I used to believe after I had my daughter that I had truly lost brain cells. My computing capacity, my ability to remember things at work and even my vocabulary seemed to be incredibly diminished. I went back to work when my daughter was six-months old so the problem was not that I had given up adult conversations and had no other tests to challenge my mind. I really was a bit of a moron.
I had heard of this effect from other friends that had babies before me. As a bit of a latecomer to the “mom” game, I had a lot of time to witness to these bouts of absent-mindedness in my previously brilliant and accomplished friends. I chalked that behavior up as normal for my friends who chose to stay at home with their kids. Of course their intelligence would diminish when all they had to speak to all day were drooling blobs that wouldn’t be stringing together a full sentence for many, many years. Decisions such as choosing the most environmentally friendly laundry detergent don’t really subject the mind to any sort of strain. Of course their capacity was going to be diminished but what about my working friends and myself?
For my working friends, I just noticed the frenzy. It was hard to tell if their minds were still sharp because we rarely had time to have an intelligent conversation about anything other than the list of tasks they had no time to complete in order to not be fired and to make sure their children had clothes on. God, it was exhausting just talking to them. In the old days, I was the go-to girl at my company. With my elephant-like memory, any historical fact, figure or personage that needed recalling rolled off my tongue without effort. After I returned from maternity leave, it seemed that going back to old emails, files and my address book to find the information that was needed filled up my time at work. I had slipped. My edge was gone. Though I must admit I didn’t mind not being that “go-to” girl anymore. “Figure it out yourself. I’m busy!”
Welcome to 2009. My family and I are in the middle of the recession (dare I say, “depression”) mess like everyone else. My husband’s company is restructuring and due to our recent move across the country, I had not found a job yet. But when things started to look shaky, I got back on the job search bandwagon and the result was a few interviews with this interesting company that went pretty well. There was some glimmer of hope that we could stay put and ride out the storm instead of going home with the same sad tale you hear in the news every night (and thank the heavens we kept our house so we would have somewhere to return if needed).
So in preparing for any eventuality, I said to my husband, “Honey, I have an appointment to look at a pre-school for Ava and then I am going to stop by Staples and get some bubble wrap for packing up my china.” I thought my husband’s head was going to explode. “How do you function like that?” he asked me. “What choice do I have? If I get the job, Ava needs to have a place to go during the day and if we leave, I need to start packing.” Duh! Then it hit me. I figured out where my IQ points went. They just got re-arranged. My ability to multi-task was so heightened it just seemed like my other skill sets had reduced. But you know what? I am still pretty smart and though it’s no longer manifested in the same way as it was previously, I know it’s in there. I don’t know any dudes with that kind of capacity.
Jump in
