Mommy Dearest

I tell a lot of people a wide variety of things about why we don't have kids, and all of them are true: we're too poor, we move around too much, we're both too busy with school/work, we feel too young to be parents. But none of these are the real reason why I'm afraid of having children, and none of these account for why Adam is so much more gung-ho about babies right now. So why am I scared of having kids? It's not about losing sleep or painful breastfeeding or gaining weight or giving up wine.

It's because I'm scared of other mothers.

Well, it's not really about mothers, per se. It's more about "mommy culture," about the vicious and frightening ways that society picks mothers apart and tries to break them completely.

I follow some "mommy blogs," and pretty much all they've taught me is that, no matter what choices I make, they will always be the wrong ones. I will always be a terrible mother.

If I have an unmedicated birth, I'll be a masochistic show-off. If I have an epidural, I'll be deemed too lazy and selfish to have a "true birth experience."

If I breastfeed, I'm a showy boob-Nazi whose sole purpose in life is to make other people uncomfortable with her breasts. If I formula-feed, I'm a quitter who poisons her child with artifical filth.

If I send my kid to public school, I'm abandoning them to a wilderness of drugs and violence and state tests. If I send my kid to private school, I'm a snob who can't bear to force her ickle precious baby to interact with different people.

If and when we have a child, I am not going to be talking to anyone about it. No one. We'll figure it out ourselves, because that sounds a lot better than being shamed, castigated, railroaded, berated, ignored, pitied, and accused by complete strangers. Most of the internet drama I have seen unfold before my eyes has been related to childrearing and the fact that some people do things differently than other people, and I just don't want any part of that intellectual bloodbath.

I am not interested in going to a playgroup and sitting through a lecture all about why you should have only purchased organic onesies and why real mothers make all their own baby food from yams and flaxseed. I am not interested in people making sneaky comments about how it must be "so hard for me to be working and missing out on all these milestones." I am not interested in "oh, that's a different name" or "aren't you going to teach him sign language?" or "why would you let your daughter wear that?" or "I would never send my child to that school, but I guess we all have different priorities" or "Daycare? Don't you have family around?"

I read Susan Douglas' The Mommy Myth awhile back and loved it, because I thought it really explained a lot about the forces behind the "Mommy Wars" and what their motivations might be. But it never answered one crucial question: Why do we fall for it? Why do we care so much about other people's decisions?

I guess, in a way, we care because we fear other people's decisions might reflect poorly on our own, and make us feel like bad mothers. If that woman over there is homeschooling her kids because she thinks they'll get a better education, then does that mean she thinks my kids are getting a poor education in public school? If that woman over there is breastfeeding because "breast is best" and breastmilk is more nutritious, does that make me look like a bad mother for formula-feeding? Or more importantly, does it actually make me a bad mother?

I don't really want to be that invested in what other people do, but it looks to me like it's unavoidable, at least from what I'm reading and seeing.

And really, I don't want to be absolutely obsessed with motherhood. I don't want that to be the only thing I can talk about, think about, work on, experience fully. I want motherhood to be a part of me without being the only part of me. I want to be a mother, but also a wife and an academic and a runner and a Christian and a Democrat and a chocolate lover and a reader. I don't want to be consumed by this one role.

How do I do that? Is it possible to become someone's mother without becoming an unwitting combatant in the Mommy Wars?

YES.

There is a Mitzvah Tank currently parked across the street from me, blasting "Hava Nagila" from a loudspeaker.

I love this city so hard right now.

This is sad...

...but it's really exciting to contemplate living in a 600-sq.ft. apartment this fall. Like, REALLY EXCITING.

Our apartment is super nice, don't get me wrong. It's your typical 350-sq.ft. one-bedroom in Manhattan. It has a fireplace (yay!), hideous black waxy paint over all the floors (boo!), and a nice, cozy vibe to it, mostly because we were able to paint the walls all sorts of fun colors.

But I'm ready to have a read kitchen now, maybe even with a full-size oven and some counter space! And I'm ready to live in something that is NOT a fourth-floor walk-up! And maybe with actual closets! And consistent supplies of hot water! Possibly!

Oh, the places we'll go...

Random Observations About Chicago

-Chicago is so...clean. There isn't trash all over the streets. The water of Lake Michigan is actually blue. It doesn't smell like rotten eggs. They have carpeting on the subways.

-You can tell that Chicago is a midwestern city by the way people act like decent human beings. People say "please" and "thank you" and "excuse me." They smile and hold doors for you and apologize for bumping into your bag. When Adam and I were waiting for our table at Frontera on Thursday night, every single group that came in asked us if we had made our reservation first before going up to the counter themselves. It was...insane.

-In terms of the student population at the Div School, I am officially OLD. Even though they have no undergrads, I was still easily one of the oldest students at the Admitted Students' Day events. When I told people I was married, they often made an involuntary noise of horror, rather like one would make if another person told them they had a fatal disease. Only one other person there had anything close to a spouse, and that person wasn't even married yet-- she was engaged. Clearly most people were coming straight out of undergrad. I heard tell of a couple other second-career students in my year, but they're all MDivs, apparently. So I guess most normal grown-up people don't wake up one day and think, "Hrm, I think I'll quit my job and engage in the academic study of religion for two years with no real professional purpose in mind other than the eventual pursuit of a PhD and a lifetime of shabby, soul-sucking academia."

-I am now a huge fan of Potbelly sandwiches. Also: $2.90 milkshakes. YES.

-I very much enjoy the fact that the U of C is 2/3 graduate students. It's nice because although I feel old at the Div School, I don't feel like I'm swimming in a sea of 17-year-olds. When I went back to visit Vassar this fall I felt like all those people walking around were so very much younger than I was, but I blend right in at U of C.

One more month left at my job...

...and this week was only a two-day workweek! I have Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off so Adam and I can visit Chicago and check out Admitted Students' Day. It's kind of going to be like a mini-vacation, since we'll get to stay at a hotel and go out to eat and all that fun stuff, too.

And then next week is only four days of work, since I'm taking Good Friday off. Sometimes there are definite perks to being the only Christian in the office.

And then I have three weeks left.

And then I'm done!

"LOL! Men!"

There are few things I hate more than a "LOL! Men!" statement.

If you have female friends with boorish, rude, inconsiderate, lazy husbands, and if those friends ever discuss those husbands on Facebook, Twitter, or The Nest.com message boards, then you'll likely know what I'm talking about; a "LOL! Men!" statement involves a woman "venting" about the nasty, cruel, childish behavior of her husband/fiancé/boyfriend, and then trying to act flippant about it with the cloying, disingenuous claim that ALL men are assholes, not just this one.

Examples:

My husband refuses to help me with the household chores, despite the fact that we both work. He says that since he makes more money, the cleaning and cooking are entirely my 'job'. No matter how much I beg and plead, he ignores me. Gah! So typical. Men are so stubborn. :) :) :)

My boyfriend is never affectionate towards me, yet he always wants to have sex, and if I don't want to, he gets mad. LOL! Men and their sex drives, amirite, ladies?

I asked my husband to watch the boys last night so I could go out to a movie with my friends, and he refused. He said he didn't have time to 'babysit' and that I was a bad mother for wanting some 'me' time. I wish men weren't so selfish!

No, my friend, "men" are not lazy/stupid/self-centered/clueless/helpless/boring/talentless. Your man is.

Good men exist. I married one. Heck, I even dated a few before I married this one. They're not a myth, I promise you. They're not the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. They're everywhere, all over, and all you have to do to have one yourself is to NOT DATE OR MARRY AN ASSWIPE.

I don't think people get how insulting this sort of talk can be to those men who are not horrible people. Really, I don't really see what having a penis has to do with being a bad person. There are, quite literally, billions of men on the planet-- you don't think all of them are creeps, do you?

My husband is kind. He's thoughtful. He's intelligent. He's not shallow, sexist, a bully, or a coward. He's a brave, strong, capable, grown-ass person who knows how to treat other human beings with respect-- especially those human beings with whom he is in love (which, y'know, is hopefully just me). It's not that hard, gals. Really.

If your man is a jerk, it's not because he's a man. It's because he's a jerk.

Things I Absolutely Love:

Jesus.
Cadbury Creme Eggs.
Vacation days.
The right side of the couch.
Even numbers.
Goldfish crackers.
Sugar.
Snow.
Blankets.
Wicked children.
Getting mail.
Free food.
Finding a quarter on the sidewalk.
Manhattan at 7 a.m. on a Saturday.
Berry picking.
Old books.
Bell MT.
Mountains.
People who love my name.
People who say "please" and "thank you."
Humor.
Becoming friends with difficult people.