365:8 Mommy-Fied, originally uploaded by texasgurl.
I have three chickens. I love them so, but they are work, work, work, and I swear to god is practically a science trying to manage everything that must be managed just getting the basics done. You know: food, hygiene, sleep, transport. And I do what it takes to the get the job done. I can get dressed one-handed while nursing the baby, haul my ass uphill three times a day with her on my back and my four-year old in the stroller, and I can cook dinner, supervise bath time, take out the trash, fold a load of laundry and nag my husband all at the same time.
But–and I admit this freely–motherhood alone is not enough for me. What, you say? Doing laundry and making dinner at the same time isn’t enough?
No, it isn’t.
So, I find other things to do. As you can see. But I’ve been thinking lately about appearances, because no one knows me here. Who do they see when they look at me? When I’m the woman on the left I still feel like the woman on the right, and sometimes I’m caught off-guard when people make assumptions about me that are so far from who I think I am that it’s almost insulting.
For instance, the week that Girlish started school we stopped off at the park on the walk home. This particular park is on the way for many of her classmates, and there’s a group of parents that spend 20-30 minutes there most days after school. I was on the periphery of a conversation, where people were discussing work and family, trying to find balance, blah blah, and one of the fathers said something about how he was still trying to “write that book.”
“A book?” I said. “What kind of book are you writing?”
“Ah, it’s fiction,” he said, and turned immediately away from me. He didn’t say, “You wouldn’t understand.” But he might as well have.
And I thought, okay, this guy doesn’t know me–doesn’t know anything about me. Why would he just dismiss me like that? Was it the baby strapped to my back in the rainbow wrap? The boy sleeping the buggy in front of me? The fact that I wasn’t at work? It got me thinking; would he have dismissed me so if I’d been the woman on the right?
I don’t know the answers. Maybe he was just nervous about talking about his book. Or his idea for one. I don’t discuss my work with every parent I meet at the park, either. But it brought home for me how I like the me that dresses up and goes into town to get something done. I like how people see her and make more flattering assumptions.
I’ve missed her, and I’m glad she’s coming around again.
No Responses
September 28th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
It’s the embracing of the “woman on the right”, that allows our chickens to absorb our wholeness…Motherhood is all encompassing, and yes I too shift back and forth, not so gracefully at times. I spend to much energy battling the “Good Mother” myth. Your doing awesome woman!
October 5th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Just remember: whoever you are, that person has a great ass.
October 12th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Ah the struggle to find the essence that defines who we are. No answer’s here, but this may help:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
From Whitman’s Song of Myself(http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2288.html)
October 14th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Hi, I found your blog via NaBloPoMo and strolled past to say hello. I’m also a mother of three living in a country that is not my own. I just wanted to say you are not alone - the mummy fog does start to lift (I work from home and that has really helped me to feel more like me again). Also, if people judge you on appearance only it is their loss, not yours.
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