by Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo
Recently, I made the decision to be present for my children during the daylight hours. Not that I wasn’t physically apparent prior to this decision, it was just that I had a bad habit of being mentally occupied. Worse, every fresh new morning, I identified tasks that I intended to get done which never got done and I’d end each day in frustration. I had to steal time to write, put the kids off, placate them. And I would often find myself impatient with my guys because I (say it with me…) “couldn’t get anything done.” It was terrible to feel distracted and disconnected from my kids all day while making futile attempts to write my fiction, work on this blog or keep up with email—to end the day feeling annoyed that I hadn’t really achieved any of my work goals and as though I hadn’t been the best mother I could be. It was a losing situation all around. So, I decided to be mom, and mom only, during the day. And this decision has brought me great peace, more patience and greater joy. The frosting on my peace cake: since I’ve created designated times to do my work without distraction, I’m actually accomplishing.
This is the perplexing predicament of the mother writer. How to live two disparate lives. How to split yourself in two.
I’ve talked about this before. As a busy mother trying to be engaged with her children, I’m not able to write as often as I’d like to. As a writer, I can’t not write. The only answer is balance, so at the end of the day, I can reflect that I was present for my children and that I made what time I could for the writing. Oh, that makes it sound so easy!
I’ve been thinking about how it’s not comfortable for many women to be “just” a mother anymore. I’m no exception. I’m happy and proud and sure of my choice to stay home with my kids, but I always qualify my status as a SAHM, as some kind of justification, with, “But I’m a writer, too.” One of the worst things our foremothers ever told us was that we could have it all. I’m not being at all negative or defeatist when I say that this is an impossible expectation and I would go so far as to say harmful for mothers and families. And, I don’t view this is an anti-feminist perspective.
Many of my women friends, who are also mothers, work outside the home. I work minimally outside the home and what I do those few hours a week can hardly be called a “career.” I mean, I intentionally chose a job that would neither cause me stress nor bear any serious gravity so that I would never have to choose between my job and my kids. My steps towards a work life of writing are of a slow, lumbering gait, and continuously interrupted, so there’s not as much to “show” as I would like. Which is okay, but I would be dishonest if I said being around women with solid careers, and not having one myself, isn’t uncomfortable. I would be dishonest if I didn’t admit that it’s difficult not to draw comparisons. I care about these women and hold much respect for them, and I can’t help but wonder what they think of my choice. And it is difficult for me to speak of my choice and my belief in it without potentially alienating or hurting those who have made a different choice. It is the same as when I discuss my homeschooling lifestyle with parents who have chosen to send their children to traditional school: I am diametrically opposed from them from the moment I speak the words “homeschool” or “stay-at-home-mom.” I am often confronted with a surprising amount of hostility. It is only beginning not to surprise and upset me. Why must people assume they are being judged if another decides to make different choices for their life? We’ve all experienced the working mom versus stay-at-home-mom vitriol. It is difficult to have these conversations because it feels like taking sides. And as these words flow from me, I also wonder: what’s wrong with having an opinion that differs from that of another? Even a friend? Does that have to mean we are “against” each other? Can’t we exist in our differing opinions in an aura of mutual respect?
I suppose the conflicted feelings about my choices means I don’t fully buy my own rhetoric that motherhood is a feminist endeavor. Does this mean that maybe I don’t quite fully embrace it as a viable and respectable choice for a woman? I don’t think so. I think that one of the challenges women face today is the tug-of-war between motherhood and career. It is how we were indoctrinated: in order for a woman to have “made it” she must be defined by career. I suppose part of the work of the mother feminist is to incorporate her ideals of the validation of motherhood into existence. Bring them into being and pass them along to her daughters as another valid choice.
I am a mother and a writer. I try to do both well. I’ve realized that in order to do both well, I must separate, to the extent that I can, the two. Or, at least the time I choose to do them. I cannot cleave myself, but I can choose both, and that is part of the work of this generation of women.
About Melissa Corliss Delorenzo
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Melissa: Your comment about not “having it all” and that being the worst thing our foremothers have done for us is so entirely true. That “second wave” of feminism (or third is it?) really made it so that there are camps of women. What I read recently, is that women can have it all, just not all at once. The trouble then comes to “when” since we can’t just put off motherhood indefinitely, if that is one of the things we choose.
I also do not believe motherhood is incongruent with feminism. If anything, motherhood is truly the only place feminism can be reborn, reaffirmed and passed along to future generations. A mother who is a person with wants, needs and one who does her best service as a mother by letting her children be aware of this. How can there be adult men who respect and share home and family responsibilities if they are not mothered in a way that encourages this? How can women develop self-respect so that they do not settle for relationships that do not feed this? Each of these is an act of feminism when enforced by a mother.
Thanks for this consideration of the writing life as a mother. It is a topic ripe for discussion and very much in need of continued conversation. As we ask ourselves these questions and share them in a public forum, we give voice to something so that it might be examined and thereby rendered less frustrating.