Jane Says

Interview with Jane
I interviewed a woman named Jane who told me about her life and experiences in marriage, pregnancy, motherhood, and her family.  She is a 49 year old woman who has been married for 28 years, and has been a mother for 25.  She has three children and lives in the desert of West Texas.  The following is meant to be an informative paper on the answers that Jane gave me. 
Jane knew from a very young age that she wanted to have children and that being a mother was important to her.  This is what is known as “early articulation”(Hyde, 215).  When asked how she felt physically and emotionally during her pregnancy, Jane said, “I had some health issues that required bed rest during my pregnancies, but it was still exciting knowing that I was carrying a precious life inside of me that would someday call me mom”.  Jane experienced some health issues through all of her pregnancies, making her experience a little bit different from the average pregnancy.  Most commonly, the mother will suffer through most of the sickness and discomforts during the first and third trimesters(Hyde, 213).  Jane explained that during her pregnancies, she had doctors that were very encouraging and helpful- always eager to answer her questions and treating her in a way that made her feel comfortable.  In this case, the physician was in the role of the knowledgeable authority, probably causing some of Jane’s experience to be somewhat medicalized(Hyde, 213). 
During the Jane’s deliveries, both sides of the family were present at the hospital- although the only one allowed in the surgery room was her husband.  Due to complications, she had to have a c-section on all three of her births.  The first delivery, she said, was somewhat of an emergency situation, so she was under anesthesia.  She was awake for the other two births.  She said that both she and her husband had taken childbirth classes, sometimes known as lamaze, to be as well prepared as they possibly could for the births(Hyde, 213). 
Jane felt that by working, she would miss out on much of what was going on in her children’s lives and thus, didn’t work outside the home until her children were in elementary school and jr. high.  She spoke about the decision to work and how it affects the family and said that those type of decisions were always made by herself and her husband.  She and her husband were always involved in her children’s lives and went to most of their activities but she still felt like work made her miss a lot of things that were important to her and her children.  Since she worked for with her husband in their family business, she didn’t have to worry as much about sex discrimination, hiring discrimination, or other things of that nature(Hamann, Lecture). 
When asked what advice she would give to new mothers, Jane said “The advice I would give concerning decisions about work and motherhood is this:  weigh your options very carefully and if you are married, discuss it with your spouse.  This type of decision affects everyone in the family”.  She stated that she has never understood why women with children would want to go to work to only end up using most of their income on gas, clothes, and childcare.  Jane says that she believes that it is worth the sacrifices that have to be made to be able to stay at home with your family.  This has some to do with what the book calls, “mother wars”- creater by the media to pit working moms against stay-at-home moms(Hyde, 214).  Except in Jane’s case, she is on the opposite end of the spectrum.  Jane doesn’t believe that there is anything that the govenrnment should to to make the decision to stay at home or work outside the home any easier to address.
Jane said that she and her husband have worked as a team while their children were growing up.  She explained that having her husband’s attitude about his responsibilites as a father and his actions have really enriched the “team”. 
When asked what was the best part of motherhood and the particularly challenging part, Jane replied, “The best part about being a mom has been experiencing each new season of life with my children, from infant to adulthood.  Not all of it was easy or fun but I have seen my children grow through their experiences and learn the lessons that have shaped them to be the men and women they were intended to be.  One major challenge of motherhood for me, realizing there is no perfect parent, was knowing when to let go and let my children stand or fall on their own, from infancy to young adulthood”.
Jane’s two eldest son’s are now 25 and 22 and living outside of the home.  She has a daughter who is 19 and still lives at home.