Mom Judging 101: A Freshman Introduction

The summer before I started college in 1997, my fellow freshman and I were given a reading assignment for Freshman Orientation.  We were to read the book The Hot Zone by Richard Preston.   We were given a “free” copy of it at our pre-orientation-orientation that took place the June before the fall semester started. “Yay, free book!” I thought upon receiving it.  I had never heard of it but it looked interesting and I was just dying for my mind to be expanded the way college is supposed to do for you.

We were told that we were going to participate in a book discussion with an assigned small group at our freshman orientation.  It was the only required activity of orientation in that attendance would be taken and there would be some sort of unnamed repercussion if we didn’t go. 

[Looking back on it now, I am pretty sure they were bluffing.  What could they do to us anyway? Graduation was too far away to make that a valid threat and they wanted our tuition money so I am not sure what they had to hold over our heads, lol.]

Judging from what I heard from my fellow students in the dorms, many of the members of my class only read half of it or none of it at all.   I was a little disappointed to hear that most people I talked to in my dorm only read part of it or were too busy having an “amazing” summer to read it.

I found The Hot Zone to be thrilling read and was a huge fan of the book.  I still think that it is a pretty interesting book that has relevance today.  It is the true story of the first emergence of the Ebola virus in Central Africa.  Then the book takes a turn and brings the Ebola virus to the United States as it chronicles the first Ebola outbreak which took place in Reston, Virginia in 1990.  While the stain that arrived in the US that year was 98% deadly, it was only fatal to the monkeys who lived in the Reston Monkey house.  

Two of the people who worked hard to control the outbreak were a married couple, Colonel “Jerry” Jaax and his wife Lieutenant Colonel Nancy Jaax.  They worked as veterinary Pathologists for USAMRIID, the US Medical Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, located in Fort Detrick, Maryland.  

In any case, I only remember a few things about our book discussion. I can slightly remember the classroom where we met and I remember the faculty member who facilitated our discussion seemed kind of disinterested.   What I do remember were the remarks and opinions of one of my classmates.

One of the questions we were supposed to discuss concerned that character qualities of Jerry and Nancy Jaax.  These were two of the main characters in the book and real people who worked hard to control the Ebola outbreak in Reston, Virginia in 1990. 

When were asked about what we thought about the character traits of Nancy Jaax, a decorated Army Lieutenant Colonel and a scientist, who worked hard to control a dangerous virus, I thought the young woman who answered the question was going to say that she was brave for putting her life in danger to quell a possibly deadly outbreak.  But instead my new classmate said that she thought that she was “selfish for putting her work before her children.”

I don’t remember exactly what happened after that. I hope that 18 year old me said something along the lines of, “Really, that’s your opinion? You are going to hold it against this woman because she put her life on the line to protect citizens against a deadly outbreak because she is a mother? She and her husband were doing the same job, why is it that she is being selfish but he isn’t?  He is the father of the same children, if one were to follow your logic he should be considered selfish too?”

They say that college is about learning and growing beyond yourself but I didn’t know how to unpack that thinking when I left my discussion group that day.  It took me 18 more years before I became a mother myself before I could even comprehend society judges mothers on a harsher scale than fathers.

Which brings me to present day. 

Last Wednesday, I was reading an article online about an Air Force Staff Sergeant who is also a woman as well as being a lactating mother.  She was participating in a triathlon and needed to pump during the final running portion because the race was long and she needed to make herself more comfortable.  The headline on ABC News read I Breast Pumped While Running an Ironman and Was Floored by the Responses Online.

At the end of the article, the mother in question, Sgt. Jaime Sloan says that she hopes that the fact that her picture has gone viral will help women 
“listen not only their bodies but their hearts when it comes to reaching their goals because anything is possible.”

It is a great quote, but when I first read the article I could find no mention in the article of what exactly the online response was, so I read the comments under the article because I wanted to know more about the online response.  Some of it was very positive. There some comments like “Go Jaime!”  There is also a similar attitude to what I heard in 1997, which is, “Marathons are for when your children are older” and “She did it for the attention” and “She did it for her”.  

I don’t want to leave this post on a negative note because I do think that women have made progress even since 1997.  However, I feel like if I continue writing anymore today about this subject I am just going to go further down a rabbit hole pertaining to subjects of nursing, running races, and female selfishness.

All I have to say is “Way to Go Jaime!”  

Next time I will write about something less heavy.