The Cupcake Incident

                                                                                                  

On Friday my son turned five.  And so it was that on Thursday night I found myself elbow deep in dark chocolate cake batter and made-from-scratch coconut frosting, carefully following a recipe from the very chic Boston bakey Flour.  After asking Conor to name all of the children in his kindergarten class (twice) to be sure I would make enough cupcakes, I filled 18 spaces in my two non-stick pans and stuck them in the oven. Then I collapsed—while I love to cook, I hate baking, since it requires precise measurement and careful attention to detail, for which I have little energy left in the evenings given that such effort is required at work all day long.  Normally I would have taken a shortcut and used a mix to make life easier, but I wanted Conor’s cupcakes to be exactly as he’d asked for them—very chocolate, and very coconut.

Well, what those cupcakes really were—I learned 25 minutes later—was stuck. Glued to the pan, going absolutely nowhere. So much for “non-stick;” those suckers weren’t moving.  No, I didn’t use cupcake liners; I was trying to be “green.”   All of that Penzey's dutch-processed cocoa, organic butter and eggs, for nothing.  

I went to bed distressed.  Now what?  We needed 18 cupcakes by 930 am, and they had to be great.  Yeah, I knew they were for a bunch of 4 and 5-year-olds, but still-- they really just had to be great.  I searched West Madison online for bakeries, pondering the one with the $3 organic cupcakes (really??), the good ol'stanby Costco (not open til 10), and a new place a Facebook friend recommended.  As my eyes closed, I berated myself for obsessing this way. How could I have forgotten the cardinal rules of academic motherhood, and even attempted to bake cupcakes?  My own UW colleague, Simone Schweber, once wrote a brilliant column for the Chronicle about this-- and I had neglected the wisdom of her words, also written after attempting to make perfect cupcakes:  "I was always afraid that I wouldn't be a good mother, much less a perfect one, and indeed, it's much easier to make perfect, if ridiculous, cupcakes than to be a good mother." 

The next morning, I dropped Conor off at school and set myself on a path for the grocery store.  A $5 or $10 box of cupcakes from the bakery department would be just fine for these little palates, I told myself.  I drove towards Sentry.  And then, to my astonishment, I turned left-- and instead made a beeline for Cupcakes-A-Go-Go.  It was a bit of an out-of-body experience; I got out of the car, went in and purchased 18 cupcakes, handing over my Amex and charging $54 -- all the while screaming (silently) at myself "STOP IT, this is CRAZY!" 

What in the heck had happened to me?  I knew the money was better spent elsewhere, that the kids wouldn't taste the difference, and that no one but me was demanding that I do this.  I knew that only children would be present at the celebration, no other parents, and that my kid's school (a Waldorf program) does its best to discourage conspicuous consumption. As a sociologist, I further knew that my behaviors were class-linked, and that I ought to actively resist them. I knew this, I knew that, and I simply couldn't stop.

So I brought the cupcakes back to kindergarten, and my husband and I served them. Conor smiled and enjoyed a chocolate one, and the other kids (including my 2-year-old daughter) licked their fingers happily. The eating lasted all of 10 minutes, and then it was done. $54 worth of sugar, consumed.  

What happened Friday morning is going to stay with me for a long time. Mainly because I still can't understand it.  Was I simply over-compensating for the guilt of being a working mom? I don't think so, since I really don't feel my family is anything but proud of my career.  Was I embarrassed by my baking mishap? Not really-- I know it happens. Was I competing with other moms, whom the teacher mentioned sometimes shop at another organic bakery?  Maybe a little.  But at the end of the day, for all of my intellectual abilities to classify and analyze my own actions, I can't find an explanation that resonates.  Most of all, I can't account for my intense guilt (almost disgust) over that $54. 

What I can tell you is this: I won't be found in a cupcakery again.  Just can't do it. 

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Professors Are Mamas Too

I’ve had a Superwoman complex ever since I was little. There was early evidence when as a five-year-old playing Memory with my grandfather for the umpteenth time, I left the table and went over to my grandma, quite upset, and said “Grandma, I don’t know what to do. Poppa wants to win, and I don’t know how to lose!”

Getting pregnant in my third-year on the tenure track at a top tier research university, with only a half-dozen publications under my belt and in the second year of my marriage was the ultimate act of faith in my superpowers. My annual reviews had gone well and I’d been told I was ‘overproducing’ and could ‘relax’ and ‘slow down.’ Plus, I’d recently been awarded a prestigious fellowship, allowing me to focus on research for the next year. Which, I took as code to mean: “Cool-- You can have a baby and don’t even need to ask for maternity leave.”

Translation: I was clueless.

Fast forward approximately nine months when my husband and I found ourselves in the presence of a very tiny (4 lb 3 oz), very fragile baby boy, born after 36 hours of hard labor following a five-week period of flat-on-my-back bedrest. At home with our infant, who required a two-pronged feeding of breast and formula supplementation (plus pumping milk) every two hours ‘round the clock, we were a bit bewildered. The home office upstairs, which we shared, sat ready with a pack-n-play placed between our two desks. All we thought we had to do was put our kid in the bassinet and sit down at our laptops to work. We’d take turn changing diapers occasionally, and cuddle him when he needed it. No babysitter required, careers fully on-track.

Oh, please.

Three months later we were delirious, having enjoyed no more than 3 consecutive hours of sleep on any given night, unable to eat a hot meal, usually unshowered, and hopelessly confused about how life would ever become “normal” again. Me, the unusually bright capable assistant professor, found myself sitting in the parking lot of our local drug store, too sleep-deprived to figure out that I was stuck in my seatbelt because I’d unwittingly jammed my coat zipper into it. Totally, and completely stuck.

But also, completely and irrefutably in love. Our son was a gorgeous gem. His big bright eyes, tiny little fingers, pouty lower lip-- he more than "had us at hello.” There was no question, we were the proudest parents in the world. Wouldn’t change a thing. But no idea what to do next...

Well, we're still figuring it out. But given that I am far from alone in the world of profs as mamas and dadas, I'm going to occasionally use this opportunity to let you in on how it's going. Not because I have ANY secrets to success-- heck, I don't even have tenure (yet)--but because I'm hoping that giving a nuanced, and once in awhile pretty detailed, view of life as it is, will help others figure out what they want to do.

So consider it a series of sorts. With episodes only when I have "free time." Ha!

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