On stereotypes and labels

At this point in my life the label that hits closest to home is definitely Mother. I am a mother after all, and even in my profession I often find that women are maternalized. So for me what does it mean to be maternal?

Maternal figures are supposed to be: warm, loving, nurturing. I think of one of the books I read to my children, Leo the Late Bloomer. Leo's dad is demanding, he's unhappy with his Leo and wants to know why he isn't as smart as all his friends. Leo's mother hugs and kisses her Leo; he's perfect just as he is. There's nothing wrong with Leo, he's just a late bloomer. Of course Mom is right and by the end of the book Leo has bloomed. And while I see it as a huge oversimplification, I am also motivated by that kind of image. I want to be the loving, nurturing mother figures, who gives guidance lovingly and hugs generously.

Mothers take care of others, we are supposed to put our own needs aside. Bad mothers are the ones who put themselves first. Truth is it's impossible to always push your own needs to the side. I would even argue that I'm a better mother for the fact that I can sometimes assert the need to sleep in, the need to get my work done, the need to get away. But that's going against my role and I know it, and those who depend on me to care for them are quick to remind me if I forget. One problem I have with the idealized image of the Mother is that it's such a self-negating role. It's not just that I have failed to be the perfect mother; the truth is I'm not even trying for it. My goal is the Good Enough Mother.

The other side of being maternal is that often Mom is the meanie. Mothers are the ones who put their foot down, insist the room must be cleaned, the bed made, the dog fed. "No," Mom says, "you can't have cookies for breakfast." Mom is the one who scoots you out the door to school and makes sure the homework is done. Moms nag. I nag. I hate nagging, but I do it. I can tell you the reason Moms nag is we feel ignored. As for the solution? There is none because in fact most of us DO ignore our moms, especially when they are nagging us.

There is also a lot of cultural baggage that comes with being a mother. Every choice I make turns out to have political or ideological implications whether I want it or not. Stay-at-home or working mom? Public school or private? Church-goer or not? Spankings or time-outs? McDonalds or Whole Foods? Ugh. I hate all of that crap. Motherhood shouldn't be a battleground, ideological or otherwise, it's a long, loving journey with set-backs and triumphs, best enjoyed in the company of others.

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Small good things

Yesterday Frances and I were reading an I Spy book together. It's one of those books that has pictures alongside the text that can help prod little not-quite-readers to figure out the words. So we were reading and Frances was sounding out the letters, or sometimes guessing based on first letter + picture. And then she looked down at one page and read aloud "I spy... a trumpet!" She looked at me and beamed. And then the next word just came, and then the next. She was wiggling and bouncing with excitement because she was READING. And for me just basking in her delight was a joy.

Of course, she still couldn't read every word. Some she needed to sound out, others stumped her entirely. But she proved to herself she could do it.

Posts I Didn't Write

I've been so busy I haven't been able to do some of the writing I'd like, so I decided to write a post about the things I would have written if I'd had the time.

An experience with illness
I really wanted to write about an early, formative experience with illness. What was it? When I was a girl my mother had a good friend that we called Auntie Dorothy (she wasn't really an aunt, but my family has always had a very liberal definition of extended family). Auntie Dorothy had breast cancer back in the days when breast cancer was the #1 killer of women and research was in its nascent stages. What I remember most is that when she came to visit us (as she did every Christmas to spend the season with us and to visit her doctors), she'd always brush and braid my long hair. She did it because she said it was a good post-masectomy exercise. All I knew was that I loved having someone else brush my hair.

This I Believe
You have no idea how much I've been wanting to write one of these essays! But for now a brief what if? will have to do.

I've been mulling a few ideas. One is on love. I believe love is a gift that we must bestow upon others. It can't be hoarded like a miser's gold. It must be given away.

But I also want to write an essay that starts with the claim I believe in sex education. Because I do, especially now that I am a parent. Why? As a parent of course I want to help my child through all of the big decisions, but the truth is when my kids need to make the really big decisions--like whether or not to smoke, and certainly whether or not to have sex--I won't be there. As a parent, you've got to trust your kids to make the right decisions, and that means empowering them by giving them the knowledge to choose wisely.

Baking

Having searched in vain the other day to find a recent photograph of myself, I realized that no one takes pictures of me anymore, not since I had kids. That's an exaggeration, there are pictures of me of course. There are pictures of me nursing and rocking a newborn to sleep. There are pictures of me holding a baby by her fingertips while she takes a few tentative steps. And there are tons of me holding this kid or that kid in my arms. But there aren't many pictures of just me. That's a pretty good metaphor for how motherhood has changed me. My life is not just about me anymore, my kids are always in the picture.

Take, for example, a photo my husband took a couple of Christmases ago. I'm in the kitchen baking a chocolate cake with my kids. (That's another way motherhood has changed me, I bake more.) My husband likes to take candid shots of us. Mostly they don't quite turn out. Someone—usually my son—moves too much and the photo comes out blurry. But sometimes, as here, everything clicks. The shot is taken through the cutaway between the kitchen and the dining room, so I have to bend down to appear in the frame. We are all leaning in towards each other and our faces occupy the top half of the frame. My son and I are looking right into the camera, my daughter is looking into the bowl. Frances has a gleeful look on her face and a bit of cake batter smudged on her lip. Isaac has a finger poised over the bowl. I am wearing no make-up, and a self-conscious smile that says, "you had to take a picture when I had no make up?" But that's okay, my eyes look a bit tired but I look happy.

What I love about this photo is how well it captures us as a family. Although it was holiday season, there are no signs of the holidays. But baking is one of those things that makes even ordinary days festive, that may be why I like to do it. It is one of life's quotidian pleasures. I don't think my father ever took a picture of my mom and I baking together, but some of my happiest memories are of doing just that, of me and my mother in the kitchen making cookies, and of sneaking a taste of cookie dough past her. And that too is part of what I cherish about this picture, for there I am standing in my mother's kitchen, standing in her place now, the palimpsest of past and present.

Welcome mat

Hey, it may not be much, but it's virtually home, right?

My plan? I'll be doing a bit of blogging right along side all of you, sometimes responding to the same assignments, sometimes not.