The Best Kept Secret Blog - Where Am I?

I felt like a subject in a cognitive behaviour experiment, someone who's thrown into a foreign environment and is forced to figure out a whole new set of survival skills pronto if there’s any hope of making it out alive; or Paris Hilton being asked to collect pig manure on The Surreal Life; or Mrs. (Lovey) Howell realizing that coconut milk doesn’t “just come” in crystal glasses with little umbrellas propped in for presentation.

When I started back to school, I knew getting into the rhythm of reading textbooks and writing papers would be challenging after a long absence from the classroom but I was up to the task.

I suspected I might be the oldest student there and that my age and experience would give me a different worldview from my fellow students but I was hopeful that might turn out to be a good thing.

What I didn’t expect was waking up in a middle-aged Twilight Zone and the unwelcome realization, like a cold and unforgiving smack in the face, that the world had changed an awful lot since I left the full-time workforce to stay home and raise kids.

I thought I’d been keeping up, that I wasn’t like “the other moms” who baked and cleaned and were overly invested in their children. Anyone who knows me could tell you what a crappy cook I am, more apt to go for quantity than quality.

Didn’t I prefer to spend my days reading and having enlightening discussions with my friends (“You got that at Winners? Do they have any left?”), instead of pursuing frivolous decorating and housekeeping?

And while I adore my kids, I’m careful not to live my life through them. (“I don’t care if Sasha’s mom home schools her. Not only do you need to be with other children but Mommy’s busy with her own life. Now get to school. I’m going to be late for my manicure.”)

So when Mommy took her own life back to school and enrolled in a course at a local university, I didn’t think it would take me that long to get up to speed. Mommy was mistaken.

Last Wednesday, we were asked to break into small groups and find something we had in common with our fellow students.

My “peers” – all in their early twenties – and I tried. It was obvious the usual common denominators – do you have children, are both your parents still living, did your husband get a good severance package when he was layed-off from his senior management job – just wouldn’t work.

But even more generic things – What kind of a car do you drive? (they don’t own cars); Do you hate the sky high property taxes we’re forced to pay? (they don’t own property); What’s you’re favourite TV show (them: Gossip Girl, me: Sex and The City reruns) – didn’t work. The best we came up with is that we all had relatives who had been in World War II. Their grand-fathers, my father.

Things got worse.

Our instructor, who had asked us to bring in a copy of a magazine we read, had us go around the room and present our choices.

As their hands held up copies of artsy issues of Wallpaper, Stop Smiling and a host of other publications I had never heard of, I felt my cheeks get hot.

As they waxed on about the sophisticated use of metaphor and the sharp and beautiful cover shots of bored-looking, young metro-sexuals sporting all manor of piercings, I was in a full-out sweat.

By the time it was my turn, I thought I might pee my pants as I feebly held up my copy of Homemakers magazine, it’s warm pink and red cover a perfect counterpoint to the vegetable lasagna recipe featured prominently on the front.

We huddled to discuss magazine writing style and give examples from our favourite publications. My fellow group members got into a lively debate about the merits of particular stories in magazines I had never heard of, let alone cracked the cover on. The ones, I suspect, I gave a superficial glance at as I passed them over in favour of Canadian Living or the latest issue of Oprah’s O Magazine. Finally I had the answer to the question that always flickered through my mind whenever I noticed one of these periodicals – “Who reads these things anyway?” Now I know.

I tried my best to be part of the conversation but it became painfully obvious I had nothing to contribute. I toyed with the idea of offering to go get everyone a coffee but eventually opted to just shut-up and try to learn a thing or two.

And it was while I was listening to the debate, I realized how sheltered I may have become.

Author Leslie Bennetts, in her bestselling book The Feminine Mistake, argues that women pay a heavy toll when they choose stay-at-home motherhood over being a working mom. Like many middle-aged women who stayed home to raise their children, I'm apt to argue against Ms. Bennetts point. My husband hasn't left me, I'm not impoverished and I've got a good life.

But as my classmates have taught me, there's a world out there that keeps going on and, shame on me, maybe I haven't kept up with it enough. Maybe I've gotten a little too comfortable.

I've got another class tonight and I suspect I'll once again be stunned by just how much I don't know. The obvious upside is that isn't it great I still have so much to learn at my age. And hey, maybe I even have a thing or two I can offer "the kids" in my class. Maybe I can give them a ride home.