A Father's Journal, Vol 3, No. 2
April 12, 1996
It is a time of change in our household. Spring is almost here, crocuses have poked through the cool earth, only to be covered with snow and have to raise their soft pedals sun-wards again. This deepest of snow winters is slow to let the rocky soil of New England roll into Spring.
I accepted the offer to attend graduate school at a large state school this week. I will enter their MSW program in the Fall. Their program is not yet accredited, they have lots of experience with undegrads, but the Masters level program is new. This feels like the appropriate place for me.
Also appropriate is the timing of this acceptance, as it coincides with my daughter Emily's second birthday. It is not unusual, I suspect, for fathers to take baby steps away from their family around second birthdays. My baby is clearly no longer a baby. She is a strong little girl, a challenge. There is safety is stepping towards a new profession, new school, new life. At two, my daughter not only challenges me as an equal, she reminds me of my childhood so frequently as to render some days into unending waves of emotional fog, as one faint memory washes over another.
Yet I wonder if Social Work will create for me the escape I sometimes hope for. The other day I scanned the Social Work shelves of a huge New York City bookstore, and found nothing that caught my attention. Whether it is to serve as an escape or as an vocation, in order to make Social Work work for me, I think that I must find some piece of it that I love, that draws me, that can lead me through these years of school.
Nancy has a new vocation, too. Her graphic design work has begun to keep her quite busy. Parenthood and work are already a major challenge for our relationship. We must constantly remind ourselves to take time together. I wonder how adding grad school to the soup will taste.
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