Two things.
I spent the day in a room full of babies and baby carriers today at a local Babywearing Swap & Shop organized by a friend of mine. I had a bin full of demo carriers left over from my personal babywearing stash, the Natural Urban Mamas store and my babywearing educator days. I took along The Little Lady and we set up our table (she brought two of her doll carriers to sell) for a day of babywearing and de-stashing. This event confirmed a few things for me.
The first, is that I really am done with that phase of my life.
I don't long to hold every baby that comes my way, although I'll gladly do so if you need me to. I don't look at mamas with beautiful blossoming bellies and instinctively touch my own and wonder what it would be like again. Neither my ovaries, nor my boobs, feel any kind of twinge-ing or tingling when I hear a baby coo or cry. And surprisingly, I no longer yearn for the days of wearing my babies anymore - although I am almost 99% sure that my daughter would jump at the chance if I offered.
It's officially official. I am done with babyhood. So much so, that I didn't even wrap a baby on myself today OR take a babywearing selfie!
The second thing that was confirmed for me today, is that I am still really good at two things: educating and selling.
I love the look on a parent's face when I am able to show them how to use a carrier properly and it's like a whole new world has opened up for them. Or when a mama tells me that she has a ring sling, but her baby hates it and then I tweak it just a bit (upright positioning people!) and again that "OMG, I had no idea!" face happens. The best one today was the sweet, 8-week old, baby girl who fell asleep within 10 seconds of being put into a wrap carrier for the first time. That was the easiest $100 bucks I have ever made! Well, except for that one time at... oh, never mind. ;)
Sales has always been something that I am good at. In retail, as a pharmaceutical sales rep, and as an online boutique owner, it's just kind of what I do, and do really well. I catch myself doing it even when I am not making any money at it! Did I ever tell you about that time when we where building our first home and I spent a day at the show home office and sold two houses for our builder? Yup, that happened.
I once attended a brilliant talk by Arlene Dickinson (I highly recommend you go see her speak if you ever get the chance). Arlene talks about how marketing is all about story telling and there is a very good reason that Arlene is as successful as she is, she is a DAMN GOOD story teller! Sales is a bit different though. Selling is about listening to another person's story and asking questions and then finding the right product to fit into that story. Sometimes that product is what you have on your table and sometimes it isn't and you have to send them somewhere else to find what they need. To me, THAT is the sign of a good salesperson. Remember that next time you are shopping and/or trying to sell something.
~~~~~
It's nice to have days that affirm certain aspects of your life for you.
It feels good to not have that nagging feeling of what if following you around and taking your focus away from the currently IS.
It's also nice to have that "I've still got it" feeling too.
Now, I've just got to figure out how to work what I've still got into where I am now in my life...
That's the next challenge.
n~
how to make grocery shopping fun.
This post is brought to you by SPUD.CA
~~~~~
When my kids were babies, I used to love grocery shopping. It was one of the things that got me (and my babies) out of the house and into pants other than ones of the yoga variety and the world of grown ups, and in line at the in-store coffee shop. And, I'll admit it, accomplishing this feat with babies in tow, used to make me feel like a super woman.
And then there were the times, when The Consort and I would finally get the babies to sleep and I would do the grocery shopping after 9 PM. I tell you, that is like the Golden Hour of grocery shopping. Barely anyone around, shelves getting restocked for the next day and again, the in-store coffee shop. I would leisurely walk every single aisle of the store, sipping my frothy latte, looking at new products, reading all the labels and squeezing all the melons. The soft hum of the store freezers was the background music to this idyllic scene and I swear customer service is at an all-time high at that hour as well.
Fast forward a few years and many more pounds of children to cart around and it gets a bit more complicated. Grocery shopping with toddlers and preschoolers involves multiple snacks, an iPad, the must-bring-toy-of-the-day and various other things that there is no room for in the cart. And yet, it can be done, with similar Super Woman-y feelings about it. You can luck out and get the ginormous cart that looks like a giant green toy car and this will entertain and contain the little buggers while you "drive" them around, picking up your cargo load of Bear Paws, mini carrots and cheese strings, so that you'll be stocked up on snacks for the next shopping trip. And of course, evening grocery shopping is still an option. A peaceful, get me out of the house, BY MYSELF, with no one touching me, hour or more of the weirdest self-care ever!
And now? Now I don't like the grocery shopping so much. And I know that this is going to come off as very #firstworldproblem-y, but it is what it is. Grocery shoping is just not as much fun anymore. Or, perhaps, I have simply figured out much better ways to administer my self-care, that I can now see through the facade that grocery shopping provided in those early, half-delirious with sleep-deprivation years. Oh sure, I can still handle the big Costco trip once a month to get all the things that cost too much or are not available elsewhere, but the weekly stuff? With all the activities that make up our days now between school, work and extracurricular stuff, at this point, I just want someone else to do the groceries thing.
Enter SPUD.ca.
Sustainable Produce Urban Delivery (SPUD) opened it's doors in Edmonton in September, 2014 and is delivering local and organic groceries to doorsteps throughout the city. Conveniently coinciding with the arrival of chillier temperatures and the closures of the summer farmers’ markets, the warehouse is now operating as the fourth SPUD office in Western Canada, enabling Edmontonians to stay connected to local producers and farmers, as well as the best in organic and sustainable groceries, all year long.
With over 1800 items including meat, dairy, grocery, produce, health, home and beauty, in SPUD’s online catalogue, diversity and convenience are what sets it apart. Ordering groceries from SPUD comes free of contracts or commitments, has a lower minimum order and later order cutoff time than other services, and does not require deposits on delivery boxes/bins.
A few weeks ago, we received a couple of boxes from SPUD delivered right to our front door. Eggs, bread, fresh organic apples and a great salad. All things that we needed and that I didn't have to leave the house to go get. The cute little pumpkin was a nice touch too and the kids loved it the most and proceeded to decorate it for our Halloween centrepiece.
Our fridge is getting a little low on a few things this week, it's cold outside, and I have a lot of writing to do to catch up on my missed days for #nablopomo. Time for shopping is just not in the cards for me this week, so I am going to be putting in my first official order. If you think you want to give it a try too, use the following promo code to receive $40 worth of groceries when you spend $20. Feel free to share it with friends too - the promo code is: EDMSAVE and it is good until November 30th.
And with that my friends, grocery shopping is fun again!
Thanks again to SPUD for the great intro to their service and the yummy produce - although I am still trying to figure out what to do with the beets!
Cheers,
natasha~
A tooth, a lot of mom guilt and a bit of magic.
Crap! It happened already and it is technically only his 2nd lost tooth.
Last night, my son diligently put his baby tooth, the one he pulled out all by himself, "It was easy peasy Mom!", under his pillow. And this morning he walked into our room, completely deflated, holding the little bag with the tooth still in it. The most disappointed I have ever seen him.
"How come the tooth fairy didn't come?"
The Consort was quick on his feet and managed to give the kid a plausible answer (something about Halloween and Jawbreaker candies), while I tried to duck around the corner and figuratively kick myself with the full force of my Mommy Guilt.
The "Tooth Fairy" had a busy day. There was the family dinner and the late bedtime and then she had just watched that very disturbing episode of Walking Dead and was folding ALL THE LAUNDRY and.. and... and....
She forgot.
~~~~~
Childhood is supposed to be a magical time. A time when we believe in fairies and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and all that jazz. And while I do, to a certain degree, still believe in the magic of the world around us, lately I am having a hard time reconciling the fact that, about certain things, I am lying to my kids. And in our house, one of our top family rules is, No Lying.
I worry that when my kids finally do figure out the whole Santa or Tooth Fairy thing, they are going to walk into my room, look at me, shake their heads, let out a big giant sigh, and give me that look of terrible disappointment. You know, the one that says "How could you do this to me all these years?" look.
Or maybe (hopefully) they will be a bit older, and will realize what we were doing. That we were (are) keeping the magic alive, making memories that we will all cherish forever, seeing enchantment in the mundane and walking amongst the twinkly lights and fairy dust that helps us through this sometimes dark-ish journey of life.
~~~~~
We are a rather secular family. My kids have been to church, or as they like to call it, Jesus' House, with my parents, but a regular religious practice is not part of our lives. Faith on the other hand is. Faith in some form of a higher power, faith in each other, faith that everything happens for a reason and faith in our love for our world and our desire to make it a better one.
I think this whole believing in magic and Santa and the Tooth Fairy and yes, even that pesky Elf on a Shelf is part of that kind of faith. And in my view, all of these magical traditions are linked to celebrations of life and love. Of giving and receiving and the changing of seasons and the milestones of our lives. They provide us with stop points in our journeys together. Pins on our giant map of life that connect us to each other, to where we have been and to where we are going next.
Photo Credit: Cali4beach on Flickr
~~~~~
Ok, so maybe I went a bit deep in regards to this whole Tooth Fairy fail and forgetting to put $2 under my kid's pillow for his little tooth. This is what happens when you let all that mom guilt take hold of you. You delve into the tunnels of trying to be a mindful parent and come up with a long romanticized rationale for lying to your kids.
Because...
MAGIC!
Damn it.
There WILL be magic in their childhoods.
N~
~~~~~
It's November.
So...
NO, I am not doing some kind of crazy Dinosaur thing (although my kids would LOVE that!).
And NO, there is no one growing a moustache around here (although I appreciate the efforts of all those who don the creepy '70s adult film star look).
November around here means WRITING.
As in #NaBloPoMo.
I signed up "officially" with Blogher this year, along with over 1200 others.
As the wonderful Alexandra Rosas from Good Day, Regular People wrote...
"There are stories waiting to finally breath..."
this is six: the reboot
Six years ago to the minute (it is now 8:55 PM), after about 7 hours of labour, I was fully dilated and about to start pushing. By 9:05 pm, I had delivered my second child, a girl. Our perfect, full-term, straight to the breast, easy-peasy girl. When my husband first told me that she was a girl, I felt two things. Panic and complete and utter surprise.
And then panic again.
How was I going to raise a girl? I only know boy stuff. I have a house full of boy stuff. I know how to change boy diapers. I can DO boy. And I fully expected to be doing all that boy stuff again with our second one - hence the surprise part of my feelings.
Under the surprise and the joy was the panic though. That first night, she latched on to my breast within 45 minutes of being born and only came off for a quick wipe down and check by the nurses. She suckled all night long (her big brother had kept my supply going throughout my pregnancy so there was no real waiting for my milk to come in). And while she did, I stared at her. I stared and marvelled and traced every inch of her tinyness and fell in love.
And yet, the panic was still there.
It wasn't so much the logistics of caring for a newborn girl baby that had me all tied up in knots (although the amount of dirty diaper wiping needed for girl babies versus boy babies is vastly under-reported in all the baby books!), it was the whole concept of RAISING a girl in this world that had me feeling ALL the anxiety. It was the feeling of being a previously (and most likely still) slightly broken girl raising another girl. That first night, all the thoughts of what her life would be consumed me. I thought of how I was going to manage to not pass on to her all of my own issues with self-esteem and self-worth? Of how I would be able to help her navigate a world that automatically sees her as an other, just for being born a girl? Of how I was going to be able to help her through the mean girl years - teaching her both how to not be one and how not be picked on by one? But mostly, I thought of how this was the universe telling me that what goes around comes around. That she was going to be my mini-me and I had better be prepared for that.
Dear Universe. I do so hate it when you are right.
She is a mini me.
Except, it's in all the best ways possible.
And while I still panic every now and then about raising my daughter in this messed up world of ours, it is somewhat less than what it was on that first day when I held her and stared at her for 24 hours straight. Not because our world is any less messed up than it was then, but because I am. And because I am fixing the broken parts of me, the ones that tell me that I am not good enough, not strong enough, not {insert ingrained pattern of belief here) enough, I am in turn raising a girl child whom I hope will never internalize those kinds of beliefs about herself.
At six years old, my own world came crashing down around me as my parents split up. No one was able to tell me why in a way that made sense to my then six-year old brain, and the messages about myself that I have carried with me ever since have been ones of low self-worth and un-lovableness. It is hard to unlearn 30-plus years of patterned beliefs about one's self. BUT... Because I see so much of myself when I look at my daughter now, in those hard parenting moments {and in the good ones too}, I get to stop and think of what six-year old me needed to hear those very many years ago and say those things to my own child.
I want the words that my daughter hears me speak to and about her now, to become the voice that she hears in her head as she grows up.
Loving words. Forgiving words. Kind words.
That is my birthday wish for her today and all her days.
My beautiful life lesson.
My gift from the Universe.
My girl.
XO,
n~
A battle within: the stay at home mom vs the feminist.
Confession time. I am not always 100% on board with this whole "Stay at Home Feminist" thing.
I know, I know....
It's the name of my blog/Twitter/Instagram. I have claimed this moniker as ME. It is, as the marketing world calls it, "my personal brand". And yet, while I embrace this label that I have given myself and all the tongue-in-cheeky-ness that it implies, I have to be honest and admit that sometimes there exists within me a kind of battle of the two seemingly opposite sides of myself. As integrated as I think these two parts of me are, the "in-fighting" and negative self-talk that can happen from these two can be downright nasty at times.
The Stay-at-Home mother and housewife goes on and on about how I should DO more with the kids and around the house. More baking, more reading of books to the kids, more cleaning, more timely folding of the laundry, more crafts, less TV and iPads. She's can be a very demanding bitch and has obviously been spending way too much time on Pinterest, comparing all the way I am doing things to some kind of perfectly photoshopped vintage/retro/modern ideal of motherhood and housewifery.
And then there is the Feminist. She seeing things from a different angle and wants so much for a different world for her children. She gets upset that I am not doing more "active" activist work and wants me to find a way to "lean-in" and make some real changes for women in our world beyond just learning to play the game according to the current status quo. I know that there is a part of her that looks at the Stay-at-Home Mom and sneers at the level of privilege that she has and tells her that she just can't - absolutely CAN NOT - speak for other women who do not have it as good as she does.
Some, or all of these thoughts live together in my head at any given time and on any given day. Depending on the circumstances of the day, it can be an ugly battle that leaves me paralyzed with feelings of complete inadequacy in either role, or there can be an arbitrary truce and a certain level of acceptance that exists between the two.
I know what some of you are thinking, "Whoa there Natasha, how could YOU feel like this? You are supposed to be all, "Rah-rah-women can choose to do whatever they want-that's what Feminism is for!" and now your saying this? You are sending some serious mixed messages here! What is up with that?"
Let me try to explain.
A few weeks ago, I saw the CBC documentary "The Motherload". The film takes an in-depth and new look at the subject of working mothers - the current issues, challenges and triumphs that come from trying or having to do it all and that ever elusive utopian world called "work-life-balance". A lot of the film hinges on Anne-Marie Slaughter's 2012 article in The Atlantic in which she pointed out all the reasons "why women still can't have it all". While there were plenty of people who argued and disagreed with her take on this "motherload" phenomenon, I found most of her arguments compelling and very similar to my own.
"I still strongly believe that women can “have it all” (and that men can too). I believe that we can “have it all at the same time.” But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured."
Except I do not think it is just America's economy and society, it is our whole world. I have written about this before, about how there is no winning (read: having it all) in a game where one group of players has ALWAYS gotten a head start or where the playing field is always tipped in favour of one side.
One of the most strikingly true lines from the film is one from York University Women's Studies professor Andrea O'Reilly, in which she points out that "motherhood is the unfinished business of feminism." This statement is undoubtedly at the very core of a lot of the issues surrounding modern feminism today. And because most theories of feminism were based on the "unencumbered subject", I believe that this is why there exists this general feeling and misconception that feminism is done, that we've "arrived", and that there is no need for a continued movement towards equality for all women.
I need you to know that whether this is the third or fourth wave of feminism or modern feminism or whatever you want to call it, it is decidedly NOT done. And not just because women are not leaning in to more high profile corporate and political positions, but because we've been sold a version of equality that simply can not exist within the framework of our current society.
In the film, Slaughter says that she receives emails from women all the time who have some version of the same story that goes along the lines of "I had a promising career, I got married, I had children and then LIFE happened. I felt like such a failure, like I had betrayed my younger self." These sentiments gave me great pause while watching the film and made me think that we are doing a major disservice to our daughters and young women when we don't actively talk about motherhood as part of their life plans or career paths. Statements like the one above, obviously felt by many women, actually hurt my heart. And while I know that these women are not necessarily saying that becoming a mother was a failure, in our world that values the primacy of work and what we "do" versus who we are, motherhood just doesn't quite fit the bill of valuable work. Not only does it not compare to our paid work, women who are mothers are often penalized for this 'life happening' as well. In Ann Crittenden's 2001 book The Price of Motherhood, she points out that:
"We talk endlessly about the importance of family, yet the work it takes to make a family is utterly disregarded. This contradiction can be found in every corner of our society.
First, inflexible workplaces guarantee that many women will have to cut back on, if not quit, their employment once they have children. The result is a loss of income that produces a bigger wage gap between mothers and childless women than the wage gap between young men and women. This forgone income, the equivalent of a huge "mommy tax," is typically more than $1 million for a college-educated American woman."
and
"The idea that time spent with one's child is time wasted is embedded in traditional economic thinking. People who are not formally employed may create human capital, but they themselves are said to suffer a deterioration of the stuff, as if they were so many pieces of equipment left out to rust. The extraordinary talents required to do the long-term work of building human character and instilling in young children the ability and desire to learn have no place in the economists' calculations. Economic theory has nothing to say about the acquisition of skills by those who work with children; presumably there are none."
Not much has changed since she wrote that more than 12 years ago, except that now, not only is the pressure on for mothers to "lean in" and have it all at work, they are expected to be doing it all and doing it all FABULOUSLY at home too. If you are a women who had decided to stay at home with your children, it can sometimes feel like the pressure to be the "perfect" mother is just as great as the pressure to climb the corporate ladder and break the glass ceiling. From how to feed your baby, to what to put on their bums, what kind of school or 'un'school you choose, to what are considered 'essential' mommy and me classes, to getting a nanny or to sending them daycare, and for all the major and minor decisions made each and every day, motherhood has become a veritable rat-race in and of itself.
And in both the work and the home front women are paying an increasingly high price for being in these races. In Arianna Huffington's new book Thrive, she points out that,
"... women in highly stressful jobs have a nearly 40% increase risk of heart disease and heart attacks compared to thier less-stressed colleagues, and a 60 % greater risk for type 2 diabetes (a link that does not exist for men, by the way). Women who have heart attacks are almost twice as likely as men to die within a year of the attack, and women in high-stress jobs are more likely to become alcoholics than women in low-stress jobs."
The statistics are not that much brighter for mothers either, with upwards of 20% suffering from postpartum mood disorders. Katherine Stone of Post Partum Progress Inc. reports that,
"...more mothers will suffer from postpartum depression and related illnesses this year than the combined number of new cases for both sexes of tuberculosis, leukemia, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy. This is not to minimize these other terrible diseases, of course. I simply want to illustrate just how prevalent postpartum mood & anxiety disorders are."
The pressure these days to have it all, be it all, and do it all are too much for our bodies and our minds to handle and it is a no-win situation for everyone involved. And yet, I can't help but wonder, as my two sides battle it out in my own head, how much of this pressure is coming from ourselves? We live in the era of the "cult of busy-ness" and 24/7 connectivity and 10,000 hours to mastery (Ha! I just calculated and I've been a mother for just over 60,000 hours! I am SO the master of this! -insert sarcastic eye roll here-), and putting our lives on display via social media for all to see (and criticize). And then we wonder why, for some reason, it is never, ever, enough? We are a time-starved people living in a world of scarcity that is often of our own doing.
My question is: are we in fact the creators of this scarcity and if so, how do we change that?
Do you know what landed me in the hospital 26 weeks pregnant with my first child with a blood pressure hovering around 200/100 (normal is 110/70)? Because one hour before my OB appointment, I had gotten into an argument with a work colleague about a rather important event that we were planning. My life changed in an instant that day. My blood pressure would not go back down without medications and complete bed rest and I had to take an immediate medical leave from work.
That was my first AHA! moment of motherhood and it was a scary-ass wake up call to the reality that would now be my life. One responsible for the safety and well-being of not only myself, but of this other person I was growing inside of me. In essence, motherhood made me look up. Look up from my self-centred, looking-out-for-Number-One, how-do-I-get-ahead, life and see the world in front of me. One that sadly, as Joan Williams, law professor at the University of California Hastings, says in the Motherload film "was never set up for women."
So what is a woman to do in a world that is not set up for her? How does one reconcile the need to be a valuable, contributing member of our economic society and also one who is nurturing the human capital that will one day be valuable, contributing members of said society?
I don't know that anyone has the answers to this just yet. Slaughter thinks that a woman in the White House will affect changes, but I question this as a blanket solution. Other women have held the highest offices of government in other countries before and still the world has not changed significantly for women. Sheryl Sandberg thinks that women need to lean-in and actively seek the higher paying, higher ranking jobs we want, but she forgets how she got to the place she is in now, in part by hiding the fact that she was sneaking home at 5:30 to have dinner with her children.
In THIS world, one has to make compromises. For me, the decision to stop working was made for me due to medical circumstances, but the decision to STAY at home after my children were born was all mine. This is the compromise I made. My former career, for this new version of my life. It's one that I would likely make again and one that in hindsight, made me realize how much I was trying to play the game of "work/career" with a set of rules that were never going to let me win. So, yeah, I forfeited the game and 'opted out'.
And so the two sides of me sometimes get into a bit of a kerfuffle with each other over this. I strive to be an example for my own children of living a wholehearted life and valuing myself and my work, both as a stay at home mother and as a feminist, but the guilt of not being the ideal or "perfect" version for either of these sometimes still gets to me.
Today I came across this post from Karen Walrond, photographer and blogger extraordinaire, and someone I had the pleasure of both meeting and hearing speak at Mom 2.014 last week. Here's what she had to say about comparison.
"I believe that comparison -- that is, comparing yourself or your work or your art with another person('s) -- is ultimately and almost without exception a waste of time. In my opinion, when you compare yourself with someone, you're comparing all of you -- your work, your thoughts about your own work, the effort behind your work, your thoughts about yourself -- with the appearance of someone else or their work at one instance in time, having no knowledge of its context. In other words, comparing yourself or your work with anyone else or their work is inherently an unfair comparison. It should be avoided. Besides, I do believe that it is patently impossible to create effectively in someone else's voice -- the inevitable result is disappointment. Accepting that you will do what you do differently from everyone else is incredibly freeing, and should be lived whole-heartedly."
This made me think... do you know what I do differently from everyone else?
I do this whole Stay at Home Feminist thing differently than anyone else. I know that in however small the ways may be, I AM affecting change. I am giving a voice, my voice, to other mothers and women in the world of feminism and beyond. And I am going to do my darnedest for the rest of my life to make sure that motherhood does not remain "the unfinished business of feminism".
n~
world's toughest job - I don't have it!
Mother's Day is less than a month away. Cue all the cheesy videos, montages and clever ads telling you how motherhood is the hardest job in the world... and of course, the most rewarding one too. You'll probably tear up while watching these videos, you won't necessarily want to, but the magic of the ad-man is that they know how to get to you!
The most recent (and instantly viral - 1.5 million views as of today) of these videos is this one from CardStore.com describing and interviewing people for the position of Director of Operations at Rehtom, Inc., AKA, the toughest job in the world.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/HB3xM93rXbY[/youtube]
Here are a few quotes from the "interview" that really stuck out for me, and as a mother and current Director of Operations for my own household, I would like to address these points.
"Constantly on your feet, constantly bending over, a high level of stamina..."
Right now I am sitting on my butt at Starbucks drinking a chai latte. I've got my favourite Songza playlist playing in my earphones and sure, I may be bent over my laptop typing, but it's really not requiring a lot out of me. Motherhood is a marathon people, not a sprint. You've got to pace yourself. I am not sure where this "constantly on your feet and then bending over" imagery comes from (perhaps here), but it's just plain silly. I sit and play with my kids, I sit down for meals with my family (more on that in a bit), I took the "sleep when baby sleeps" message to heart and did just that. I am assuming the bending over is related to picking up little children, or picking up AFTER little children, but even in that regard, I'm pretty sure I have never been all, "Phew... this sure takes a lot of stamina!" (Unless it's picking up LEGO, that shit requires stamina, patience and a whole new SFK (safe-for-kids) vocabulary for when you step on it.) And I won't even start on moms who have mobility issues or are in wheelchairs... because obviously they need not apply!
"No, there are no breaks available."
Oh please. OK, fine, NO, there are no breaks from motherhood. Once a mother, always a mother. Yeah, yeah, I hear you, but know this, there are also choices in motherhood. There is the choice to be the martyr mom, the one who never does take a break, and who is constantly complaining about said lack of breaks, yet never does anything about that (hello - it's called self-care folks and it is a thing!). I think that the bigger problem here is that some people actually do look at motherhood like a JOB, as if it is something that has parameters to it. Like it is some kind of 18-year contract work that comes with a policy and procedures manual. I am here to tell you (and I probably don't need to if in fact you ARE a mother), there is no manual, AND THIS IS NOT A JOB. It is a life choice. Some call it a role or a vocation, others call it a biological imperative and some would even call it a divine plan. Whatever you call it, understand this, motherhood is not a job. You don't get your two 15 minutes breaks, a 45 minute lunch and overtime after you've put in your 37.5 hours per week. You do however, get to choose how and when you do take your breaks and recharge yourself and leave all that martyrdom behind!
"You can have lunch, after the associate has had their lunch."
I'll admit that yes, I do make sure that everyone else if fed before I feed myself. As all mothers know, this is often done out of necessity... to stave of the wrath of The Hangry Toddler. What I also do is insist on everyone sitting down together for at least one meal a day. In our house, that is dinner. We all contribute to this time together, whether it is choosing the meal, setting the table, or helping to prepare the food. Even when my kids were little and just starting to sit up and eat solid food, we did this with them at the table, as a family at meal times. The problem with the "feed everyone before you feed yourself" mentality is that, once the "associates" have eaten, they want to go and do other things and there is no time for you to eat. Then your left with the second most terrifying thing next to The Hangry Toddler, The Hangry {Over-Caffeinated} Mother.
"The candidate must have a degree in medicine, finance and the culinary arts."
I have a degree in laboratory medicine and one in business management. My husband actually does have a degree in medicine. Not one of these academic degrees gives either of us any more qualifications to be a mother or father than anyone else walking around with degrees is psychology, education, the fine arts, chemical engineering or what-have-you. Parenting is not a degree you earn. It is hands-on learning and perhaps what having a degree in ANYTHING does for parents, is give them the tools and skills to figure shit out! (A university or college degree is in now way a prerequisite here.) Parents need a good amount of critical thinking skills, a whole lot of "flying by the seat of your pants" skills and a good measure of imagination and improvisational skills too. Add all of that up and maybe, just maybe you'll get an imaginary Doctorate in Parenting, but just remember that your advanced degree is primarily going to apply only to those attending the U of YOF (Your Own Family).
"If you had a life, we would ask that you give that life up."
This is the moment in the video that I wanted to say a big, Eff OFF! Mothers (and fathers) do not give up their lives when they have kids! They make choices, they make sacrifices, they grow. Their lives change, they don't END. Now, if by life, the video meant JOB or CAREER, then yes, some parents do give those up. This line of thinking just furthers the notion that a person is valued not by who they are, but by what they do for a living. And if you need a reminder of the value of a MOTHER, well, then this post could go on for a LONG time!
"No vacations. No time to sleep."
This is just a continuation of the no life thing. Guess what Moms, you CAN take vacations! You can take them with your kids and yes, you can even take them without the kids. Now, if you are like me, it may take you a few years to work up to the whole leaving the kids for more than a day thing, but I promise you it will be worth it and you can take baby steps all the way up to that lovely week long tropical getaway for you and your significant other or your closest girlfriends.
The whole sleep thing is a different story. All I have to say about this is that my kids are 5 and 7 and some nights I may not be sleeping in my own bed... BUT, I am sleeping. Do what works for you and yours and do try to get some sleep!
"The position is going to pay absolutely nothing. Completely pro bono."
The reaction of the interviewees to this information is spot on. Who in their right mind would accept a job as all encompassing as the one described and not expect to get paid and paid quite handsomely at that? NO ONE! No, not even a mother. Why? I'll say this again... slowly.
MOTHERHOOD. IS. NOT. A. JOB.
Yes, sometimes it is tedious. Sometimes it is drudgery and you feel like you are drowning under piles of laundry, dishes, toys and expectations. Sometimes you can't even remember the last time you ate, showered, or pee'd by yourself and/or behind a closed door. Most of the time the little things that you do all day, the things that actually make up your day are thankless tasks that no one notices but you. Even with all of this, it is still not a job.
You are not paid by the hour or have a yearly salary. There is no HR department for you to go complain to about your lack of break time or all the overtime you've been putting in without anyone acknowledging it or all the things that you do that were not in the "job description" (clean poop off of ceiling comes to mind for some reason). And above all, you do not get to go home after a long day "on the job".
This whole idea of motherhood martyrdom or the equally damaging deification of "capital M" mother is getting out of hand. It further pushes the value we place on mothers into a separate realm of unattainable or untouchable (and therefore immeasurable). It is not empowering, nor is it glorifying. All this kind of advertising does is turn motherhood into a commodity. Our lives become a simple thing that someone else can make a profit from simply by pushing some emotional buttons, and letting you know just how damn hard and unrewarding and relentless and all consuming this "job" is.
And in that regard, well done CardStore Ad agency, well done.
Now go and make your mother an effin' card, you ingrate!
(and put a BILLION dollars in it!)
Natasha~
Oh Hi! It's just me... you know, sitting down "on the job"!
Why do we fall?
I live with superheroes. Seriously, I literally have superheroes all over my house.
A life-sized Captain America shield - check. Thor's Hammer - check. Collectors edition Superman and Spiderman figurines - check. Silver Surfer doing a drop-in off the top of my bed - check. And this is not even the tip of the superhero iceberg. There are toys, lego sets, books, anthologies, DVDs and boxes full of vintage comic books.
All of this is my husband's doing. He grew up reading comic books with his father and brother and learning life lessons from his heroes. He is now passing down that love and those lessons to our children and I have to admit, to me as well.
So, it came as no surprise to me that in thinking about vulnerability and doing some of the "homework" assignments for the Brene Brown Gifts of Imperfection course that I am doing, that one particular lesson from a superhero movie came to mind.
I have been taking a wee break from some of my social media sites this month and have had some time to really think about what effect social media has on me personally. Specifically, I have been staying off of Twitter and severely limiting my time on Facebook and Instagram. The effects of this tiny break have already been seen by my family and have given me some new perspective on how I interact and with whom on the internet.
There has been much written in the past few months about the toxicity of Twitter, especially within the circles of feminism. Michelle Goldberg's piece in The Nation on Feminism's Toxic Twitter Wars set of a veritable toxicity shit-storm across the interwebs and spawned yet another catchy, let's all be sarcastically and aggressively passive aggressive, hashtag called #whitefeministrants. Which, when you sit back and look, in my humble {and yes, white, feminist} opinion, does nothing more than add to the growing vat of toxic "talk" going back and forth. Many a post has been written in response to Goldberg's piece, but what Jessica Wakeman at the Frisky wrote struck me as the closest to the way I see things.
"The toxicity in online feminism contributes to the tuning out of the privileged folks who we all want to be listening. It’s a despairing twist after white feminists have shut out WOC feminist for so long, straight cis women have shut out trans and lesbian women for so long, and men have shut us all out for so long. The solidarity that I believe in is one where we make an effort, for our own betterment and each other’s. It’s one where we listen and learn and don’t jump to conclusions or interpretations of bad faith. It’s one where people who make a good faith effort — be they male or female, straight or gay, cis or trans, white or biracial or WOC — are given the benefit of the doubt. It’s a solidarity that is, above all, kind."
Kindness. There's a thought. What ever happened to that? Can it truly exist online?
~~~~~
The so-called "Mommy Wars" are waged silently and not so silently all over the place, with judgement canons shot daily from all camps. Gasps of "Oh, no she did not!" and "OMG, I would never" and "what the heck is she trying to prove" are heard/read/interpreted and internalized all over Facebook/Pinterest/Instagram and Twitter. Myths abound about doing it all, having it all and finding that mythical land called "Work-Life-Balance" and/or the peaceful island of "ME-time". Media images of being "mom enough" bomb us from every corner, while various labels of what kind of mom you are make it easy for new recruits to pick a side.
We make fun of celebrities choice of clothing, how much weight they gain during pregnancies and what they name their children. We jump all over a mom who writes a post reflecting her value system when teaching her sons about responsible Facebook use or crucify a woman for breastfeeding a three year old and judge her with ridiculous puritanical outrage while simultaneously 'liking' every naked-but-body-painted Swimsuit Illustrated image. And we @ and hashtag to death anyone who dares write something online (however well-researched it may be) that doesn't somehow address all of our collective experiences, cultures, identities and privilege or lack thereof. Our righteous indignation over the most minute of things becomes entangled with true outrage over really important issues, the result of which is a flattening of our response to people, a deadening of our compassion and a alarming foray away from empathy and kindness towards our fellow humans.
In other words, I can't help but feel like no one is allowed to fall anymore.
~~~~~
We have to fall. Like Thomas Wayne says, it's the only way we learn how to get back up. We teach this to our kids everyday. When they fall of their bikes, we teach them to brush themselves off, treat that little bit of road rash as a wicked cool battle wound and get back on their bikes. When they don't get something right the first time, we encourage them to try again. To figure out what went wrong and make the necessary changes to do it better. We teach them that anything worth doing takes practice and patience and perseverance and that in the end they will be rewarded for their efforts. We don't expect perfection from them and when they fall -- and they will fall -- we are there to help them up, to show them kindness and compassion and to encourage them to try again.
But if you are a grown up? Well, it seems the world has different expectations past a certain age.
Somehow as grown-ups we are expected to know it all. We are expected to know how to handle any and all people, situations and life events that come our way. We are constantly being told that "we should know better", but not allowed to make the mistakes that would enable us to learn those important lessons of knowing better. We are all human and we make mistakes. We mess up. We say the wrong thing. And sometimes we make the wrong choice. We simply can't know everything about everyone and every situation and so, we fall.
It is in this falling that we learn. We learn more about who we are, we learn more about the people, places and things in our world, and we learn how to get back up and try again, this time with our new knowledge to help guide us. In falling we recognize our own humanity and that we must be kind to ourselves, speak encouraging words to our inner 'kid who just fell off her bike', brush ourselves off, take a deep breath and get back up. And when we see someone else fall, we must resist the urge to point and pass judgement and announce to everyone around us just how bad a fall it was. We must instead, reach out a hand, help them up and recognize ourselves in that person and their fall. We have to let them know that they are not the only ones who fall and practice a level of compassion and kindness that we would want given to us in a similar situation.
In our overly-critical, hyper-sensitive, online world it's very easy to become afraid to fall for fear of the backlash and instant judgement that our connectedness enables. We are afraid to take a stand on something, because it may not be a popular one. Afraid to admit to doing something that breaks the illusion of perfection and put-togetheredness that we feel we must portray for the world. Afraid to call yourself a feminist because, while you believe in equality and the concept of feminism, you do not want to be lumped in with "that" group. Afraid to admit that you sleep with your kid most nights because that is the only way anyone gets any sleep, because that would make you one of those crazy hippy-dippy co-sleeping moms. This fear can be overwhelming for some and I fully admit that I have felt it more lately than at any other time on the internet and it's made me question what I 'put out there'. For the first time in a long time, I am afraid of being vulnerable (of falling) and that is not ME.
In the end, I have to tell myself that all falling really is, is admitting that I don't know it all, that I will always have more to learn in my lives and that it is OK to actually do that. That it is actually imperative for all of us to do that. And yes, sometimes when we fall, we'll get a bit beat up and a bit of road rash under our skin. Those are the battle wounds and scars that remind us of our falls, of how we got back up again and what we learned through it all.
Because really, where would the world be if Bruce Wayne never learned to pick himself up?
Natasha~
The value of MOTHER.
It's started to happen already. The question whispered on people's lips or straight up asked right to my face. Next year both of my children will be in school full-time and some people are wondering...
"What are you going to do then?"
"What is your plan?"
This full-time school thing is a time of transition for everyone in the family. It is a time of letting go, of lunches packed with love, of good-bye kisses on cheeks, and wishes of having a good day, one that, for the first time, is going to be primarily without each other. I won't deny that it is a time that I am simultaneously dreading and dreaming of; dreading because I won't be the central person safeguarding my babies throughout their days anymore, and dreaming of because it has been seven years since I've had more than 3-4 hours all to myself on a regular basis to do whatever the hell I want!
And I get it. I get why the questions are asked of many, many mothers, who like me, are in stay-at-home roles. The kids are good now, right? They don't need you as much. They can DO all the things for themselves now and for 6-7 hours of the day they will be in the care of other people and learning about their worlds.
The problem I am having with this "the kids don't need me anymore" logic, is that it feels like some kind of default assumption that, as a mother, what I have been doing for the past 7 years is nothing more than providing childcare for my children. That while it is true that I have given them all the basics to function on their own and they truly do not need me for said basics anymore (bum wipes, snotty noses, help with eating, zipping up jackets, etc...), I can now be relieved of my childcare duties. Now that they are school-aged, I can send them off for someone else to watch over for the day and then I can finally get back to being a regular, contributing member of society. You know, one with a 'real' job, and a purpose, and some kind of economic -and therefore societal- VALUE.
In her 2001 bestseller, The Price of Motherhood, Anne Crittenden discusses this concept in depth and shows us that although women may be liberated and on the path to economic equality, mothers are decidedly not.
"The idea that time spent with one's child is time wasted is embedded in traditional economic thinking. People who are not formally employed may create human capital, but they themselves are said to suffer a deterioration of the stuff, as if they were so many pieces of equipment left out to rust."
Don't get me wrong. Motherhood is not all sunshine and beautiful moments and crafting until your fingers bleed, but it is MUCH more than glorified babysitting. It is a long-term commitment to building human character and developing the beings who will be the future of our world. It is about maintaining a healthy sense of attachment with our children so that they can confidently venture out into the world on their own and be caring human beings. Yet for reasons we still can't fully understand or correct, there is no dollar value that society can attach to this 'human capital' development and therefore no value in the people, primarily mothers, doing this work.
I am no fool. I know that if I decided to try to go back to work full-time, it would be a challenge for me from the get go. I'd have to explain my 8 year absence from the workforce. I'd have to somehow bump up my resume with my volunteer work , my writing and the various new skills acquired as a stay-at-home parent (and there are plenty!). Then I would somehow have to make the math add up, fitting an 8 hour work day into a 6 hour school day. This of course leads me to the search for before/after school childcare and the cost of this for two children, which, upon a quick perusal of various programs, would be a minimum of about $800/month. In the few hours between school and bedtime and interspersed with any extra-curricular activities, is where time spent with the children occurs and then after bedtime is when household care occurs. Yeesh! I am exhausted just thinking about this!
Yes, I know that for a lot of families, the choice to work or not is not one that they can make and the scenario above is their reality. I am fully aware of the level of privilege that I have in my life. Single or married, many, many people figure this all out and make it work for their families, and for that they have my utmost respect and admiration. I grew up with a single working mother and three younger siblings and she did make it work. How exactly she did this, I still don't know, but growing up, I was always in awe of her strength and character and how much she sacrificed for us and for the people and institutions that she worked for. Yet as I got older and then had children myself, I wondered just how much of her own self and happiness she sacrificed for us.
In that first year of parenting, the reality of what me going back to work would mean to our family didn't quite hit my husband and I until a few months before the end of that year. That in two months time we would be handing our infant son over to a child-care worker to care for him for most of the day, all of a sudden didn't sit quite so well with either of us. That I would have to stop breastfeeding him on demand and either pump or switch to formula for his nutritional needs wasn't something I was prepared to do. And that the logistics of my job would require me to be away for upwards of 3 days to a week's time at least quarterly and the implications of what this would mean for all of us seemed too daunting. When I found out I was pregnant again around the same time I was to return to work, the decision for me to be the stay at home parent seemed to be the option we were most comfortable with and the one that worked the best for our family. So at the age of 36, and at a point of really starting to climb the proverbial corporate ladder of my career, to use the vernacular of the day, I "opted out".
It is a decision that I do not regret in the least. And of note, it is also a world that I have no desire to "lean {back} in" to either.
Recently I have had two close friends, who are in the same stay-at-home parental boat as me, tell me that they are going back to work later this year. They both have a multitude of reasons for doing so and I completely support these women and understand their reasons for making this decision for themselves and their families.
All except one.
Both have told me that going back to work will allow them to feel like they can finally DO THINGS for themselves without feeling guilty about it.
Here is the thing. I love both of these ladies and have seen them raise their children first hand for the past four years. Like most mothers I know, these are extremely dedicated women, who take care of house, home, children and spouses and all the logistics that go along with that. They have taken on the roles of economist and financial planner for their families, of early childhood educator, of artist/designer/house project manager, of cook/cleaner/chauffeur and mediator of family relations and the list goes on and on. If there were ever two people who deserved to do things for themselves, these two are IT (and yes, they are both probably reading this). They left their careers to be the primary at home caregiver for their families. A 40-hour work week traded in for one that is 24/7, that comes with no pay, no sick days, no health benefits and NO WEEKENDS OFF. Some will argue, "Well, that was their choice, so suck it up ladies!", but that argument falls apart when you take a closer look at the ridiculous expectations and societal parameters that are placed on mothers.
When you have a society that is constantly giving you the mixed messages that what you do as a mother is "the most important job on the planet" and glorifies you to semi-deity status and then simultaneously punishes you economically for leaving the workforce and shames you into sacrificing your very being to the glory that is Mother, it is no surprise that women feel a sense of guilt for wanting something that is just for them. That so many women echo the sentiments of losing themselves in motherhood and not feeling fulfilled in this role, despite all the wonderful praise capital "M" Motherhood elicits, is further testament to how undervalued a role it is, even by those fully entrenched in it. After all of this, the message that does get through is not "you are worth it", it is more often "you didn't earn it"," you don't deserve it", "IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU" and the ever popular "What exactly do you DO all day?".
I fully support all mothers, in all of their choices, and especially my dear friends on their decision to return to the workforce. I am actually quite excited for them both. My only wish for them and for any of you reading this is that whatever you choose to do in your life, be it working, staying at home, learning to paint, taking a yoga class, hiring a cleaning service, having a nanny, using a day care, getting a pedicure, going for a run or taking an hour long shower BY YOURSELF, that you make these choices with your agency intact and with full knowledge that you are worth it, that you should not feel guilty for wanting something just for you and that your work as Mother is not all of WHO YOU ARE. And even if, for a few years, it sorta-kinda is, please know that your work more than entitles you to being your own person, with her own needs and wants and that you can and should take care of yourself, however that may be. Do it for yourself and do it for your children as well. Let them see the value that you place on yourself, and let them take that message of self-care with them into the world that will one day be theirs.
In case anyone is still wondering what my plan is for next year, I plan on continuing to ensure the attachment and belonging that my children are growing up knowing with me as their mother. My "thing" is my writing and perhaps next year is the year of the great novel/screenplay/manifesto. I may even delve into some painting while I'm at it. Throughout it all though, please know that I support you in your choices, even though they may be different than mine, and that we all are deserving of doing the things that feed our souls.
{Psst.... I'll probably be getting a pedicure and a massage on a regular basis too.}
Take CARE of YOU,
natasha~