I am the mother of a one year old. As such, my Mother's Day blog post is coming the day after Mother's Day. In the last 15 minutes, I have read a story, enforced a time-out, caught dinner items in their headlong fall from the high-chair tray, rescued Daddy's cell phone twice and laptop once, danced with Daddy in the kitchen, and quieted multiple bouts of tears from my slightly sick and very grumpy little bundle of joy. And that's while Daddy's doing most of the high-test baby-watching AND making me belated Mother's day dinner (family-in-town circumstances last night). Superdad. I'm a lucky Mama.
***Intermission while I put the Small One to bed*****
It's official: I have entered fully into the realms of motherhood. My hands are never still and my heart is always pulled in at least twenty directions. My worries extend far beyond myself and far beyond the present. My joys are deeper and more surprising, and often sillier or more bittersweet, than before the Little Bit came on the scene. I am one of millions, but I am also only me.
And I don't do ANY of it in a traditional fashion.
There's a caveat to that statement: I am a surprisingly conservative mother in some ways. After alot of hard work on the part of both her parents, she says "please" and "thanks" (though they come out more like "pees" and "tanks", which can be heartbreakingly cute). She gets time outs for acting out. She goes to bed early. All of which, I suppose, is fairly traditional.
But I am not the always-at-home mother, or even the home-every-night mother. I travel a great deal for work, leaving my husband home with the Little Bit. When I'm home, I'm often working on the farm or on my Sophia! line. I want to have my cake and eat it too, and so does my husband. And we often succeed. It takes alot of sacrifice and alot of determination on the part of the whole family. We are in uncharted territory, where traditional gender roles no longer apply and equality must mean something more than a woman succeeding in a man's world.
I am a twenty-first century mother.
***Intermission for Romantic Dinner on the Coffee Table*****
Dinner was superb. My favorite wine, along with four surprisingly light courses of farm-raised vegetables and meats and cheese from the grocery store. Making progress in the right direction... in a few years, maybe our proteins will come from the farm, too. Between the delectable dinner, the sleeping young one, and the amazing stolen nature of this rain day home from work, all is right with the world.
I've been thinking a great deal lately about mothers and mothering, about the "old" and "new" ways to mother, about all the directions mothers are taking in their lives. I've been reading a book called "The Maternal Is Political":
I haven't been so moved by the written word in a long time. Not in the usual campy "mother is wonderful" Mother's-Day-Card kind of ways. But through the words of current, strong, one-of-a-kind women who make their own way in an upside-down world in any way they can. Women who are banding together across the country and across the world to make their voices heard. The basic idea behind the book is that the worldview of mothers carries enough similarities, enough common themes and shared concerns, to tie mothers together across all other dividing lines. That if women mobilized and voted as a block, then there would be enough of us standing together on these common issues to make a difference.
But mothers also have considerable demands on their time and are often the most thinly-stretched of people. Women, and especially mothers, are often underrepresented when it comes to voting... it's just so easy to not find time to go to the polls. The book brings so much to the table. It's the only book I've ever read (including Old Yeller) that strikes so many chords in me that I will no longer read it in public places for fear of tearing up unexpectedly.
(There's nothing pleasurable about looking over your latte and finding the woman at the next table sniffling uncontrollably). We have to find ways to do it all. And to still be warm, open individuals at the end of the day. It's the same struggle that mothers have faced throughout history, now with all the trappings of our Brave New World.
Once upon a time, men brought in the money and women kept the home. Feminist intent and years and years of women's hard work, combined with the economic necessity of the World Wars, changed all that. Women have fought hard to gain a foothold in professional spheres, and have succeeded in creating a place for themselves, glass ceilings notwithstanding.
As strange as it sounds coming from someone in my position, there are times when the idea of staying home, having time to care for the house and my daughter with nothing else to deter my focus, sounds HEAVENLY. When the house hasn't been thoroughly cleaned because I've been gone for most of a month, when three birthdays come up at the same time and I'm scrambling to find funds and time to get cards and presents to the post office, when I leave T. in the morning with a crying toddler because I can't risk being late for work, staying home takes on an almost idyllic tinge in my mind. The months I spent home with my newborn baby were some of the most challenging and most rewarding of my entire life. But, when I'm being fully honest with myself, I know my career/careers feed my soul in a way housework and childrearing alone couldn't. I still have dreams of staying home for a year or five after our second child is born (which will not be until my husband is out of school and working full time himself). But having spent this time in the working world will balance out that time at home in a way that nothing else could.
I recently heard an NPR interview with sisters Emily Robeson and Martie Maguire of the Dixie Chicks, who recently began touring on their own as a side project without lead singer Natalie Maines. Both Natalie and Emily had become mothers and taken several years off from touring. Natalie wanted more time, while Emily itched to get back on the road. Martie watched her sister blossom as a songwriter while going through a divorce and several other major life trials, and encouraged Emily to take the lead. It struck me that Emily fought a subsurface tension in the interview, a challenge to reconcile mothering with touring. Emily wants to be the twenty-first century mother that brings her child along and shows her things she would never have seen at home, who lives her own life while still giving motherhood a major share of her energy. And everywhere she goes, she meets with both cheers and challenges.
I want to be that mother. I have been judged harshly by colleagues for not being home every day with my daughter and giving her the love and time that "only a mother can give". I have also been judged negatively by colleagues for tearing up when I talked about being on the road and leaving my daughter for ten days for the first time since her birth. Needless to say, all of these colleagues were men. I have fought tooth and nail for a place in a work sphere comprised mainly of men, and I will not give up that place because the world says my husband cannot care for my daughter as well as I can. I disagree. His forte may not be keeping the house spotless and every last thing organized. But he is an excellent father, and better at putting out fires than anyone else I know. He takes passionate care of his family. His forte is knowing what is most important and judging where to put his time, and I have learned a great deal from him.
This is not to say it's not heartbreaking at times. Some trips have left me more homesick than others. T. has made me videos full of pictures, video clips, and music to fill the space in my empty hotel room. He sends me pictures of the cute things my Little Bit does throughout the day. Skype is our saving grace.
This week, the tables are reversed. I'm working locally, and Daddy is going out of town for a writing retreat. I'll pick up my girl after school every day and bring her home, and be the one to change diapers and dry tears and fix dinners and breakfasts. And I can't wait.
But I'll do it all while finding time to knit, to plan for the next day's work, to continue our spring-long planting process on the farm and finally get some new listings up on Etsy. My hands are never still. Because I believe that being a mother does not mean relinquishing oneself. Because I believe the best thing I can give my daughter is the knowledge that she has a choice on how to live her life, and that she can TRULY be whoever she wants to be.
