an explanation of why i would step back from my career at such a crucial moment has to start with a recognition of privilege. one of the best measures of privilege, after all, is the ability to choose. what a privilege i had to choose my profession and to do what i love. i also had many choices for going back to work after i gave birth to wesley: i could have hired a nanny; i could have sent wesley to daycare; i could have taken my husband up on his offer to be the one who cared for wesley at home full time.
but i didn’t. and the fact that i had the specific choice i did was a privilege, too. my employment was protected by parental leave legislation and i had the financial means to take a break from work. i also had supportive colleagues who genuinely wished me well and assured me i would be missed, but that they would continue to take up the work.
it was an awareness of this last point that allowed me to move ahead in my decision to take time off with confidence. i am trained for a specific role, and i think i do it well. but there are others that can do my job. during this pandemic, i am grateful they did. i, however, am the only person who is my son’s mother.
certainly, my father’s passing when wesley was eight months old affirmed my decision. i know now it is true what they say: no one on their deathbed wishes they had worked more. it also crystallized the previously abstract notion of finitude — of life itself, but also of its seasons that slip, one into another, only recognized in retrospect. with any luck, i will have a few decades yet to work as a doctor. but my son, like the leaves on our walk this morning, is changing at every moment, transforming imperceptibly, but constantly. he will never again be just as he is right now.