When I decided to go to school full time, my husband Erik and I knew we’d have to lean on family to help out. His job has always required him to travel, but it hadn’t been a problem because I was at home with our kids. However, everything we’d heard about the journalism bootcamp told us that it would be hard to be a mom and a student on my own. As soon as I was accepted into the program, he checked his travel schedule and got his mom Ann lined up to help.
Let me just call a spade a spade here: I am the envy of every woman out there who doesn’t get along with her mother-in-law. Ann and I have had a strong relationship since we met almost 25 years ago. She’s been supportive of the choices we’ve made for our careers and our family, and always has been willing to help out when we needed her. She was one of the most vocal people encouraging me to go back to school.
We love having Ann around. She’s warm, generous and lots of fun to be with. My dad once observed, “She takes advantage of opportunity and circumstance,” which means she’s up for anything. She’s willing to check out any event that’s going on in town and take her grandsons along for the ride. Ann helps around the house, makes sure that Erik and I get time to go out together, and even encourages us to sleep late.
Best of all, she loves to cook.
Ann arrived two weeks ago and has made all of the meals for us. We’ve had every kind of comfort food imaginable, from meatloaf, lasagna and classic Midwestern casseroles, to chicken with herbs de Provence and smashed potatoes. We’ve had organic vegetables and fruits from the farmers’ market. And of course, we’ve had ice cream and peanut blossom cookies. She’s prepared enough extra meals and loaves of banana bread to fill my freezer.
I think she and I have spent all of 15 hours together. Because she lives here for three months every winter, she was able to step in and easily take over the kids’ school schedules and run the household. I’d wake up the boys, leave the house at 6:45 a.m. and return at 11 p.m. While I was at school, she made sure homework was done, got clothes ironed for school pictures, and did all the errands. And when the boys got sick, she took them to the doctor and got prescriptions filled. She did all of this with a generous spirit, never once making me feel guilty for being away from my kids.
Luke, Noah and Grandma Ann
Ann does this for us because she believes that this is the role of extended family. On top of that, she understands the demands of being an adult student because at the age of forty, she too went back to school.
Ann earned a three-year nursing school degree after high school and worked as a nurse while raising her children. She began to feel that her nursing school program had been too exclusively focused on the art and practice of nursing and that her higher education experience was incomplete. When she learned that a bachelor of science in health arts became available as a satellite program in the Milwaukee area, she decided that not getting an undergrad degree would mean cheating hereself intellectually.
For the next three years, Ann worked full time in the intensive care unit during the day and attended classes in the evenings. She and two colleagues drove an hour each way from their small town to various locations in Milwaukee.
During this time, Ann and her husband divorced. She now was a single parent with a teenage daughter at home. These were some of the toughest times of her life, but she didn’t give up her goal of completing her degree. As Ann and her daughter struggled to keep it all together, she longed to have someone step in and give them some help.
Ann finished her degree and went on to a successful career as a nursing home director and later as a corporate consultant. She later found out that because she’d always been a capable person, her family just figured she could manage on her own. They didn’t feel the need to check with her to see if that were the case.
The lesson for us all is that even though you might be capable of doing everything by yourself, it’s really nice when you don’t have to. Offer help when you can, even if you think it might not be needed.
My husband is home now, and Ann heads back to Wisconsin tomorrow. She’ll arrive for the winter in December, right around finals week. I’m looking forward to having her here, visiting more than we did this time, and of course, inviting her for dinner. It’s my turn to cook.
I couldn’t have done any of my “over 40s” studying without the support of both my husband and mother. She has been at my house to welcome my children home from school for one or two days a week since I started 7 yrs ago. Now that I am a graduate she is still here once a week and has added some housework and cooking supervision (my daughters take turns to cook for her now) to her duties. My husband has supported me financially, emotionally and by being a hands-on dad (which I shouldn’t have to add but many men aren’t) as I shut myself into my study to write an essay or, as yesterday, attend a conference.
Friends have also helped with school collections, trips to parties and offers of meals. A support system is essential to being a ‘Student Mum’ and it is lovely to see the pride my friends, husband and mother take in my success.
Your mother-in-law sounds amazing.
You are very fortunate to have such a wonderful support group! It can make all the difference. I’m lucky to have a husband who is encouraging and supportive and is willing to tolerate a little less attention while I study.
I really liked this post. You have a great and supportive family. Your mother-in-law sounds excellent. And to make it even better, your mother-in-law comes from a great state! I’m from Wisconsin, too, but now am an adopted Kentuckian. My mother-in-law died a long time ago, and I wish I could have known her better. I know your mother-in-law is appreciated. That is great.
When I called to find out how the boys were feeling, Ann made sure to ask (a couple of times) when I thought I’d be heading back to school. So, really, she was covering ALL bases while you were in bootcamp. What a lovely woman! I look forward to meeting her in person when she comes back to town.
Venus