Summer 2009 Issue
I’m sitting in the gymnastics waiting area with a glazed look on my face. I’m so bored and lonely. I decide to strike up a conversation with an interesting looking woman. She’s reading a scientific magazine (score one for intellectualism); she’s eschewing the competitive mommy-talk about who’s signed up for what activities (another point for self restraint). Plus, she is also pregnant like me. This is someone who I could enjoy talking to, someone with similar interests. I really want her to like me, you know?
As we chat about our girls and our common pregnancies, I wedge in (apropos of nothing) that I’m a freelance writer. After the awkward pause, she gives me a raised eyebrow look like, “Well, goodie for you.”
There it is again – my wheedling need to be validated for grown up work. It’s really not that different from my four-year-old’s incessant mantra, “Look Mom!” This desire for people to know that I’m a world-class mom who can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan … it perplexes me. It also gets me into tight spots, socially speaking. I’m the goober in a bar, who while chatting amiably with a new girl, drops such a clunker of a one-liner that she immediately heads for the exit.
There is always an announcer in my head, impatiently waiting to shout, “Sheeee’s a Supermom. Yes, she bakes cookies, she irons shirts – but wait! There’s more! She also writes — for money!”
I hate to admit it, but this mommy gig that I really do love, isn’t quite enough for me. That shouldn’t be a controversial statement. After all, how many adults are fulfilled by spending their days playing Candy Land and making peanut butter sandwiches? But when I utter that statement in a room full of mothers, the horrified gasps and following guilty, downward stares are telling. The gaping silence is judgmental. It’s as if I’ve admitted to switching my preschooler’s apple juice for beer to extend nap time. (And who among us hasn’t done that or seriously considered it?)
Why isn’t motherhood enough? And why is it so hard to admit that I need a little something on the side? The uncomfortable expressions from those pseudo-scandalized women tell me they agree, but would never admit it. Even the expression, “something on the side,” indicates that I feel like I’m being unfaithful to my children, carrying around this big sack of guilt, Santa Claus-like, as I seek to claw just a fingernail or two back into the shiny grown up world of dress clothes without spit up or conversations with multi-syllabic words.
The Literature Proves It – Nobody Values this Job
A 2003 study in Gender & Society found that childless women avoid having babies because they consider it dreary and unfulfilling. Further, the study notes how much feminine identity is linked with motherhood and how some women reject the entire premise because they fear having a baby will take over their identity.
Well, duh! Anyone who has done this job can tell you that motherhood can suck the life out of you like a zombie in Night of the Living Dead, leaving you a brainless shell of your former, lively self. When so much of who you are is defined by the question, “What do you do?” it can be very hard to respond with only, “I’m a mom.”
The same study notes that the idea of parenting is particularly repellant for women who are looking for a “satisfying job.” Implied, of course, is the idea that motherhood is wholly unsatisfying.
Remember your feminist theory from school? Betty Friedan brought this dirty little secret to light in 1963 with her book, The Feminine Mystique. While it’s not a new idea that domesticity does not provide the sole recipe for female happiness, it bears repeating for each generation of mothers who strive to look like the perfect homemakers gracing the glossy pages of Better Homes and Gardens. Admit it, somewhere in your house is a Martha Stewart Living clip file of projects that you will get to someday. I have the Halloween issues saved so that I can make plush, furry animal costumes (with zippers!) and homemade bat decorations. Last year, we hung the pumpkin art from school on the door and bought a used bunny costume last minute.
When moms of the ‘80s and ‘90s busily got to work and left those kiddos (us) at day care, the pendulum swung far in the opposite direction. Women abandoned the idea that happiness is found at home, donned grotesque shoulder pads and invaded the work-a-day world. However, by embracing an equally skewed view, that satisfaction lies exclusively in the male-dominated bowels of the office, dissatisfaction was ultimately bound to return.
A recent paper in Perspectives on Political Science by Elizabeth Kaufer Busch proposed that feminism has failed. Busch suggests that proof lies right in the evening TV we watch where post-feminist heroines like Ally McBeal and Carrie Bradshaw find themselves perpetually miserable. Think Bridget Jones, drinking alone, and singing “All by myself, don’ wanna’ be,” at the top of her inebriated lungs. The article, “Ally McBeal to Desperate Housewives,” argues that women who embraced the masculine values of work are just as miserable as Friedan’s Vicodin-popping housewives.
“Women’s confusion is a direct result of feminism’s internal inconsistency,” Busch states. “Feminism taught woman that her nature is no different from man’s… The feminist mystique sought to destroy the natural foundation of gender norms, because ‘nature’ had historically been used to promote women’s subordination.” Busch concludes her paper with the suggestion that women should feel less pressured to perform according to feminist expectations, but rather pursue endeavors that engender “true liberty that comes with self-discovery and self-awareness.”
For example, look at my muscle-flexing conversation at gymnastics: by showing off in a rather adolescent way and bringing up earning potential, I neither impressed that mom nor did I further feminism. I get nowhere by behaving like a man would. But I’m not going to accept a life without a few adult pursuits. There must be more to motherhood than gymnastics waiting rooms.
Progress or Paradox?
Being a mom is simultaneously unappealing and jubilant. It is dull, thankless and an amazing privilege. It is because of this paradox that the feminist and post-feminist models of all or nothing, work or stay at home, have failed Western women. Women on either end of the so-called Mommy Wars will tell you that each choice alone is not enough.
The recent book, Womenomics, by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay contends that women have now entered an era where enough female corporate clout has been earned to assertively negotiate for the balance women need through flexible hours and more control over how the job gets done.
I think this is definitely progress, and aim for the same flexibility myself. I want it all – motherhood and validating work – all at the same time. However, part of me feels that corporate muscle is truly accessible only to a small number of suit-wearing women. For those of us who work in yoga pants between unfolded laundry and cracker crumbs, the negotiation is with ourselves. “Can I spare the time now to finish this project and ignore my other responsibilities, or will the house fall down if I type another word?”
Making up a job and actively pursuing it from home definitely provides flexibility and autonomy. It also means that the Mom hat and the Professional hat are worn simultaneously – a death-defying balancing act for sure.
My Two Cents
All my thinking about this topic has unearthed one strange nugget: when I’m alone with the kids and we’ve got a good groove going, I’m blissful – happier than at any other time. Flying kites at the park, or watching the milky drool snake down my baby’s chin as he grins at me creates joyful mommy vibrations that pulse to my bones. This mommy gig really is exactly what I want to be doing just now. It is strange that only when I view it through the bell jar of other people’s opinions and 40 years of feminism does it seem so dissatisfying.
It must be all those ‘80s movies I watched growing up. Melanie Griffith in Working Girl did not pause in her rush to the top of the corporate ladder to pick the playdough from the carpet. Those empowered, lipstick wearing women dance at the back of my head as I stand, the luckiest mom on the block, with toes in the mud and heave a sad sigh. I didn’t realize it was out loud until my daughter said, “Mommy, don’t you like playing with me?” Mud pies with a side of guilt, anyone?
I sigh because this blissful Buddah-mama state is difficult to achieve. Often, no matter what I am doing, I feel it’s the wrong thing. Right now, as I type, my baby jabbers and smiles at me to come play. When I’m playing, I’m worrying about how I’ll ever meet my deadlines.
Though it’s cliché to say so, for me happiness really comes with balancing the responsibilities. I’ve come to understand that I’ll never be free of the nagging ghosts in my head telling me that I must have grown up pursuits in addition to raising children. Personally, I am just more settled when I have a professional answer to the dreaded question, “What do you do?”
As I cast about for role models, I see very few who do both. (Perhaps, because it’s a crazy thing to do?) I feel like I stand smack in the middle of the Mommy Wars, not firmly on one side or the other.
The progress made in the last four decades has been slow, and lacking in the one aspect that might eventually banish my nagging voices and deep sighs.
For real progress to be made, society (and by society, I mean me) needs to truly value the contribution mothers make. I love the statistics that report that the real dollar value of fulltime motherhood is over $120,000 per year. But isn’t it sad that to feel like valued contributors, we, who shape the future generation, have to count each kissed owie and ride to soccer in dollars?
Until pigs fly then, I’ll be here, standing in the gray area between working and caring for children with a distracted look on my face (and a sink full of dirty dishes). I’ll also keep seeking out other moms who identify with the guilty impulse to work, and who forgive my attention-grabbing urges during conversation.
