Shame
When you’re seventeen, in your last year of school, and you’ve no idea what career path to choose, August – the month of the VTAC form and the deciding on preferences – can appear to be hurtling towards you at the speed of The Cyclone at Dreamworld. And it can feel like you’re on a rollercoaster when you’re trying to figure out what ‘bliss’ you’re meant to be following.
My daughter knows the feeling well. It hangs over her like an invisible question mark that follows her wherever she goes. We’ve brainstormed, tried work experience, executed processes of elimination. Lucky she’s a Gen Z, because statistics suggest she will change her career several times throughout her lifetime – so in the scheme of things, it may not matter if she doesn’t ‘get it right’ first time.
Not so for this Baby Boomer.
When I was eighteen I was accepted into Monash University to begin an arts degree. I enrolled in French, Spanish, Linguistics and Maths. I wasn’t sure where this combination of subjects would lead me, but I did know I loved language. I loved words. And I loved French. Throughout secondary school I excelled in the study of the French language. I lived and breathed it. I even began to write poetry in French. Through my enthusiasm for the language, my father resurrected his schoolboy French and we would often converse en Francais at the dinner table – much to the chagrin (now there’s a word of French origin for you) of my mother. Throughout secondary school I attended the screening of French films – no subtitles! – and entered Alliance Francais competitions at Monash University. When I was accepted to study there as an undergraduate, it was a dream come true.
Then, a week after enrolling, I withdrew.
Instead, I found myself lined up at the gates of Frankston Teacher’s College ready to sign up for primary school teaching. To this day, that decision has haunted me.
Now, let me make it clear – especially to any students, primary school teacher colleagues and friends who may be reading this! – what I am NOT saying is that I didn’t enjoy my career as a Performing Arts teacher. Over the years I have made many precious friends and had many wonderful experiences as a primary teacher. The interaction with so many children throughout my career has been an amazing privilege and there are so many good stories to tell.
It’s not so much the actual career path I ended up taking that is at the heart of my regret, it is more that I made a decision to let go a pathway I was passionate about. The Government of the day was on a drive to recruit more primary school teachers to the profession and had launched a studentship scheme. Though I had not indicated an interest in primary teaching on my tertiary application form, I had been a recipient of a studentship – which provided a generous weekly allowance in return for agreeing to sign up to teach for a minimum of three years. Money was tight in our immigrant household. Friends and family, assured of my teacher potential, encouraged me to take up the offer. I agonised over the decision.
For a long time I struggled. I felt like an interloper to the profession. I broke out in eczema on the occasion of every practical placement. And it wasn’t until the day I took my guitar to school and won the students and supervising teacher over with my rendition of Hush Little Baby, and subsequently went on to complete a Graduate Diploma in Music Education that I found my niche.
I finally gave myself permission, thirty or so years on, to revisit my passion for words when I completed a Diploma of Writing and Editing in 2009 and was accepted into a Masters in Writing and Literature, which I’m currently completing. If I’d been a Gen Z, maybe I’d have fulfilled my three-year obligation and returned to study then. Or maybe not. And maybe if I had started off studying those four subjects at Monash I might have made a hash of it. It’s all hypothetical.
But what I have learned – and only recently – is that a lot of my angst over a decision I made when I was eighteen has to do with shame. Shame that I didn’t stand up for myself and stick to my original choice; shame that I took up a teaching place a dear friend would have cut their leg off for; shame that my primary qualification, even after I added a year of extra study was deemed a diploma when friends had gone on to qualify in journalism and law; shame that I never became an expert in my profession (I ended up having to retire from full-time teaching due to ill health); more shame that I secretly envied people I knew who had become experts in their fields; and shame that I betrayed my authentic self. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Well, that’s the power of shame. Naming the shame has seen a load of guilt the weight of several mountain ranges lift from my shoulders.
I recently discovered a TED talk by Brene Brown on shame. It goes for 20 minutes but she makes some hefty points if, like me, you’ve struggled with this issue.
Whatever career path my Gen Z girl decides to head down, thank goodness the zeitgeist is in her favour and won’t hold it against her if she changes her mind.
My daughter knows the feeling well. It hangs over her like an invisible question mark that follows her wherever she goes. We’ve brainstormed, tried work experience, executed processes of elimination. Lucky she’s a Gen Z, because statistics suggest she will change her career several times throughout her lifetime – so in the scheme of things, it may not matter if she doesn’t ‘get it right’ first time.
Not so for this Baby Boomer.
When I was eighteen I was accepted into Monash University to begin an arts degree. I enrolled in French, Spanish, Linguistics and Maths. I wasn’t sure where this combination of subjects would lead me, but I did know I loved language. I loved words. And I loved French. Throughout secondary school I excelled in the study of the French language. I lived and breathed it. I even began to write poetry in French. Through my enthusiasm for the language, my father resurrected his schoolboy French and we would often converse en Francais at the dinner table – much to the chagrin (now there’s a word of French origin for you) of my mother. Throughout secondary school I attended the screening of French films – no subtitles! – and entered Alliance Francais competitions at Monash University. When I was accepted to study there as an undergraduate, it was a dream come true.
Then, a week after enrolling, I withdrew.
Instead, I found myself lined up at the gates of Frankston Teacher’s College ready to sign up for primary school teaching. To this day, that decision has haunted me.
Now, let me make it clear – especially to any students, primary school teacher colleagues and friends who may be reading this! – what I am NOT saying is that I didn’t enjoy my career as a Performing Arts teacher. Over the years I have made many precious friends and had many wonderful experiences as a primary teacher. The interaction with so many children throughout my career has been an amazing privilege and there are so many good stories to tell.
It’s not so much the actual career path I ended up taking that is at the heart of my regret, it is more that I made a decision to let go a pathway I was passionate about. The Government of the day was on a drive to recruit more primary school teachers to the profession and had launched a studentship scheme. Though I had not indicated an interest in primary teaching on my tertiary application form, I had been a recipient of a studentship – which provided a generous weekly allowance in return for agreeing to sign up to teach for a minimum of three years. Money was tight in our immigrant household. Friends and family, assured of my teacher potential, encouraged me to take up the offer. I agonised over the decision.
For a long time I struggled. I felt like an interloper to the profession. I broke out in eczema on the occasion of every practical placement. And it wasn’t until the day I took my guitar to school and won the students and supervising teacher over with my rendition of Hush Little Baby, and subsequently went on to complete a Graduate Diploma in Music Education that I found my niche.
I finally gave myself permission, thirty or so years on, to revisit my passion for words when I completed a Diploma of Writing and Editing in 2009 and was accepted into a Masters in Writing and Literature, which I’m currently completing. If I’d been a Gen Z, maybe I’d have fulfilled my three-year obligation and returned to study then. Or maybe not. And maybe if I had started off studying those four subjects at Monash I might have made a hash of it. It’s all hypothetical.
But what I have learned – and only recently – is that a lot of my angst over a decision I made when I was eighteen has to do with shame. Shame that I didn’t stand up for myself and stick to my original choice; shame that I took up a teaching place a dear friend would have cut their leg off for; shame that my primary qualification, even after I added a year of extra study was deemed a diploma when friends had gone on to qualify in journalism and law; shame that I never became an expert in my profession (I ended up having to retire from full-time teaching due to ill health); more shame that I secretly envied people I knew who had become experts in their fields; and shame that I betrayed my authentic self. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Well, that’s the power of shame. Naming the shame has seen a load of guilt the weight of several mountain ranges lift from my shoulders.
I recently discovered a TED talk by Brene Brown on shame. It goes for 20 minutes but she makes some hefty points if, like me, you’ve struggled with this issue.
Whatever career path my Gen Z girl decides to head down, thank goodness the zeitgeist is in her favour and won’t hold it against her if she changes her mind.
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