3

TO TRULY GROW UP

Not long ago, as part of a “go for your life goals” pep rally, I spoke to a group of young women ranging in age from thirteen to seventeen. As I prepared to rally the girls, I couldn’t help but recall my early days on Wall Street.

I had just started working as a sales assistant at Smith Barney. Near my desk was the bullpen, which is what we called the spot where newly recruited stockbrokers (mostly men) sat. Their job involved cold calling potential clients in order to open new accounts and sell stocks. Because testosterone ran high in this locker room of twenty-something men, and there was intense pressure to meet their quotas, they inevitably went for the hard sell.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that buying this stock makes sense,” they would say. To waffling male prospects they’d taunt, “Throw down your pom-poms and get in the game.”

I liked the first expression but I took offense at the latter one. I had been a cheerleader in high school. I had aspired to be a cheerleader, and I loved cheerleading. It was an important part of my identity in high school. Here were these guys, essentially equating cheerleading with being a wimp. The older I get, however, the more I find myself wanting to say, not to men, but to women, “Throw down your pom-poms and get in the game!”

Perhaps that’s why the story of Judy Dushku, an associate professor of government at Suffolk University in Boston, resonated so strongly with me. A mother of four, stepmother of four, grandmother of eight, great-grandmother of one, and founder of THARCE-Gulu, Inc. (tharce-gulu.org), Judy is definitely in the game.

Judith Dushku: Have I Done Any Good?

My best ideas, or dreams, are narrated by hymns my mother sang to me as a child, whether she wanted to make a point, or exhort me to some noble act, or upbraid me. One of her favorites, which she would punctuate with her pointed teaching finger, began with the words:

Have I done any good in the world today?

Have I helped anyone in need?

Perhaps, therefore, it was inevitable that I would launch a nongovernmental organization (NGO) known as THARCE-Gulu, Inc., (Trauma Healing and Reflection Center) in northern Uganda for victims of war.

I have taught comparative politics for forty-five years, and teaching African politics has been a favorite endeavor. In recent years, I have been compelled to focus on the discouraging fact that Africa has been too often a place of proxy-wars over strategic location and power, and wars over who will control and profit from the continent’s vast resources. I’ve been driven to explore and try to understand how the populations of war-ravaged places recover, how individuals forced to fight these wars return to productive lives.

From 2001 to 2003, while serving as dean of a small satellite campus my university maintains in Dakar, Senegal, I became close to refugees from wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia. I learned of the commonplace practice of abducting children to fight vicious wars and commit unthinkable acts under threats of death or torture, as well as the taking by competing war lords of girl-children into captivity. Some girls spent years in the bush with rebel leaders who beat, raped, and impregnated them, used them as cooks and carriers of supplies, and then killed them; some ultimately escaped, often struggling to protect their children. If they did find “home,” they were often stigmatized for having been “child soldiers.”

In 2008, I met Lina Zedriga, an international lawyer and activist in Uganda who worked supporting former abductees, especially child mothers, who sought to restore their lives to productivity. Shortly thereafter I took a student trip to Kampala to study Ugandan politics. Lina brought former child soldiers she was mentoring from Gulu to meet us. After hearing their shocking stories, I determined that I had to do something to help these children.

In July 2010, I took a group of thirteen women from throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico to build homes in a community in Gulu, Uganda, alongside former abductees. These homes are for those who have lost children to the war, and who now care for war orphans. We were there to offer serious help, to “get our hands dirty” placing bricks in clay-mud and preparing the bamboo strips for rope to hold down the grass roofs. We also held babies, sang with little children, and bought cloth bags and clothes sewn by village women. We admired their work, laughed and danced with them, and we cried when they told us of their years in the bush and what they had endured, or of waiting at home for children stolen from their lives.

Psychologists in Gulu who specialize in trauma said that this sharing of stories with respectful listeners was one very helpful method used for trauma healing. We hoped our listening with compassion, as we worked with them shoulder to shoulder, would contribute to that process in some small way.

Have I cheered up the sad, or made someone feel glad? If not I have failed indeed.

On breaks from laying bricks, we were shown the gardens where women grew vegetables and a school that had recently been finished for the youngest children living there. The community is incredibly poor, but some are moving beyond their pasts and embracing life anew. We felt part of their complex journey to recovery.

I don’t know what THARCE-Gulu, Inc., will do next. A few women from this trip hope to organize home-building trips of their own. Plans for a workshop on art therapy emerged, where Ugandans from Gulu and Americans will work together at Lina’s Center. Some want to help build a bakery with child-mothers who seek to establish new businesses in Gulu. And filmmaking plans abound.

I was ill with food poisoning the night we left Uganda for home, and for two days I was sick and restless in bed. But a sense of peace broke through when the words of my mother’s hymn flooded my mind:

Has anyone’s burden been lighter today because I was willing to share? Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way? When they needed my help was I there?

CLAIMING A CENTRAL PLACE IN YOUR STORY

What Judy is accomplishing is no easy task. In fact, it’s noteworthy that she is in her sixties because learning to both throw down our pom-poms and get in the game can require a lifetime of trial and error. In a Harvard Business Review article titled “Do Women Lack Ambition?” Anna Fels, a psychiatrist at Cornell University, observes that when the dozens of successful women she interviewed told their own stories, “they refused to claim a central, purposeful place.”

Were Dr. Fels to interview you, how would you tell your story? Are you using language that suggests you’re the supporting actress in your own life? For instance, when someone offers words of appreciation about a dinner you’ve prepared, a class you’ve taught, or an event you organized and brilliantly executed, do you gracefully reply “Thank you” or do you say, “It was nothing”?

As Fels tried to understand why women refuse to be the heroes of their own stories, she encountered the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, which confirms that society considers a woman to be feminine only within the context of a relationship and when she is giving something to someone. It’s no wonder that a “feminine” woman finds it difficult to get in the game and demand support to pursue her goals. It also explains why she feels selfish when she doesn’t subordinate her needs to others.

A successful female CEO recently needed my help. It was mostly business-related but also partly for her. As she started to ask for my assistance, I sensed how difficult it was for her. Advocate on her organization’s behalf? Piece of cake. That’s one of the reasons her business has been successful. But advocate on her own behalf?

I’ll confess that even among my closest friends I find it painful to say, “Look what I did,” and so I don’t do it very often. If you want to see just how masterful most women have become at deflecting, the next time you’re with a group of girlfriends, ask them about something they (not their husband or children) have done well in the past year. Chances are good that each woman will quickly and deftly redirect the conversation far, far away from herself.

“A key type of discrimination that women face is the expectation that feminine women will forfeit opportunities for recognition,” says Fels. “When women do speak as much as men in a work situation or compete for high-visibility positions, their femininity is assailed.”

My point here isn’t to say that relatedness and nurturing and picking up our pom-poms to cheer others on is unimportant. Those qualities are often innate to women. If we set these “feminine” qualities aside or neglect them, we will have lost an irreplaceable piece of ourselves. But to truly grow up, we must learn to throw down our pom-poms, believing we can act and that what we have to offer is a valuable part of who we are. When we recognize this, we give ourselves permission to dream and to encourage the girls and women around us to do the same.

LEARNING FROM THE STORY OF PSYCHE

As we seek to claim a central place in our own stories, we can learn from the myth of Psyche. It is one of the few stories, according to Jungian psychologists Jean Shinoda Bolen and Robert Johnson, that focuses on the psychology of feminine, rather than masculine, development. It is a story that has had a profound impact on me.

Psyche is a mortal woman who wants to find her estranged husband, Eros, god of love and son of Aphrodite. Aphrodite, whose jealous fit led to their meeting and falling in love in the first place, holds the key to their being reunited (it often happens that whatever has wounded us is instrumental in our healing).

Aphrodite assigns Psyche four tasks, all of which are symbolic of skills she needs to develop. Because each task requires her to do more than she feels capable of, Psyche is initially paralyzed by fear. However, because this is the only course that can reunite her with Eros, she chooses to proceed.

Task 1: Sort Seeds (Prioritize)

For the first task, Psyche must sort a huge jumble of corn, barley, and poppy seeds into separate piles before morning. The task seems impossible given her time frame, until an army of ants comes to her aid and helps her sort the seeds.

Sifting through possibilities and establishing personal priorities in the face of conflicting feelings and competing loyalties requires a sorting of the seeds. Sometimes we need to sleep on the problem, letting the industrious collective of ants—our subconscious—work things out. As we learn to trust our intuition, clarity will emerge. Christine Vick, a stay-at-home mom, tells how her dreams emerged as she learned to prioritize.

Christine Vick: Simply Living

My college self would be disappointed with my life today.

Back then, I had it all mapped out: graduate in three years with a BA in English (check). Do volunteer work for a few years (check). Get an MA in English Literature (check).

But then I started to go off course: Get a PhD (ummm . . . ). Secure a tenure track position by the time I’m twenty-eight (ummm . . . again). Have three kids (oops, four) and a white picket fence (nope).

Turns out my eighteen-year-old self couldn’t see the whole picture. She couldn’t see that I’d be burned out by academia after my master’s degree and feel miserable about applying for PhD programs. Or that I’d quite like what I imagined then would be very mundane tasks: cooking, decorating, organizing, and hanging out with my kids. I rarely say this out loud, but I don’t even mind cleaning (except for doing the laundry, which is my Achilles heel).

When I was younger, I dismissed any field or career that was less than rigorously academic as “fluff.” I don’t know where I got this idea, because my parents have encouraged all my efforts and never pushed me in any direction. Nevertheless, this philosophy guided my early decisions and left me feeling like a failure when I found my studies unfulfilling.

By the second year of my MA program, I was unhappy, frustrated, and fed up, but I couldn’t admit (even to myself) that I wanted to quit. The dream of being a professor had always defined me, and letting it go made me panic. What would I do? How could my life be relevant?

Pride played a big role, too. I’d always been so vocal about my goals (I’m still learning the value of saying less, a lot less) that I was just plain embarrassed not to follow through, especially when my fellow students were busy being accepted into PhD programs across the country.

My pain eased a bit when I moved East and took a part-time job with a small community newspaper. I was no longer surrounded by academics and it became clear that most people aren’t concerned with the roles of Renaissance women, applying continental philosophy to modern texts, or deconstructing old English manuscripts. They’re just trying to earn a living, balance hectic lives, and find a little free time.

Two years ago I was approached by a friend of a friend who was starting her own magazine about organizing (a favorite topic and hobby of mine). She was looking for part-time editors and wondered if I’d be interested.

I said yes immediately.

One of the highlights of the job was a trip to North Carolina to interview the Flylady, Marla Cilley. It was my first business trip, albeit with my six-month-old in tow. I enjoyed meeting Cilley, who was fun, vivacious, and full of empathy; hanging out with my boss; eating out; overcoming my fear of prop planes; and seeing the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. It actually seemed more like a vacation than work, since I normally spend my days in Cinderella mode: scrubbing, cooking, chauffeuring, and trying to be patient with lots of little people with lots of needs.

Being a part of Organize magazine not only gave me the experience to start my own website, Store and Style, it taught me a valuable lesson: for a task to be valuable, it doesn’t have to be weighty, solemn, or make history.

It just has to be important to me. If it’s fun, too, even better.

I love editing—knowing what to add, move around, or rework so an article shines. I love organizing—helping people see how a little order can make life easier and more enjoyable. And I love making school lunches, reading to my son on the front porch while waiting for the bus, baking cookies, and painting my daughter’s fingernails. Lucky for me, my life can encompass all of these activities.

Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t pressure myself into starting a PhD program—I know I would have quit.

I’m also glad my college self is no longer in charge.

Task 2: Acquire the Golden Fleece (Harness Power)

Aphrodite next orders Psyche to obtain golden fleece from the rams of the sun, huge aggressive beasts in a field, butting heads. This task also seems impossible, for if Psyche goes among the rams, she’ll be trampled. This time, instead of ants coming to her aid, the reeds on the river’s edge call to her, advising her to wait until sundown when the rams disperse so she can safely pick strands of fleece off the brambles the rams have brushed against. Psyche’s ability to acquire the golden fleece without being crushed is a metaphor for every woman’s task of gaining power without losing her innate sense of connectedness and compassion.

Task 3: Fill the Crystal Flask (Achieve Goals)

For the third task, Psyche must fill a flask with water from an inhospitable stream, etched into a jagged cliff and guarded by dragons. To help her in this seemingly impossible task, Psyche has help from the eagle of Zeus. The eagle has the ability to see what it wants, plunge from the sky, and grab it with its talons.

Psyche’s completion of this task is symbolic of her learning how to set a goal, avoid the pitfalls that will inevitably come (success at this may include delegation), and then achieve her goal. As Jaime Cobb Dubeia mother of one living in New York City, went through a huge career change, she came to terms with achieving her goals—an important aspect of growing up.

Jaime Cobb Dubei: School’s in Session

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

—Mahatma Gandhi, twentieth-century political leader

While unhappily working in the heart of the children’s clothing industry, I saw ads on the subway that drew me into teaching with the New York City Teaching Fellows (NYCTF). As I embarked on the journey to teach, I thought back to my idealistic days in college, where I knew I wanted to change the world one person at a time. I wanted to make a difference more than I could ever explain. I felt it in the depths of my soul.

I went from working on Thirty-Third Street, in the heart of Herald Square, to the depths of Morrisania in the South Bronx, teaching at one of the most notorious middle schools in New York City. They always say the first year of teaching is rough. September 11th happened four days into my teaching career, leaving me to explain to seventh and eighth graders why two buildings fell. On November 12, 2001, one of my student’s parents died in an airplane crash in Belle Harbor, New York. For reasons still unknown, the principal was removed in January 2002. Many days went by where I had no idea who my boss was, what the agenda would be, or how we were accomplishing it.

I kept working, collaborating with my mentor teachers and pursuing my Masters degree and certification. Whatever the children needed, I did my best to provide. When I realized they had no idea what basic geographic features looked like, I found calendars to rip apart and post around the room. I placed a picture of child from Afghanistan in the front, just above the center of the chalkboard. In the middle of a lesson on the U.S. Civil War, Jason raised his hand. I must admit I probably showed my shock, as Jason rarely paid attention and never asked questions.

“Miss, is that really what a girl in Afghanistan looks like?”

“Yes, Jason.”

“Wow. I had no idea. She looks just like my cousin.”

Five years later, I sat on a hundred-acre farm sixteen miles from the nearest town in Pennsylvania. I was on childcare leave, nursing my nine-month-old daughter while my husband worked at a local college. After dinner one night, I looked up from my laptop and said, “Honey, what if I started a school?”

He immediately said, “Go for it! What kind are you thinking?” Throughout our relationship, I had worked in a traditional middle school, taught graduate-level courses, trained middle and high school teachers for NYCTF, and researched charter schools extensively. Spending days interviewing and researching innovative models such as The MET School, MATCH, and KIPP, I felt that I had a solid idea of cutting-edge high school models.

Interviews for leadership programs ensued. In the middle of my interviewing process, I became incredibly ill. I knew the leadership program was right for me, so I convinced the doctor to turn off the IV and take off the hospital bracelet for one day—just long enough for me to drive into New York City, interview, and make it back to the hospital for treatment. I still don’t know how I made it through that interview.

Less than three weeks later, I received the much-awaited acceptance letter. We had two months to move back to New York City. My husband would leave his stable career and search for another industry job, simply to help me actualize my dream.

During the program, we learned about then-chancellor Joel Klein’s initiative to create new small schools throughout New York City. My team and I were asked to write a proposal, and were offered the opportunity to submit it to the Department of Education. We were asked by the College Board to partner in developing a school for international affairs.

After months of preparation, we had one shot to get the school approved. A panel of ten interviewers questioned our ideas and implementation plans for thirty minutes. I had never been more nervous in my life. Yet I knew I was where I needed to be—going big or going home.

Two days after Christmas, I received a call telling me that our Queens Collegiate’s proposal had been accepted and that we would be given space in a landmarked school, on the top of a hill, in the heart of the most diverse New York borough: Queens.

As a child in Pennsylvania, I dreamt of a secondary school where students learned world languages and cultural traditions, and communicated on a global scale. As the principal of Queens Collegiate, I strive daily for global collaboration, rigorous academic programs, and a community that embraces all members and their unique traits. It did not come without intensive work, dedication, and a dream. The constant belief to “go big or go home” kept me going. Really, who sets out to design and lead a school at age thirty-two? Yet I do not see any other way.

Task 4: Fill the Box of Beauty Ointment (Learn to Say No)

For the fourth and final task, Aphrodite orders Psyche to undertake a hazardous journey through what is described in mythology as the underworld (I’d probably refer to it as the vale of tears) and fill a box with beauty ointment. This task is more than the traditional hero’s test, for Psyche is told she will encounter people on her way who will importune her and to whom she must say no in order to fulfill her mission.

Let me illustrate.

Whenever I attend Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO) meetings I seem to volunteer for something, a big something. One year I volunteered to chair the Cultural Enrichment Committee, the next year to be the Hospitality Chair. Here’s how things unfold.

The PTO president asks for volunteers. Amidst the ensuing uncomfortable silence, my brain starts to run the script: good mothers volunteer at their children’s school. Over the years, I have volunteered far less than most because of my work schedule. I want to be a good mother and I want others to think I’m a good mother. Impulsively, compulsively even, I volunteer. Five minutes later, I regret it.

Have you ever said yes when you really wanted to say no? Learning to say no, and thus exercise choice, is Psyche’s fourth and final task.

Setting a goal and pursuing it in the face of requests for help from others is especially difficult for women whose lives are focused on caregiving. And yet, as we say no, we learn to set boundaries, to exercise choice, and, paradoxically, to more capably say yes to relatedness and nurturing.

In his book The Power of a Positive No, William Ury writes:

I learned [the importance of saying no] early on in my career from the . . . extraordinarily successful investor Warren Buffett. Over breakfast one day, he confided in me that the secret to creating his fortune was his ability to say No. “I sit there and look at investment proposals all day. I say No, No, No, No, No, No—until I see one that is exactly what I am looking for. And then I say Yes. All I have to do is say Yes a few times in my life and I’ve made my fortune. Every important Yes requires a thousand Nos.”

For women, these thousand nos are particularly nettlesome because they require us to move from the mindset of either/or to both/and to do what Ury describes as “marrying the two most fundamental words in the language: Yes and No. Yes is the key word of connection. No is the key word of protection. Psyche embarks on a hero’s journey by saying yes to Eros. Psyche says no to others to say yes to herself and to her loved ones. As Ury states, the “secret to standing up for yourself and what you need without destroying precious relationships is to marry the two.” I love these words attributed to Oprah Winfrey: “We can’t ever REALLY say yes, until we learn to say no.”

As Psyche completes these four tasks, she learns to sort through and prioritize her possibilities, to learn when and how to obtain power without selling her soul, to achieve goals and delegate, and to say no. Yet, despite all she achieves, her basic feminine nature remains unchanged. For she never would have undertaken this journey, risking everything, had it not been for someone she loves. When she completes these tasks, she has truly grown up.

In 2008, I went to my first Boston Celtics basketball game. Although I was a spectator, I didn’t feel like one. My friend Kim had purchased four tickets, and she subsequently invited me, along with two other up-and-coming professional women to the game. We watched the game (the Celtics won), but in between the winning shots we got to know one another. We shared our dreams and the “doing” of them. We may not have been dribbling the ball down the court, but we were playing our own game of ball and cheering one another on. In all the important ways, we were players in the game—our game. I am still very much a cheerleader and I love that aspect of myself. However, dreaming has taught me how and when to throw down my pom-poms and get in the game.

TRULY GROWING UP . . .

Throw down your pom-poms and get in the game.

• How does putting yourself at the center of your life help you to dream?

• The next time you tell someone about something you’ve accomplished or vice versa, is it possible that you’re actually asking for something, such as recognition or help? Keeping in mind Dr. Fels’s work, perhaps you can help someone else. Ask what you can do to help.

• After you’ve thrown down your pom-poms for a time, have you noticed that when you pick them back up, you are ready to cheer others on all the more heartily?

• How can understanding the Psyche myth help us understand that dreaming is essential?

• When we dream, set goals, and achieve them despite distractions, are we not temporarily saying no to our loved ones so that we can say yes in a more profound and emphatic way?

..................Content has been hidden....................

You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.
Reset
44.212.93.133