Yolande

This boy and I, we sure can butt heads.



I get onto him about whining, about asking for TV constantly, about not listening, picking on his sister, needing to do things more independently. I push him to be more grown up than his four years. I loose my cool and yell at my sweet boy when I boil over past my patience limit.

I am human. I am not a perfect mom. I feel guilty for snapping at my Truman when he unknowingly (or sometimes knowingly) pushes my buttons.

But my goodness, how I love him with a fierceness that overwhelms me sometimes. His sweet dimple, his innocent eyes, his hugs and kisses for no good reason. His, 'Did I do a good job, mommy? Do you like what I made for you? I love you mommy, you are my best friend.' My big boy is such a blessing in my life and I'm grateful that the challenging moments are not the norm. They are a chance for growth and an opportunity for me to stretch myself a little bit more as I journey through this motherhood thing. Truman is my first born, the one who has taught me to parent and the one who will provide me with numerous opportunities for growth.

I just glanced at the date today: 3/14. Truman's original due date. I will never forget it!

(He grabbed this and stated, "This is Crest Pro Health." (??!!) )




This girl and I, we sure can butt heads.



I get frustrated when she won't hold still for a diaper change, an outfit change, or teeth brushing. She gets frustrated when I try to help her do something she can quite certainly do alone (according to her 21 month old mind). She throws a tantrum when I can't interpret her needs from constant screams. She does and doesn't want to be held, does and doesn't want assistance with everyday tasks, and does and doesn't like me to ask her questions.

She's a hot mess and the most beautiful little creature I could imagine.





And I love her with a fierceness that overwhelms me sometimes. Her pats on my back, kisses unprompted, 'Hi, Mommy! Love you!', and her angelic smiles all melt me. She is my spitfire who challenges me and entertains me regularly. I could watch her play with her toys all day long. I could watch her run to her daddy after a long day apart over and over again. I could watch her imitate her brother for years and never tire of my Cecelia.

Molding little lives is the hardest and the best. The most exhilarating and the most exhausting. Sometimes I feel like a horrible mom for yelling, snapping, lacking patience. Other times I want to cry out of sheer gratitude for these precious little lives. Occasionally I feel like I rock it as a mom and occasionally I feel like I'm just surviving. Most of the time I'm just soaking it in because I'm told it goes so fast....and it does.

But life with littles is nowhere near perfect. It's messy, frustrating, guilt-inducing, and challenging. It's the best and I would never trade it for any other phase in my life. But it is not perfect.

Some weeks, like this one, are all out of sorts. Sickness, missed work and routines, puke buckets, wiping away bodily fluids, digging deep for energy that just isn't there--those aren't the things you imagine in your pre-mommy days. But those things are a part of motherhood, just the same.

I took the kids to Target once we finally started to pull out of our sickness haze. We just needed a few items and I found some (secret) gems in the Dollar Spot for Easter baskets. The kids never ask for toys or treats when we are shopping and I never splurge on them 'just because'. Don't want to spoil them or make them bratty little entitled monsters or anything, right?

But this day? I told Truman he could pick out a small toy and his excitement nearly bowled me over. He picked a small $5 train and then we found a $5 'princess' nail polish set for Cecelia to keep it even. Their smiles made this treat more than worth it. Truman's constant, 'Thank you for my train, mommy! You are the best' made my day. Sometimes it's okay to say 'Yes' even when they aren't asking for anything. It's okay to be spontaneous and fun and spoil them a bit, if for no other reason but because I'm so proud of them.











Room sharing like pros, handling sickness and a grumpy mommy, a lack of routine and the longest winter in the history of ever---Yes. They deserve a fun surprise 'just because.' Not because I feel guilty or am trying to make myself feel better for being a little less than a fantastic mom this week. Not because I'm trying to make it up to them somehow. Obviously they will still love me even when I'm at my worst and hopefully I won't scar them for life in the process. I'm their mom, the good parts and the bad parts of me. That's the wonderful thing about family: we love each other in spite of our flaws. Unconditionally. Whole heartedly. And thank goodness for that, because don't we all need a little grace sometimes?

This is real life, kids and it's not always pretty. But it's still awesome and always worth the ugliness.



I'm happy to be their mom, imperfections and all.

As a mother I would love to tell you that you make all of your decisions based on your own moral compass and sparkling intelligence. As an anthropologist I can tell you that you don’t. We all make decisions so that they fit within our personal cultural restraints: ethnic background, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs, and level of commitment to community involvement (ie: level of conformity). We also, whether we like it or not, make decisions based on media images that guide us (which is why things like Bratz dolls are such a hot button topic in their influence of young girls and self-image).

Now motherhood in the 1950s was painted as idyllic. We are talking big neighborhood bar-b-ques, coiffed women, the dawn of the convenience appliances, and the existence of the “family wage” where the economy was designed around the one-income household.

We are talking:



Yep. Donna Reed, the original domestic goddess. Sometimes I close my eyes when I am vacuuming and pretend that the baby isn’t howling, the girls aren’t fighting and there aren’t a pile of dishes in my sink that are threatening to take over (just like that old Shel Silverstein poem about "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Who Would Not Take The Garbage Out"), and pretend that I am channeling her perfect charm, grace and domestic perfection. Then I open my eyes and remember, I am a real flesh and blood mom, not a media creation.

Bring in the media images of mothers in the 1960s and 70s…this was post-Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique. We are talking about the introduction of the stay at home mom as mired in an ideological stranglehold, “the problem that has no name.” The irony is that by cutting mothers out of the new feminist equation that was taking hold, or even worse, seeing them as part of the “oppression,” the women’s movement not only failed to integrate the very people they were trying to “liberate” but they sowed the seeds to a long history of American devaluation of motherhood. Specifically, the 60s introduced the idea that women who stayed home were oppressed, uneducated, wasting their time and therefore we should pity these poor creatures who are trapped at home with children like second class citizens.




Next on our voyage we get the workforce explosion of the late 70s and 80s. The media now becomes dominated by the “super mom,” a woman of super-human potential. She is the idealized worker, idealized mother and idealized wife all wrapped up in one well-dressed and fit little package. Suddenly the media becomes filled with the idea that women really could “do it all.” This mom was born out of the equal-rights movement and represented the hope for all women’s future as leaders and innovators.

By the end of the decade, pushing into the 90s, books like Arlie Hochschild’s, Second Shift began to shed light on the fact that while women may be working more in the traditional income producing sphere of the workforce, men were not working more at home, therefore, all that women had gained in leaving their homes was a second shift of work.





At this point the media became flooded with articles that indicated that working women had failed their children by exposing them too soon to the outside world. Stories abounded of things happening to latch-key kids, or daycare fatalities, child molestation, care giver neglect. It was really during this time that the media latched on to the “Mommy Wars” as a catchphrase and salivated at its wonderful ratings-generating potential. Motherhood is all American, but mothers pitted against mothers has the appeal of a roman gladiator battle; it’s going to be bloody and someone is going down.

All of these media reports fueled the next round of media images.

The 90s and the early 2000s were split between the career “super mom” and a new breed of mother, a woman who bought into what some called “the cult of motherhood.” With the economic downturn and recession in the mid-1990s the large scale job loss led to a re-evaluation of women’s roles and responsibilities as well as a community focus on the overall well-being of children and their development. Enter onto the scene the attachment parent who brought with her the renewed focus on the moral superiority of the stay at home mom. After all, the working mom was risking her children’s very lives by leaving them at child care. This new self-sacrificial style of motherhood demanded nothing short of subsuming a mother’s needs to the needs of her child in all things. This new round of media images implied that discipline or criticism of a child was a damper on their inner creativity and self-esteem. This “new momism” created a push of women to return home from the boardroom, so to speak, because it promoted the idea that a mother was the ONLY acceptable care giver for a child.





All these media images did was create stereotypes and belief systems which allowed women to set up and fly flags from their various camps. This can be seen recently with the conflagration over Hillary Rosen's comment about Ann Romney having never worked a day in her life. Somehow, in the process of each decade trying to define its own idea of motherhood, the previous ideal seemed to end up being devalued. Now, as we realize how many different ways there are to mother, we should also stop to realize that each Mom is making those decisions within constraints that are beyond her control. Short of a drastic move to another country, or a sudden loss or gain in fortune, her cultural constraints are constant.

By recognizing how motherhood has changed over the last 6 decades we can clearly trace the birth of the “mommy wars” and how they have continued. And knowing that, we should be able to step back and stop them. We can create a community of support which I personally think is more helpful than a community of moral superiority.