Budding Feminist by Way of Motherhood

I wrote this yesterday after a day of reading up on the latest round of articles and news surrounding Sheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In. Every once in awhile when there is a media uproar on the topic of women/work/family, I try to figure out where I stand and if I'm a feminist or not or what that even means to me. This is my first attempt to explain my thoughts as of lately.

I never cared about feminism before I had kids. Correction, I never cared about feminism before I had my number two kid. Then I was just mad. For lots of reasons, postpartum depression aka sleep deprivation being number one, but a lot of the time I just didn't want to do it. Take care of kids. I was like, "Heyyyy, isn't there someone else who can do this? Can't my husband do this? Do we have money for a nanny? What about daycare? Can someone, anyone just come and do this for me? NO?! Flip." If there had been an option, I would have quit this job a loooooong time ago.

In my frustration about the inequity of my situation (me having my arse handed to me on a daily basis by people less than three feet tall while Adam, who was getting his MBA, was reaching his professional goals and finding great enjoyment in daily intellectual and social stimulation), I turned to the blog Feminist Mormon Housewives. I couldn't then and still can't partake of it daily or even weekly; a lot of it can be distracting noise, so I'm an only sometimes reader. But it has helped me. As a born and raised Mormon who was prepped and primed from an early age to pursue an education and career but be ready to give it up when the kids came, thus beginning the forging of my pathway to eternal glory, I guess the blog helped me put a label on what I was feeling.

My definition of feminism for me right now, or at least right after Noah was born: That fed up feeling of inequality in comparison to my equal aka my husband. His life doesn't change much at the onset of kids, he gets to keep going in a direction of worldly success. Me? I get to wipe poop-caked butts.

Now that I'm nearly four years into this full-time motherhood thing, I'm trying to put words to what I feel about it all. I haven't really been able to do that. Many days I feel speechless. Some nights I feel pretty helpless and hopeless. As I read all the articles on the mommy wars (working moms vs. stay at home moms) and having it all (how can we have awesome jobs and be awesome moms?), I get re-worked up. I genuinely love the debate and every article or school of thought I can pretty much identify with. Obviously, I am not in this alone and obviously there have been scores of women before me who have likewise grappled. This is not a new struggle, I repeat, this is not a new struggle. My best idea so far is to petition science as well as God to go ahead and clone women once they become mothers so the same brain and body can stay home and soak up all the tender moments with babies while simultaneously going to work to gather up new friends and dive into interesting projects. (And don't even think about interjecting here about the arguments for and in behalf of sister-wives. There never was and never will be a good reason for sister-wives. Nannies, cooks, maids, help, sure. Extra wives, nuh-uh.) I do recognize that I think I missed the boat when it came to planning for a flexible mom-friendly career - I didn't major in being a teacher, hair dresser, nurse, dental hygienist, or even consider making a plan for the possibility of going back to a PR job, the one job in which I did major. I do still have my sights set on being an interior designer, but, oh, the road is long and the hill is steep. And my mom brain - the one that currently specializes in strategizing how best to hide my treat stash from little humans with sweet teeth (?) as big as mine - hurts just thinking about it.

All this to say there isn't really an answer to the great feminist debate.

All this to say I'm incredibly lucky to even have the time, energy, and means to wonder about this. I know I am one of the lucky ones who GETS to stay home and be the number one stable person in my kids' lives. (Stable? Hmmm, I'm debating that word choice.) Sometimes Adam will leave in the morning and Sienna will turn to me and say, "Daddy goes to work and, mommy, you're going to stay with us all day? YAY!" My heart bursts with gratitude.

All this to say while I am still mad that my husband will never be pregnant, give birth, nurse or be the main person to get up at night with kids ... It's all good. It really is. It's okay. Because as many days as I spend wanting to run away to work, there are quite a few days when I can remember how awful it was to be chained to a desk. I can often stop and see clearly the perks of stay at home motherhood. Today it was 80 degrees, we walked to the pool, spread our towels on deck chairs, sat down and ate inordinate amounts of kettle corn (crack to the max, it is officially impossible to NOT eat the whole bag), fishy crackers (the combo pack of pretzel as well as Xtreme Cheddar!!!), and half melted peanut butter granola bars (Noah got sooooo messy, and I ate half of Sienna's when she wasn't looking). Then we got into an ice cold pool (why'd they suddenly turn off the heat?) and got all goofbally. No working professional climbing the corporate ladder, male or female, was doing that today.

All this to say I still believe in feminism. I still have hope that I'll be able to take advantage of the choices that others paved the way for and figure out how to have a job and hang out with my kids at some point in the future, whether near or distant. I'm really lucky to have choices and options and a future that excites me, and I thank feminists from the past for challenging conventional thinking and I thank feminists of the present for doing the same.

I agree with a comment Sheryl Sandberg gave in an interview with NPR regarding her new book, Lean In, encouraging women to join the workforce. She said something like, "I'm not saying everybody should do what I do, but I do hope that someday if a father decides to be the stay at home parent and the mom decides to be the full time breadwinner that each is supported in their choice."

That's the kind of feminism, aka equality, or at least looking past conventional gender roles, that I can get behind. No judgement, while understanding sacrifices that are made on everyone's part to raise a family.

FemBlog over and out.