A Career Substitution

Posted by: Anne Tergesen on February 01

Guest blogger Lori Gilbert is a former museum curator and educator. She is currently working at home in suburban Baltimore, raising her two children while freelance writing and substitute teaching.

After giving a presentation last year at my children’s school in my former professional field of art history, I received a phone call from one of the teachers in the pre-Kindergarten program, who was looking for a substitute assistant for a week. She was so sweet and made it seem like I would be doing her a great favor, rather than taking a paying job. I agreed. As I went into work the first morning, I wondered: Was this some form of monetary reward for my talk about “racial identity in Twentieth Century art,” or had my skills floundered so much that they thought only a substitute assistant for four-year-olds would be appropriate for me?”

As it turned out, the week went well and it led to me becoming a regular substitute. It works well. I enjoy the camaraderie and the feeling of purpose I get. The flexibility and hours make it a job I can actually do and not have to pay for child care. It only sometimes nags at me that perhaps I am a cliché of the middle aged woman returning to the work force. We’re good at substitute work and at working with children, not what we used to do. I didn’t make much of it, though, until I heard from a friend who quit a very accomplished career to stay at home with her children and is now working as a substitute librarian at the local library. As with myself, it was not her field of specialty. The job’s allure: The flexible hours and moderately enjoyable responsibilities. She had been Phi Beta Kappa, had graduated in three years, and had charged through the workforce. Now, as she put it, she “chides overdue patrons.” (In all fairness, I think she absolutely loves that part of the job.) I went to a top art history graduate program and worked at respectable museums in New York and Baltimore. I have been thanked in the acknowledgement section of several academic publications. Now, I patrol nap time and the water table.

To me, the part that sticks is that we’re substitutes. Not that I want full-time work yet. But it makes me wonder what the value of our experience is. Has giving up our full-time work placed us permanently in the category of substitutes? The very term implies “not first choice.” Have we taken too lackadaisical an approach to our own long-term well-being? So much is being written about on-ramps and off-ramps for women in the workplace. But they haven’t discussed what it means when you find yourself in the workplace equivalent of the drive-through lane at McDonalds. Yes, life as a substitute is easy, practial, cost-effective, and even fun. But in big doses, will it do more harm than good?

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