When did I stop being ambitious? Wrong word. When did I stop liking hard work? I thought I had a really strong work ethic, but somewhere along the way that stopped paying dividends, it seems. I became a stay-at-home, slog for no pay mother, feeling I wasn’t even doing that very well.
I was a student who scored excellent grades. Not top of the class, but in the top few. Honors in some subjects. Took the hard courses at college – science, including calculus, biology, organic chemistry, physics. I passed it all, but my preferred subjects were logic, philosophy seminar, English lit and Spanish.
I think university is where it unravelled a bit. Should I study law? Am I really that good? Not sure. Journalism? Cigar-chomping scowling men sprung to mind. Business? I can’t do business – my dad’s a teacher, my mom’s a stay-at-home mother. “Business” to me was to huge to comprehend. Small time stuff like selling cupcakes smacked of kids-selling-lemonade silliness, even though I was fully aware of hugely successful companies like Mrs Fields’ Cookies. The careers counsellor wasn’t worth his salt. I chose the catch-all, go-nowhere Liberal Arts Degree.
I wanted to travel, so I saved up after university and went to Hong Kong. You needed savvy more than the right degree back then, and I landed a job with one of the top investment banks on the planet (and yes, it still exists!). It was all admin jobs, including some event management and then human resources. It’s a man’s world for sure, and I often found that frustrating, but it was fun, too. MY job. MY life.
Fast forward to marriage and two toddlers and there’s me, crying my eyes out in the taxi on the way home, late again (at the office til 7pm- about 11 hours a day). Par for the course in an investment bank, but suddenly seeming really not worth it given that I was missing out on my babies’ lives. Not living near family meant having a Filipino amah – wonderful gentle woman, whom I tortured with my lack of trust. Or, to be more honest, my acute jealousy that she was spending all day wtih MY beautiful bright-eyed baby daughter, which I disguised as lack of trust and grilled her every day and made her write down stupid amounts of detail and practically quarantined my baby from her once I was home. Double the agony when the second beautiful bright-eyed daughter made her entrance.
I admire Miriam O’Callaghan a lot, a really really lot. Intellectually rigorous, high-profile public figure, with her China-doll looks and her enormous family. (Eat your heart out, McWilliams, and I saw your public apology on The Panel last night. Oscar quality!) But I see, too, that there are some who are simply cut out for it and some who are not. And circumstances play a role too – Miriam’s near family and an old and trusted nanny, I was not – but if I’d had the same drive as Miriam and thousands of other women, I could still be earning in excess of $100,000 by now, even as a human resources peon, and that would be before profit-sharing and bonus.
Instead I’m at my cobwebbed old house, looking out at the rain, downing a coffee and feeling sorry for myself. By the end of the day I’ll find out a friend has a more serious problem than me, and I’ll be reminded of the people involved in the murders at Fort Hood yesterday and the victims of torture all around the world and the children starving (or just to poor to afford secondary education – that’s what my charity helps with), and bereaved parents, and car-accident victims, and the whole big world full of tragedy and pain and loss. In comparison my problems are so small. In comparison to Saoirse Ronan being tipped to be the youngest ever Oscar winner for Best Actress for her performance in The Lovely Bones, my problems are… a shade bigger.
