My 20 year college reunion was this year. I was too busy (and too cheap) to go. The organizers were kind enough to send me for free the reunion book wherein each class member got a page to tell of their post-Stanford life. I was too busy to write. You were only supposed to get the book for free if you contributed. I’ve been too busy to do more than glance through it and try to look up a few people. That’s the difference five years makes in your life – five years ago I both contributed to the book and read it cover to cover. Now, the Fruit of the Murphy Loins are five years older (I feel only about six months older) and that makes all the difference. Free time? That’s the moment between when I collapse in a mindless heap having finished all that I can do at the end of the day and when I drag myself off to bed to be ready to start the process over the next day. Getting up in the morning represents the triumph of hope over experience. The contributors to the 15 year reunion book fell into two broad categories with two exceptions – those who were bragging about how wonderful their lives were, those who were relating how awful life had turned out, and the exceptions were Steve Minsuk and I. Besides me, there wasn’t any middle ground. And Steve Minsuk, in a case of family name foreshadowing, is now Sharon. And the really weird thing is I knew him – we had Freshman English class together.
A couple of things struck me about the contributors to the 20 year reunion book. One is that my children are older than the great majority, which is weird because I’m a year or two younger than my classmates, and I got a late start with women. Oh, there were a few, like the Frykmans, who married right after college and so got a head start on kids. But most of us waited to get married, and then waited to have children. My first first Fruit ripened when I was 29. My classmates seemingly waited even longer. The other thing that struck me is how many of my female classmates chucked successful careers to stay home with their children. I’m taking about smart, ambitious women who grew up hearing that staying at home was a dead end, who went to an elite university, who had high paying, powerful jobs. And then they had children, and after much agonizing, they decided they’d rather work in their home than at the office. Page after page of how “I used to be a partner at ___, but now I’m happier staying home with the kids.” Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of my female classmates kicking butt in the career department; I’m just surprised by how many prefer to wipe butt than kick it.
