I skipped my school reunion (aka "Babies don't care about your career")

This article was first published elsewhere in Oct 2023.

This year would’ve been my 15 year school reunion, had anyone got around to organising it. Admittedly, there might have been one and I missed the memo, which is fine. I didn’t go to the 10 year one after all.

The year I graduated from high school, 40 of my 160ish peers recorded uni entrance scores of over 98.00. For context, my school was “academically selective”1 in label and spirit crushing in practice. I mean, what could possibly go wrong for youth mental health if you pool hundreds of intelligent, anxiously attached, peer oriented, people pleasing, hormonal adolescents and rank them against one another in a competitive, praise-driven environment for years on end?

Following school, our year group scattered across the country, chasing degrees and visions of “success”. Most went towards respectable, high-flying careers like international relations, communications, law and medicine. I haven’t kept in touch with many, but word is they have largely continued to study hard, work and party harder, and climb ladders in their respective fields - receiving promotions and partnerships, passing the bar, literally performing open heart surgery.

My fellow students’ achievement roll is beyond impressive, and my story is not theirs. I moved to a country town, did a low-entry grade degree, and lucked out meeting the man who’s now the father of my kids during it. Aside from a bit of time working for myself, I never got to “Senior” or management roles before having kids. As it turned out, my maternity leave and professional registrations lapsed smack bang in the middle of lockdowns, and I exited that career path altogether to remain the Default Parent.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d have “made it” in the big world if I’d followed a proper “smart kid” yellow brick road and stuck to it. I wouldn’t trade the family I have today to find out, but I do wonder if it would’ve been smarter to perhaps reach a better pay grade before having babies, or at least banked a few extra years of employer super contributions before the motherhood penalty got me. Surely I should’ve at least travelled more, volunteered for a cause, worked abroad? I guess I’ll never know.

At the time of the 10 year reunion I didn’t go to, I was married and pregnant with my first child. I was working part-time in a job I was good at, but was also easily replaceable. Unsurprisingly, I was 100% not up for standing around stone-cold sober on achy feet while the ghosts of my fast-fading unshackled youth discussed their glittering careers, Insta-perfect travels and debated whether or not to maybe potentially soon think about moving in with their girlfriend.

If another reunion was held this year to mark 15 years, I’d be on the fence about attending. I do go to bed at 8pm, so a lunch situation would be perfect, please and thanks.

If there’s a 20 year reunion though, I’m pretty sure I’ll go. I expect I’ll find myself in a room full of apparently successful people while feeling decidedly unfamous. I also expect to be in the company of a high percentage of acclaimed, accomplished women with perfectionist tendencies who either
A. Have no idea what they’re getting into, or
B. Don’t know what the fuck just hit them.

I may or may not drink2 at this imagined 20 year reunion, but I certainly plan to not be pregnant in five years’ time. If by some chance I am though, at age 38, I doubt I’d be the only one.

It makes sense women and birthing parents who place a greater value on study and career are likely to either not have children of their own, or delay making babies until later than the national average.3 It also makes sense that the more you’ve been exalted in your professional life the more you may have unknowingly aligned with corporatised versions of feminism, and the harder patriarchal motherhood is going to smack you in the face.

Because if I know anything about babies it is this.

Babies do not give a shit what you majored in, your thesis topic, your job title and or your responsibility level.

They will vomit on you whether you’re wearing a Maccas uniform or a barrister’s gown, and shit all through their car seat whether it’s in a 25 year old Corolla or a brand new Beamer 4WD.

There is no how-to instruction manual for your exact baby, no predetermined tutors, supervisors, managers or mentors4 to grade or guide your performance, and no praise, accolades, raises, leave entitlements, compliments, contracts, bonuses or even sincere thanks to be received.

Put bluntly, babies could not care less about who you think you are, they only care about getting their needs met. The higher our career achievement, I speculate, the more the uncontrollability of normal baby behaviour shatters our image of self-as-competent-and-independent-adult when we become parents. Likewise, the more success and respect we’ve been used to commanding in the workplace, the more oppressive we will likely experience patriarchal motherhood to be. In combination, I suspect this does not bode well for my school compadres and their future postnatal wellbeing.

By the time we’re due for a 20 year reunion, I’ll be nine or so years into motherhood. While I expect many of my peers will be in those early toddler trenches of exhaustion and inner emotional turmoil, my kids will be school aged. I’m not saying I’ll be past the feelings of “what the fuck am I doing?” and “who even am I?”, but I will be used to them. I will have had nine years of realising gradually letting go of control doesn’t kill me, nine years of negotiating labour dynamics inside and outside the home, nine years of learning to speak kindly to myself when my kids shove all the parts of myself I don’t like back in my face.

Hopefully, matrescence and meal train will be words in common usage by then, and if they’re local and pregnant they might let me bring them some dinner when their baby arrives. If their little ones are already here, I hope I’ll be able to nod understandingly with those who are still sinking further into sleep debt, and be able to assure them that yes, one day they will sleep again and it will be glorious. I’ll tell them they’re doing great when they feel like they’re failing. Maybe I’ll give them a copy of my book “Mama, You’re Not Broken”, revised and updated by then, so they know they’re not the only one struggling with this thing that’s meant to “come naturally” after getting straight As their whole life, and let them know where to find me if they want to talk through their birth story.

Truly, after having to put up with teenage me through six years of high school, a book, a birth debrief and a tray of lasagne is the least I could do.