shifting the paradigm and telling the truth- wife and mother

By Thomai Hatsios 

(who gave me permission to share it, as I am so impressed by what she says)

I love my son and I am grateful for the experience of mothering, but it must not define me. I am glad that I was so young (23) and that it was such a surprise (a good choice for me) because I was never under the illusion that motherhood or the marriage to his father would complete me.  I'm grateful for the women who truly desired and became really good moms (I know many).  I'm also glad to hear from women who own NOT desiring motherhood, regardless of the fantasy that is pushed on women from the moment they are born.  I'm incredibly grateful that today, men and women can more easily dismiss fantasy based conditioning and define our own paths, fulfill our truly unique purposes. We can love and have fun, choose intense life long commitments or not~ I suppose the choices were always there, but it was considered deviant to stray from "norm".  I hope that as a culture we continue to be more accepting of a variety of life choices.

People who push the concept of all women desiring motherhood and marriage are pushing a fantasy that has little to do with the reality of parenting. Yes, mothering is rewarding and has it's joys, but fantasy pushers neglect to mention the unspeakable pain mothers experience when a child is very sick or dies. The unspeakable frustration when a child grows up to be the antithesis of what the mother thought she was guiding the child to. What worry is like from a mothers POV. What mothering does to selfhood. How many little girls playing with dolls, toy kitchens and other "girl toys" are aware that the most convenient way to control a woman is through a threat (real or imagined) to her child? Do those little girls know what guilt is? That a man can be a politician, director, bus driver, toll taker, anthropologist, minister and no one asks, "but who is taking care of your children?", yet a mother is asked that often. She may be the primary bread winner AND the primary caregiver, all the while being tossed a heap of guilt and being paid less. Once upon a time, an excuse people gave for women being paid less was that the man was the primary financial supporter of the household. We know that is not the case anymore and we know that all humans are worthy of equal pay for equal work- but we still don't have that, do we? I connect that lack of equal pay to the "marriage and baby" fantasy girls are force fed. The story told in film & TV is that women are trapping men, but let's be honest, men tend to make out better than women in the marriage dept. Married men suddenly have a built in support system while married women suddenly de rail their ambitions to support his. Marriage is too often like a trap for women, especially once they have children. While it's pretty uncommon and probably looked down upon for a man to consider his life's purpose being a support system for his wife's dreams and goals -women are still being fed the notion that it is noble to make one's life purpose supporting their husbands dreams and goals. I've witnessed many women who momentarily succumbed to the 'supporting your husband will fulfill you' fantasy, wake up and flea from it or find themselves dismissed after years of service with little to show for the work they did that was not considered "work". I'm gratefully aware that there are more healthy relationships now than ever before- relationships that truly live in the moment and are beneficial to each partner equally. I believe honest storytelling can help shift relationships and allow the vision of equal partners supporting each others life purposes, to come to fruition.

Parenting is an enormous life altering experience that can be quite fulfilling, but it is not necessary for a fulfilled life. People who claim they don't or wont change when they become parents are probably frightfully bad parents.  Men who play the role of assistant to mom, are not really living up to the role of father as best they can and as would be most appreciated by the children.  In my experience, motherhood has been a great teacher; I have experienced great joy and extreme worry thanks to this role. I had no idea what sacrifice meant previous to parenthood. Thank goodness I was and still am one who allows art to come through me; mothering is not my only purpose in this life.  Still, parenting changed my perception, the art that comes through and the order of my priorities.  Parenting changed how I function and so did my career, my friendships and the communities I belong to. It's usually when a child behaves in a way we wish they wouldn't that we experience the realization ~I am my child's teacher, but I am not my child's only teacher.  That knowledge is easier to digest when the choice of mothering is part of a life's fulfillment, not all of it.

I WISH more women and men who claim they yearn for parenthood would FOSTER humans. Would BABYSIT at a shelter while mom is in a therapy session. Would become a Big Sister or Brother. If you are authentically wishing you were a parent, please volunteer your time and energy to make a child's life better. Being in a paid positon to teach doesn't prepare you as much as committing as a volunteer who cares for children does. If you say you ache to be a parent and you're not doing something to improve the life of a child already here, I suspect you are probably succumbing to a mass fantasy and deep down, you don't really want a child in your life.  Those who say, "I would, but I don't have the time/money/etc." are lying to themselves.  If you really wish to have a child in your life, you can make time and find a way to help any one of the millions of children ACHING to be cared about.  It doesn't cost a penny to hold a crack addicted baby in the NICU. It doesn't cost you more than a cup of coffee at Starbucks to get your ass to a shelter and volunteer. So stop the lies, stop propagating the fantasy of "I wish I was married to a rich man or perfect women and could have children with her/him". Children of rich men and seemingly perfect women can grow up to be addicts, criminals, they too are born with challenges and develop challenges. You don't have to wait for a fantasy to come to life- you can be there for a child now.

The fantasy of a perfect married life and your perfect little children is as real as the prince waking a dead girl in the forest with a kiss.  You don't really want to be that sleeping beauty and you don't really want to be that prince.  Get over that lie and go on to nurture what you really care about.  Yes, fall in love, but don't let that love define you. If you have children, a job, a career, don't let any one of those things define you. Your desire in life can be what you truly, deeply desire and create in that space inside that is beyond conditioning.

We can live beyond fantasy and fulfill our unique life's purpose.

This essay was written by a woman who did not grow up dreaming of a wedding, who does not like shopping, is not the competitive type- prefers collaboration, doesn't get "catty", is straight, enjoys really good sex,  spiritual community and very good friends and family,  is counted on by many, is a leader, works in a male dominated, creative industry in positions that are primarily held by men, is the lead character in her story, not the supporting character in others stories and encourages others to live their greatest purpose. This essay was written by a woman who consciously makes an effort to come from love ~everyday.

My sins of omission

My youngest, Steve (38 years old), who is visiting me at present, massages my shoulders when I look uptight; he fixes things around the house; he washes the dishes when we have guests so that I can spend the time enjoying my friends; he hugs me often. So I know it's true when he tells me he loves me dearly – despite the fact that he sometimes informs me that I am a liar and/or insane.

This perception is at least partly based on our different recollections of his childhood. I remember walking down to the shops with him, hand in hand, chatting. I recall what I experienced as companionable family times around the TV watching favourite shows such as the old Dr Who and The Goodies. And all the other things mothers do, like creating costumes for school plays, driving my boys and half their mates to their basketball games, getting out in the back yard and kicking a football with them (however ineptly!) when their Dad was away working, hosting parties from kindergarten to teenage.... I remember a kid who used to confide in me both as a child and an adolescent. He remembers the door of my study being always closed, and the feeling that I gave him little in the way of time or attention.

Nancy Lee, who blogs about the welfare of children in Child Person from the South, writes:

About All the Children...

The children whose pictures are on this Blog are not abused or neglected...at least not to my knowledge! Or should I say no more than what falls within a "normal" range... for in my opinion all children experience some degree of abuse and neglect...if only from their own perspectives.

These children may look "neglected" in some cases but it is a momentary thing, as happens in the lives of all healthy children. Any child who is never rumpled or dirty is more likely to be at risk from some compulsive caregiver than from some occasional bad-hair days!

The children may look so very sad, confused, or whatever that "symptoms of abuse," come quickly to mind. But, children's routine lives are complex, often involving challenges that few of us would want to experience. We carelessly use words such as "resilient" to describe their extraordinary ability to deal with tragedies...great and small...as though it is somehow easier for them to bounce back quickly and easily from whatever comes along to stretch, bend or compress them out of shape.

Their ordinary emotional lives seem subject to higher peaks and lower valleys than some want to believe should or could be part of children's experiences. But whether we choose to believe or not, children- all children- inhabit a world filled with loneliness, pain and terror as well as beauty, joy and exhilaration.

I salute and honor them, warriors and heroes all!

As my son tells me now, what actually happened is less important than his experience of it.

He was astounded when I contradicted his assertion that I never worked during his childhood. I was amazed, and somewhat outraged, that he could believe such a thing. I always worked. I gave crochet lessons. I made crocheted tank tops and sold them through a local store. I was an artists' model, paid to pose nude for students to sketch. And most of all I followed my profession of librarian, sometimes going out to work and for one period having books delivered to my home for me to catalogue. (It was before the days of centralised computer cataloguing.) Not to mention doing all his self-employed father's secretarial work.

The thing is, I worked part time, arranging it around my children's school hours, a deliberate decision which I believed to be in their best interests and mine. It all happened while they were out of the house at school, so of course they saw little evidence of it – though I do wonder how they missed hearing conversations about it, or seeing me crochet items which never ended up on their own backs, or noticing the boxes of books by my desk during a time when my desk was in a corner of the living room. What was this extraordinary lack of curiosity, I wonder. Do all children just take their parents' lives for granted?

He sees it differently, particularly as he checked with his brothers and they didn't remember much about it either. Even on that our recollections differ. He says their emails disclaim all knowledge of me working. I thought they vaguely recalled some details – though I no longer have the emails to verify the matter. To Steve this is evidence of my insanity: they said they remembered nothing and I then said, 'See, I knew they'd remember.' Certainly he is right on the crucial point: what on earth was going on that he knew so little about his mother and her life when we were living in the same house? 'How is it that I didn't know my own mother?' he asks. I can only speculate.

He feels I was never there for him. He believes I contributed nothing to the household in the way of work and income. Even if I could show him documentation that I threw out long ago, what difference would that make? Memory is selective, but the fact that he remembers things that way tells me the times with the study door closed made a greater impact than the times of talk and companionship. And although it was no secret that I worked during his childhood, the fact that it so surprises him means I entirely failed to communicate it to him at the time.

I realise I don't know what is normal. Do parents and children really live in separate worlds with different focuses of attention? Or are there families where it's impossible not to know all details about each other? There were things about my parents that I didn't find out until long after the events, but I don't know that I would have been interested, or even have grasped them, at the time they took place. But my son tells me he has a genius IQ; perhaps I underestimated his capacity to understand.

Or was it I who took things for granted? I remember a time when teenage Steve walked in as I was giving a friend a cuppa in my kitchen, and heard some mention of my degree. After she left he sat down with me and said expectantly, 'So – tell me about all these university degrees you've got.' I was surprised to realise that he didn't know about the (only) one I had. Then it dawned on me that he had no way of knowing. I didn't have the certificate on the wall – though it has been displayed ever since that occasion – and it didn't usually come up in conversation.

I learned a lot about my family background when I was a child by sitting around in the evening and talking, or listening to the grown-ups talk. This happened in the immediate family and at extended family gatherings. My kids grew up with the family gathered around the TV in the evenings, and they had few occasions to hobnob with their extended family.

The other day I spoke to Steve about my beloved Nana, my Mum's mother, who died when I was four. He remarked that he'd never heard about her before. I said, 'Well, you never wanted to read the family stories I was emailing to your brothers.' He told me that was because I'm a liar so he wouldn't have known what to believe of them anyway. Had he read them, he'd have known that some of them were taken from my mother's own writings and taped reminiscences, which he now tells me would have counted with him as evidence for their truth. But can anything make up for the communications he missed as a child?

This is a vexed question to which I have no answer at this time. Nancy's post reminds me that a child's emotional world is a vast and dramatic place of which we take far too little account.