Mommy-ology

The Mothers-to-be of my generation are standing at a crossroads. Its not a bad crossroads, to be honest. We have a choice the women who came before us didn't-- be a stay at home mom, or have a career? Or both, or any combination you like? But we also have pressures, also have guilt. It is now totally socially acceptable to be a working mother. But that doesn't mean one won't be judged, or won't judge herself, for not "putting her children first" and putting a career on the back burner. That being said, many moms don't have a choice. Single motherhood is on the rise, and with no second income it is impossible to both provide for and care for a child at the same time. That is the situation my mom found herself in 16 years ago right after her divorce. I was 3, she had spent my entire life as a SAHM and suddenly that was no longer an option. She had been a successful dental hygienist before her marriage but had not renewed her license after I was born, and was no longer qualified to work in the dental industry. She went back to school, got an associates degree in business, and went to work for a bank, where she gradually worked herself up to a Branch Manager and Junior VP position and has done very well. I have always been so incredibly proud of her and what she has done, and she has served as a fantastic role model to me in terms of resilience and self reliance. However, she spend my entire childhood wracked with guilt over not being able to stay home with me and share in my biggest moments. She had always wanted to be that "perfect mommy" figure Kate and Lydia rant about, with the home cooked organic meals and the executive position in the PTA. Personally, being the daughter of "perfect mommy" sounds incredibly painful and something to be avoided at all costs. I loved my childhood and have no regrets with how it all turned out. Daycare taught me how to share, and her position and interactions with men in her bank taught me without a doubt that women were certainly equally capable and as qualified as their male counterparts- if not more so. But no matter how much I insist that I'm happy with how it all turned out, she is still full of regrets.
                 Flash forward to the complete opposite situation. A good friend's mother is woman of similar age and personality to my mother whose life shows "what might have been"-- and proves that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. A stay at home mother of 3 girls whose youngest daughter just entered high school and will soon leave the nest, making the position she's held for the past 23 years obsolete. She had a successful career in computer science before her marriage, but given the leaps and bounds technology has made in her children's lifetimes it would be literally impossible for her to re-enter her field. Money isn't enough of an issue that she needs to go back to work, but without her children in the house there isn't much for her to do. Her daughter is concerned at how anxious and controlling her mother has gotten as the time comes closer for the "M" to disappear from her title of SAHM, and worries what will happen when her youngest sister goes off to college.
                Neither women are happy, yet each has what the other wanted. To stay at home or not to stay at home is a question women (who are (financially) lucky enough to have a choice) have been asking ever since having a genuine career became an opportunity for women. In 1980 Deborah Farrow added a meaningful and controversial contribution to this debate in her article in the Atlantic titled "Mothers & Other Strangers". The article dealt with her decision to leave her job as a linguist and Associate Dean at Georgetown University to stay at home and raise her two children. She loved her job, but felt like she was missing important moments and milestones in her children's lives. The article received an immense amount of feedback, both positive and negative. Many career women felt that in giving up the career possibilities women with children had worked to hard to be allowed Fallows was "selling out" to the SAHM June Cleaver stereotype they felt pressured to be. The issue isn't a matter of her reasoning-- the feelings that fostered Fallow's decision are shared by many women, and seen today in many places-- in the popular television show "Desperate Housewives", stay at home mother of 4 Lynette Scavo ponders what she would miss in her children's lives as she re-entered the workforce, etc. The issue is her decision, a very difficult one that is faced by mothers (and fathers) of this generation.We know we love our children, but we also care about our sanity. The question is, what do we do about it?What do we choose, and what does that say about us as a person and as a parent? We are constantly being called out to conform to different versions of motherhood.

Lynette Scavo and kids, Desperate Housewives

In "Japanese Mothers and Obentōs: The Lunch-Box as Ideological State Apparatus," anthropologist and mother of one Anne Allison touched upon these pressures in her discussion of the mandatory creation and provision of obento lunches by mothers for Japanese schoolchildren as an ideological state apparatus reinforcing Japanese cultural standards of motherhood and behavior for women. The school-mandated creation of such labor intensive lunches for one's childhood as an extension and symbol of mothering serves 

as a tangible pressure to conform to certain values, whereas in the U.S. the interpellation is more subtle but no less strong. These stereotypes and judgments that call out to women are not overtly stated, but powerful in our minds when combined with the insecurities and uncertainties that go hand in hand with being a mother, let alone a human being. To quote Althusser, "It is not their real conditions of existence, their real world, that [people] represent to themselves in ideology, but it is their relation to those conditions of existence which is represented to them there. It is this relation which is at the center of every ideological, i.e. imaginary representation of the real world." It comes in many forms, whether it be the snide comments from one's mother-in-law or the pitying glances from one's childless girlfriends whose careers and salaries are on the rise. We are constantly interpellated with conflicting ideologies by society, and every mother has a choice-- recognize, reject, disidentify, or some combination of all three?

This was exactly what Kate and Lydia were struggling with when they started this blog. Feeling judged and incompetent from all sides, and bucking under guilt and pressure stemming from competing ideologies on what "motherhood" should be. In Lydia's words, "I am Lydia and I am a stay at home mom. That is an admission that may elevate or denigrate me, depending on who I’m talking to." And in this blog they addressed their pressures and stresses and the stereotypes they hated yet wanted to conform to all at the same time. And then something amazing happened. Other "mommies" joined in, and they began to address and discuss the ideologies that called out to them, and how they were navigating this uncertain terrain and making it work specifically for them. No judgments. just acceptance, a place to be and express oneself and respond to and escape from the pressures of "society" and everyday life. Sharing ones own recognition, rejection, or personal brand of disidentification one was using to handle maternity and ideology  And thus, in a community called "Mommyland" a third space to support each other and form consensus and solidarity on motherhood was born, in a medium both unexpected yet entirely perfect for the demographic of both stay at home and working moms. But more on that later. It's past my nonexistant children's bedtimes.

~Carrie