Giving up a career doesn’t end dreams
By Zenobia Khaleel
SAN FRANCISCO: When rocket scientist Yvonne Brill died, her obituary in The New York Times created quite a furor. Blogs and editorials denounced the obituary which gave precedence to her maternal skills and beef stroganoff over her pioneering work in the area of rocket physics.
My instincts however tell me that the woman who served as director of NASA’s space program and was awarded the national award for technology and innovation would scant need a validation in her obituary, but the mother who took a hiatus from her groundbreaking career to raise her young children must be gratified that, during her funeral her son acknowledged her as ‘World’s best mom’.
The woman who sidelines her career and devotes her energies to decipher incoherent babble and broker peace in sibling wars, is often underestimated. I present a few stay-at-home mom myth busters who proved that giving up a career doesn’t bring your dreams and goals to a dead end.
Tweeting to stardom
Kelly Oxford, the newest player in Hollywood, is a college dropout, and a stay-at-home mom. Oxford found success and stardom through her Twitter feed, which currently has over 500,000 followers, including celebrities like Jimmy Kimmel and the late Roger Ebert. Oxford cultivated her own online celebrity through her blog in which she divulged her satirical observations on life, pop culture, and parenting. Three years back, she discovered Twitter, and has since been redefining comedy with a woman’s perspective from behind her keyboard.
In the last two years, Oxford sold pilot scripts to CBS and NBC, wrote a screenplay for Warner Bros., and released her first book ‘Everything’s Perfect When You’re a Liar’.
Here’s a taste of her tweets:
‘Is it cardio if you try on a bikini and have a panic attack for 20 minutes?’
‘The worst part about having kids is that they magnify every single thing that’s wrong with you. And they wake up early ‘
‘I bet most braille on public signs says: “How did you know this was here?”’
Mother-of –all -trades
Sudha Kulkarni, who had a gold medal in computer engineering, became the first female employee of TELCO, after she sent a postcard to the company’s Chairman complaining of the “men only” gender bias. There she met her future husband Narayan Murthy, in 1981, when Murthy had a vision for Infosys, but zero capital. Sudha provided the seed money of Rs. 10000 she had saved for a rainy day. While the vision of Infosys materialized, she was cook, programmer, clerk, secretary, and office assistant for the firm. Naturally, she was shocked when her husband dissuaded her from taking up board membership of the company.
’Then I realized that to make Infosys a success, one had to be focused on it alone with no other distractions. One of us had to take care of our home while the other took care of Infosys,’ Sudha recalls in her memoirs.
Home making did not limit the multifaceted Sudha Murthy from exceeding her potential. She is the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation and a member of the Gates Foundation. She is instrumental in founding orphanages, scholarships and rural development projects. For her contributions in social work, philanthropy, and education, Sudha Murthy was awarded the Padma Shri, and conferred honorary LL.D (Doctor of Laws) . She is also a prolific author in Kannada and English.
Putting words in the mouth of babes
Like any other mother of toddlers, Julie Aigner Clark must’ve felt the urge to wrangle the neck of a certain imaginary purple dinosaur, but she challenged that rage to productivity.
Shopping for educational videos for her baby, Julie was disappointed with the lackluster products, the market offered. She borrowed her neighbor’s camcorder and shot a video in her basement. A video featuring her daughter’s stuffed toys and dolls, peppered with music, visuals, numbers and words in a baby friendly style. This VHS tape made its way to 36 stores. Within a year Baby Einstein was launched with the logo that Julie doodled at her kitchen table.
The series quickly became a runaway hit and now features a vast range of baby products and educational material. In 2001 Disney bought the company which is now worth 400 million dollars.
Julie, who was named Entrepreneur of the Year is a little surprised by her huge windfall.
“I was just a stay-at-home mom who wanted to expose my daughter to classical music, poetry, not a budding entrepreneur,†she says.
Now when my precocious toddler points out Van Gogh’s ‘Starry nights’ or proclaims, “Chaai Coffee† (Tchaikovsky), I know who to thank.
Bestseller mom
Sixty years before Modern Family, and Arrested Development, Erma Bombeck realized that crazy families rake in good ratings. From the 1950s to 90s, Erma Bombeck chronicled the ordinary life of a Midwestern suburban housewife with poignant and eloquent humor through her newspaper columns and books.
She relinquished her journalistic career, and became a fulltime housewife when her kids were born, retaining her column in a local newspaper, which depicted the humor in family life, when it was heartening, mundane or challenging. Eventually her columns gained national publicity, and turned into bestselling books.
The titles of her best sellers say it all:
‘I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression.’
‘If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?’
‘Family — The Ties that Bind … and Gag!‘
Bombeck’s books have helped me appreciate the ludicrousness in my own brood. When the manic shit hits the fan, I channel my inner Bombeck and say to myself, ‘material for my bestseller’.
Erma’s steadfast motto in life was:
‘When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, I used up everything you gave me!’
Happy Mother’s Day!
(Zenobia Khaleel has donned a lot of hats; writer, photographer, travel enthusiast, troop leader, amateur actor, event coordinator, community volunteer, but predominantly go by the title Mom.)
To contact the author, e-mail: zenobiakhaleel@americanbazaaronline.com