This is what it feels like, to me, to be a working mother in
American right now. #TheStruggleisReal is so much more than a hashtag to any
woman who is trying to balance working, raising children, being attentive to
her spouse, and managing a home. Some of us even have ailing parents for whom
we have to care too. Forget defining an identity in any of that –there’s no
time. There are days I don’t even recognize myself anymore because I’m worn so thin.
I feel faceless to those who could change all of this. But this isn’t a piece
about “woe is me”- it’s about how seriously mothers are taking their jobs these
days. It’s a piece on how I see an opportunity to change things…
I’m doing what so many of us are doing- following the
unspoken rules of how to get by. My fellow mamas out there, we have become less
patient, more tired, less inspired- just doing what we think we have to do.
We’ve got our children by the hand- but they don’t see us. We give them what we
can but it’s not enough because what they want is us- at our best- and it’s
also what they deserve. We are rough sketches of who we would otherwise be,
given different circumstances. Just like I’d be a better artist if I had time
to develop my talent. Somewhere in the corridors of my soul it still echoes
that I am unique… and have something to offer to the world.
Notice that I didn’t
say “career” a few sentences back, because working is what it is that the vast
majority of us are doing. Two jobs? I couldn’t handle the emotional toll that
working a second job did to my children. Some days they saw me for a mere 20
minutes before I dropped them off at daycare, and then didn’t see them again
until the next morning. Women everywhere are sacrificing entirely too much of
their experience in motherhood without any choice in the matter.
I piece together an honest living with a hard-working husband
in an attempt to keep up with a rat race against time amidst acronyms that
dictate the time we earn with our children. Paid Time Off. It’s precious and
mine is spent strategically stringing together doctor’s appointments. It’s
spent trying to understand how I owe more on student loans I’ve been dutifully
paying for 15+ years. “It gets better” we hear… but it’s the reality of where
we are- and have been- the entire time and I know we are not alone. I also know
there are people far more tired and battered than we are, and that breaks my
heart.
FMLA- great- if you’ve been working somewhere long enough to
use all your sick time and all your vacation time, IF you’re lucky- you could
ALMOST piece together a full 12 weeks with your newborn child. It was a choice
to grow our family to four of us. It shouldn’t feel like a burden that we
created a family together.
We don’t have a budget. The deal is- I don’t spend any
money- he pays all the bills- and he deals with the ulcers of juggling
spreading the money out where we can so that it covers everything, barely. Our
penny pinching is making Lincoln cry at this point.
My children see me at my most exhausted, my most worried, most
pre-occupied and there isn’t any PTO available for me to use to give them what
they want: me. And you know that’s
all our children want is our attention- for us to see them and understand them
and make memories with them. How do we even do that anymore? What are these
children of ours learning from this? Hard work doesn’t really get you anywhere?
The American dream is really just to survive? Everything society says we should
do to get ahead is a sham? I hope that last one is what they hold onto with
both hands.
Do you know what I want? I want to get to know my children
better than their daycare providers. I don’t care about climbing a ladder- it’s
not worth it- it doesn’t get me more time at home with my kids- it doesn’t pay
me more so I can worry less. I want to use my talents to make a living. I want
to be who I am meant to be and not who society signed me up to be. I’ve been
pigeon-holed.
I see that nightmare that is a lost identity for me and a
boring childhood for my kids and I don’t want to claim that as my stake in the
American Dream. How do we change it? It starts by teaching our children that we
must love ourselves enough to do what we want to do. I paint watercolors and I repurpose jewelry. I
write and sing songs and teach them to find the down beat and dance to the
rhythm of the music we blast in the house. I give them the best half hour I’ve
got in me before they go to bed at night and listen intently to the stories of
their day. I teach them to create by creating myself and I don’t ask them what
they want to be when they grow up- I ask them what they want to DO.
Doing is
what matters… doing the right thing… doing what makes your heart sing… and you
know the only real reason I’m able to do any of this, don’t you…? It’s because
I don’t let myself think for a second that I can’t. Let them hold onto that
idea…. And maybe you should too, if this resonated with you. Don’t think you
have to settle for this if it’s not who you are, DO what makes you who you are-
start somewhere. Do this with me, please. Our future literally depends on it.
