquer the mashed banana stain and whether the minivan is truly the perfect family car. For this, all you need is a child in tow – no degree or previous experience required.
Motherhood is truly the great equalizer.
I’m at Starbucks with my neighbor Jill after planning this morning meeting a while back. I always want to stop and chat with her, but with eight children between us, we often find ourselves waving to each other from across the street as we’re corralling kids into our matching minivans.
Today, with her 2 ½ month old baby Clark, and armed with good coffee, we head to the benches outside – appreciating the last days of al fresco dining before the New England chill completely takes over. As we sip, we chat about a lot of things, but mostly about kids.
One by one, approximately a dozen mothers – come by to say hello…mostly to Jill, who is obviously quite popular, and to ogle over Clark who is a mom magnet. One woman Jill met when her daughter was a baby, another, when they had worked together at a big investment firm, before children.
It’s typical here – well-educated moms who worked at “important” jobs for good money, who exchanged that life for their current no-paycheck job. This job includes 3AM breastfeeding sessions, crunched cheerios underfoot, and wiping bottoms all day. What’s funny is, we moms often have little idea of each other’s experience before children.
Together, we mingle on playgrounds and outside Starbucks, trying to figure out successful discipline techniques, ways to conquer the mashed banana stain and whether the minivan is truly the perfect family car. For this, all you need is a child in tow – no degree or previous experience required.
Motherhood is truly the great equalizer.
Jean Yih Kingston
Jean Kingston, who co-founded SixSeeds, spends many of her waking hours in her SUV hauling carloads of children to various and sundry playing fields across the state of Massachusetts. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
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