Amanda van Scoyoc

Andrea as a beautiful flower girl

Today Andrea turns 3. Three years ago I was in Boston in a hospital room with my cumbersome Hasselblad taking photos of her mom in labor.

So much has happened since that day in the hospital. I would never have anticipated this life that I have now, but yet in a way it all stems from that year. Who I am now, in some way emerged that day, in that room, with that family. That day I was there as a photographer, researcher, and student, but I became a vulnerable observer. I remember holding back her leg as she pushed and crying seeing the pain that she was in. It was impossible not take part, and that changed the relationship that I now have with photography and the relationship that I want to have with research. Not to over exaggerate, but it changed my relationship with life. I am still searching for those moments that stick. I want to be pulled by relationships and vulnerability. I want it all to be a part of this circular experience of life. I want everything to fold back together in the end. I want to demand this of life.

Doesn’t it seem right that clinical psychologists should be vulnerable? Anthropologists so frequently are. It is a tenant of how they work with people. If you are asking someone to let you in, shouldn’t you give enough of yourself to be vulnerable? As a psychologist we work in such tenuous situations. Should we be vulnerable? What is this professional relationship. Sometimes I think that maybe I just wasn’t meant to be a professional.

The professors that inspire me are the ones here whose vulnerability has slipped in to their lectures and stories. It happens infrequently here, but when it happens, I hold on. I wonder how many people here are driven by some deeper experience. For me, I can tell you about those small moments that replay in my mind like scenes in a movie to motivate me and remind me why I am here. I sometimes wonder if this is what has made this year so difficult for me. I read articles and run stats and all of this is a method of learning devoid of those moments. The moments are insignificant here in comparison to the bigger picture of trends and analyses.

I’ve read extensively on teen parenting, but I am still motivated more by that moment in that hospital room three years ago than the fact that the United States has a teen parenting rate nine times that of western Europe.

Both of these things are important, the stats and the vulnerability. Now I only need to figure out how to hold on tight to stories when the waves of ANOVAs and linear regression wash over me.

For now, with all of that in front of me, on Andrea’s third birthday, I’m enjoying just thinking about Andrea. She has been a part of me since the moment she came to exist.

This year, she was the little flower girl at our wedding who gingerly handed flowers to each person as she meandered down the aisle. I feel so fortunate that I’ve not only gotten to be there for some of the big moments in Andrea’s life but she has been there for some of the more glorious moments in my life as well.