The Stay-at-Home Intellectual Mom

In the past few months I have often thought of Virginia Woolf’s maxim, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Since leaving an English PhD program, I have tried to dedicate myself to continuing my writing in the hope of maintaining a flourishing intellectual life outside of academia. There’s one catch, however: I already had a toddler when I left academe, and now I have a one-year-old, too. The childless Woolf did not account for the fact that most mothers – in fact, most parents – are woefully short of a quiet writing environment. What’s the solution?

I started 2023 as a PhD student in English at the University of Notre Dame. Doing a PhD had been my dream for years. My husband and I left our life in Toronto, where he’d been working, for me to pursue it, with our four-month-old in tow. A year later I decided to withdraw from the program, partly because I believe it is becoming increasingly challenging to engage in the pursuit of truth within a university environment. On top of that, the academic life is often incompatible with the vocation of parenthood. It’s flexible, sure, but it demands a level of devotion that, frankly, no job should. It was a painful decision, but one that has opened more doors than it has closed.

I remember well the weekend in July when I knew it was time to leave. I had been spending time with Jane Austen’s novels, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Austen, my favorite author, never received any formal education past her school years. She had no degree, let alone a doctorate, and yet she was well-read and a masterful writer. That very evening was also the first time a magazine editor reached out to me to write an article. I took this as providential. By the end of the weekend, I knew my intellectual life would be outside of academia.

Photograph by Wavebreak Media Premium / Alamy Stock Photo.

As the months have passed, I can see how much that decision forced me to grow in virtue. Before, studying was geared toward writing essays that would gain the praise of my mentors; it was all too often a self-centered activity. Now, I read and write first out of a love of knowledge, and a desire to share that love. Once I took a step away from academia to devote more time to my children, I realized what living an intellectual life for its own sake really means. Reading and writing can become a form of contemplation, at times even a form of prayer. Whether you’re a parent or not, as long as you find joy in learning, you can have an intellectual life.

Dedicating time to intellectual pursuits is, of course, much easier if you’re single, healthy, and have a job that allows for plenty of free time. I can’t claim to speak for all mothers, let alone for all parents. Still, my experience of going from being a full-time graduate student to a stay-at-home mom turned part-time professional writer has given me a sense of perspective I lacked before.

My first worry when I became a stay-at-home mother was not having time. I quickly realized that when you have less time to read, you learn to use it more wisely. It’s not about reading everything or going to all the reading groups or being an extremely prolific writer. Rather than reading more “efficiently,” it’s about being selective with your choice of reading, focusing on ideas that really matter to you. Much of the “thinking work,” which is needed before any writing can be done, happens while I’m looking after the kids. I read and write mostly during my children’s nap times and on weekends when my husband is home to watch them. I don’t have any margin for procrastination or for distraction, and so I’ve learned to do neither. I no longer read books to sound more impressive. Life is too short.

We also consciously made the decision for my husband to accept a job closer to our families so they can help us with childcare. While this is not an option for everyone, having family nearby has removed all kinds of stresses on our marriage, and has allowed me to carve out more time to write than my husband alone could have given me. Since becoming a full-time mother, I’ve also come to more deeply appreciate my spouse. My husband has always encouraged me to write, and continues to make sacrifices that allow me to continue writing. I’m grateful for the times he takes care of the kids so I can sit down with a coffee and type away.

Finally, I’ve learned that no one can live without a community. Since becoming a mother, I’ve joined not only parent and toddler groups, but also reading groups where it’s taken for granted that moms will bring their newborns along and nurse them when necessary. I’ve also found an online community of writerly mothers, which has shown me that I’m not alone in trying to use my creative gifts in a way that’s more compatible with family life. These connections have been a great blessing. I now have many friends who understand that the intellectual life can’t happen separately from one’s duty of care to others, whether that’s to children, spouse, an ailing parent, or a friend in need. While I’ve found ways to keep intellectual pursuits alive in my life as a mother, I’ve been challenged to reflect on my priorities, and put the value of my intellectual life in perspective. The pursuit of learning is a wonderful thing. But there are other pursuits which can and should demand an equal or greater amount of attention, such as childcare, friendship, tending to our home, or developing any other talents through which we may serve God and our community. As my husband recently pointed out to me, there’s no point in praying in solitude five times a day, if that means that the dishes aren’t washed, the children are not clean, and your spouse is overwhelmed. Both my husband and I used to spend much more time reading and studying, but as parents, our priorities have shifted. Studying can be a time for contemplation, but it’s not the only form of growing closer to truth and to God.

Hugh of Saint Victor, a twelfth-century theologian, is someone who has guided my thinking in these matters. His most famous work, the Didascalicon, provides an encyclopedic overview of the role of the arts. In Book I of the Didascalicon, Hugh of Saint Victor defines philosophy as “the pursuit of wisdom.” This is a noble pursuit, yet he also makes it clear that it is not the only pursuit. Our “entire task” as human beings, he argues, is “the restoration of our nature and the removal of our deficiency.” Two things help us “restore the divine likeness in man”: one is indeed the “contemplation of truth,” but the second is “the practice of virtue.” Hugh doesn’t mention childcare specifically as an activity that allows for the practice of virtue, but it doesn’t require much imagination to see that it does so.  Looking after small children requires patience, endurance, and charity, among other virtues. It is certainly a form of learning as much as “academic” learning is. And as Hugh reminds us in Book IV of the Didascalicon, if we wish to grow in “humility,” we must “hold no learning in contempt, for all learning is good.” Hugh includes all kinds of activities, from hunting to sewing to agriculture, as “mechanical” arts, which restore our fallen nature. In other words, manual labor is not less worthy than intellectual labor.

I am still growing into this way of thinking. Hugh of Saint Victor reminds me that I must value all aspects of my life through which I can serve God, not only the intellectual. If I can’t see the deeper purpose of domestic labor, I’ve missed Hugh’s point. If I think of writing an article as a worthier pursuit than changing my baby's diaper for the tenth time in a day, I am most certainly not practicing the virtues. The Benedictine affirmation of ora et labora, prayer and work, reminds us that both contemplation and action are necessary to seek God. As a mother with the humble task of raising souls to be Christlike, I must actively resist the temptation to idealize the intellectual life. Ironically, I believe that’s the only way for me to have a flourishing one.

Virginia Woolf is at least partially right. Just as I decided to devote myself seriously to writing alongside motherhood, my favorite coffee shop opened a branch in the village where I live. I now have a place within walking distance, to go to for some quiet and focused writing time. But I can’t always separate my intellectual life from my other duties. My toddler is practicing counting with his wooden numbers next to me as I write this, and my notebook is full of his colourful scribblings as well as of my article ideas. When he was a newborn, my husband wrote a book proposal with our baby asleep in his arms. We can’t always wait for the perfect time to engage in learning and contemplation.

Woolf may not have had children, but a contemporary of hers, Dorothy L. Sayers, did. Although in her own life Sayers may have failed to prioritize motherhood over her literary career, she created a character who did reconcile them, the much-beloved Harriet Vane. Harriet, who appears in several of Sayers’ Peter Wimsey novels and eventually marries Peter, is a remarkably intelligent woman. In Gaudy Night, her old professor, Miss Lydgate, remarks that Harriet “always had a scholarly mind,” and that she could have “taken up an academic career” had she wanted to. But that is not her path. Instead, she becomes a successful writer of detective fiction, much like Sayers herself. In the unfinished novel, Thrones, Dominations, it is revealed that Harriet and Peter are going to have a child. Harriet may not have formally pursued learning as her vocation, but her life is still fulfilling. She writes, she marries a man who is her intellectual equal, she has a family.

As Hugh of Saint Victor teaches us, and as Harriet Vane learns from experience, growing in virtue can happen in all manners of ways, from academic study to cooking to the care of children. Though, to be sure, sometimes a quiet room wouldn’t hurt.