Breeding and Writing: The Uterus Monologues
[admin / June 17th, 2010 / Young Bright Things ]So here’s a question.
Why does having a vagina mean I have to love my work less?
Does the hard-wiring of labia production in a person’s DNA prevent the development of the gene that triggers professional satisfaction?
I know we’re years beyond the feminist movement (of which I’m not particularly fond, believe it or not, though I’ll never argue that it wasn’t needed or didn’t bring about some marvelous things.) I know women in the workplace are common now and that discrimination is mandated against and that it’s no longer P.C. to admit that you think a necktie could do a better job than a pair of heels.
I know all that.
But here I am, decades after this is all supposed to have been neatly solved, and I’m still catching flack for abandoning my family in pursuit of a career.
It’s more passive-aggressive than it was in olden days, to be sure. We’ve come a long way. But that mostly-unspoken bitterness is still there:
I thought you were a mother.
I’ve heard and seen it all. The forum flaming and name-calling when folks in the mommy chat site I visit realize that (gasp) I do more than make dinner, buy groceries and vacuum. The opinion a “friend” of mine holds that I’m a lazy and disinterested parent because I drop my child off at daycare through the week when I’m “only” working from home and can choose my own hours. The pitied looks my husband gets anytime he admits to someone older than twenty that he cooks our meals about half the time. The tongue clucks when someone overhears me tell my child to wait a minute so I can finish typing a thought. The haughtiness. The judgment.
Why is it so far from the realm of natural thought that I can be a mother and a writer? Â A writer who loves expletives, erotica, and mindfuck stories, even?
Is that so much to ask?
Does performing my work on my own, without a boss hanging over me, make me somehow less of a contributor? Does it invalidate everything just because I’ve given birth?
People of all types breed and make more people. Then they raise them. Where do you think all the new wave hippies came from? Mostly from old wave hippies—and I think that’s a damn fine thing.
Fathers get lauded for playing with the kids after work. Mothers are chided for having gone to work in the first place.
I never meant to have a family. My plan from age fifteen on—I shit you not—was to be a crazy cat lady. That was my childhood aspiration when everyone else was going to be a vet or a teacher or a rock star. I fully intended to have a digital-ready, log cabin in the Smokies, a dozen cats, a hermit lifestyle and royalty checks landing in my mailbox. I had it all figured out, even down to the architectural layout for my one-bedroom, two-library home.
Actually, that’s still very much the plan, but my husband and son have turned out surprisingly cool enough that I’m going to let them come, too. Never thought I’d say that. Â Son. I’m not a baby person. I’m not even that much of a girl person. I’ve always been a tomboy and felt more at home in an XY crowd than an XX.
Girls are too much drama. We’re too high-maintenance. For that reason alone, more than any other, I could never be a lesbian. I don’t have the patience.
(And yes, I’m aware that I have just stereotyped my own gender unfairly. That’s called a double-standard. Women can create those, too.)
Male relationships just make more sense to me across the board. The rules are simpler. My guy friends have never been mad at me for not calling for a month. (Nor vice versa.) My boys have never whispered behind my back when I went to the bathroom, tried to steal my clothes or rolled their eyes at my lame humor. They just go with it or don’t. There are no emotional games.
I hoped, once I made peace with the fact that yes, I really, really, really, really was pregnant and there was no going back, that I would have a boy. Not for one minute did I feel like it would be a girl. I didn’t look at frilly things, or yearn for hair-bows, or even pick a girl name. I dreamed at twelve weeks gestation that a boy it would be; and a boy it certainly was. (Granted, I also dreamed it was twins the week before that, but we dodged that bullet somehow!)
I would have loved a little girl. Of course I would have. She would have been mine and I’d have probably bought into all the pinkness and lace eventually. I’m even leaning that way for next time, if there’s in fact a next time and we do all that baby-making stuff again. I think I’m ready for that. I think I’d like to meet her.
But I’ve gotta tell you, I was nothing short of absolutely thrilled when the ultrasound tech squirted that cold-ass jelly on my belly and announced that I was having a boy.
My dreams weren’t Barbies and My Little Pony dolls. They were tee-ball coaching, and Hot Wheels, and denim and rocks and mud and worms and toothless grins under mottled hair.
Though it didn’t figure into my own reasoning for desiring a son, one of my father—s favorite things to say has always been that boys were far easier to raise than girls—and this was coming from a man who had six kids, so I suppose he should know. “You can’t yell at girls,” he said. “Boys, you can tell to sit down and shut up and they’re fine with it. Girls will cry and make you feel bad and ask you why you don’t love them anymore.”Â
Females tend to be catty and vindictive. (Me, too, so don’t get huffy. We just are.)
Guys don’t judge each other that way.
Women, why do we? Why aren’t we kinder to each other?
Why the hell do you care whether I breast-feed or buy bottles? Why does it matter if my son, a random child who you don’t know, colors happily with some other kids while I bring home some bacon myself? Why does it personally offend everyone if I’m my own damn kind of mother?
I’ve never gotten it, and I doubt I ever will.
But one thing I do know… I’m whoever the hell I want to be, regardless of whether a mini-person once burst forth from my loins. You choose your own mantle. You pick your own path. If nothing else, I hope the one human I’m in charge of raising for a while learns that for himself and has the courage to live it.
Even if his mama’s a little off her rocker.
And even if she’s more “person” than “girl.”Â
I asked my husband if this column was too sexist.
He said, “Erhm, well… you sound pretty, um… angsty, I guess?”
Didn’t mean to. I’m not a hater.
I just think we women are strong enough to not have to play at roles we haven’t individually chosen.
That’s really all I meant.
Good on you, Tracy. Your son’s going to learn a lot more from your example and his happy family than he will from other people’s dumb, outdated, and ignorant ideas about how families “should” work.
I don’t think it’s possible to read Internet parenting forums and not end up angsty. A friend pointed something out to me once, though: What are the kids of the judgmental people doing by themselves in the other room while their parents tap out angry screeds all day long?
And for what it’s worth: Girls don’t always roll as princesses. My daughter loves Legos, hoodies, squirt guns, soccer, watching car races, her rock collection…and lately, Justin Bieber a little.
RE: forums — you’re 100% right. Some of those became so crazy and vitriolic that picturing any of the women as parents was a scary, scary thing. I stayed because the site *did* have golden stuff to offer, too. Some of the kindest women talked me through newborn sleeplessness, grandparenting politics, and recovering from a C-section (though typing that instantly calls to mind the one thread wherein it was vehemently asserted that C-sections aren’t “a real birth” but just a procedure of convenience for spoiled Mommy wannabes–but that’s a whole ‘nother post altogether.)
Your daughter sounds like the kind of kid I would have liked hanging out with when I was little. I remember building elaborate jail cells with Construx pieces and Legos, and making my dolls play cops and robbers with each other. I also had love stories between different Hot Wheels, which each had an ascribed personality.
I blended weirdly.
And for what it is (or isn’t) worth, my little boy has a doll. He asked for it in the store once, so I bought it. The doll is eternally dressed in blue and mostly seems to be for sharing peas and pacifiers with thus far. We’ll see what sticks.
Tell anyone who has issues with daycare that there are awesome opportunities and advantages to him being enrolled. Frenchie takes both kids in while she’s sleeping and their dad sits around doing nothing, and they LOVE being around other kids, getting out of the house, etc.
I agree!
My (now 21-month-old) kid knew his whole alphabet by 18 months, and in the back of my mind, I just figured it was because I read to him constantly. I don’t forcefeed him anything, he just loves words and seems to have the natural tendency to pick up language-related stuff. I did too at his age, and started reading when I was two–but I can’t balance a checkbook or tally groceries in the cart to save my life. Everyone’s different. Words run in my family.
But I stayed home and made it all about the baby for as long as I could and/or wanted to, and then we went the daycare route. Reading was one of our pastimes, and he seemed pretty advanced in that regard. I figured that was the time I’d put in, and that daycare might slow that a little since he’d be getting more shared attention and less one-on-one time.
Saturday, we were playing with his stacking cups, which happen to have numbers written on the side. I decided he’s been comfortable with the ABCs for long enough now that he could maybe stand to start hearing about written numbers without getting too confused.
I showed him the 8 cup, and he said “eight” before I did.
I was pretty surprised.
I held up another and he said “four”. Then he told me the rest of them. Everything, all the way up to ten. He forgets “seven” sometimes, on and off, but hasn’t slipped up on 9 versus 6 once yet.
I didn’t do that.
Guess who must have?
Plus, somebody’s got to teach him the social skills I’ve always lacked. I ain’t got ‘em.
Here’s to not making the same mistakes, and trusting other people, too, once in a while.
First off, yes, not all girls are girly-girls. (I once got a nail polish set at a Girl Scout gift swap, looked at it with disdain, and foisted it off on my younger sister, as I much preferred to go play outside or — better yet — go write in my journal.) Likewise, not all boys are stereotypically boyish. Gotta just let them be themselves.
Second, I’ve seen studies linking high-quality daycare to:
- higher IQs
- lasting academic benefits
- a decreased risk of developing asthma
- social benefits
Et freaking cetera.
And finally, what kid would want his or her mom to be unhappy? And what kid would want his or her parent’s sublimated dreams to be handed off to them to fulfill, instead of fulfilling their own dreams?
So next time someone criticizes your choices, I suggest cordially inviting them to go suck an egg.
LOL, nail polish. That’s hilarious! Outside was a big deal for me, too. Sitting under trees led me to this career in the first place, more than likely.
I have a hard time balancing career-chick and mom-chick. I guess everyone does, but guilt goes with it. And village criticism seems to go with parenting in general across the board, too. I guess maybe dads just don’t take it in as personally. (Hell, maybe they do. I don’t presume to speak for them.)
It’s hard to decide sometimes where that line is drawn between pursuing noble happiness and becoming self-important and blindly selfish. I’m always too scared of leaning the wrong way.
Will definitely try the egg thing, though. Love it.
haha I totally am in love with Justin Beiber!!