Thirteen years ago, before Darby was born, the plan was that I would be a stay-at-home mom until the kids were older, and then I'd actually use my education degree to earn a living. Well, the time is here. In a little over a month, I will be teaching English Language Arts to 10th and 11th graders.
I'm excited and nervous and scared to death. But I'm sure I'll do fine. I just have to keep telling myself that: "I'll be fine; I'll be fine; I'll be fine..."
I'm worried about being a working mom. Spending time with each of the kids, taking them to their activities, volunteering at church, keeping up with the housekeeping. All this while working full-time. How do you working moms do it? I've never been a good housekeeper. In fact I'm a horrible housekeeper: even as a stay-at-home mom. I've always believed that the mess will be there tomorrow, but the kids will leave someday. So I spend more time playing Pictionary and Scrabble Junior, and not so much time dusting and mopping. Now, I'm wondering how I'm going to get it all done. Any help out there? I never took to Flylady.com, although I think she's brilliant. Sidetracked Home Executives was pretty good with their 3x5 cards. But I have a hard time sticking to a system. Maybe the structure of working will help with that. I'm open to suggestions.
There are so many changes in my life right now, I'm more than a little stressed. I keep reminding myself that this will be good for the family, good for me, good for our finances, good for our marriage. But change is hard, and I'm having a hard time keeping up with it all.
I keep wishing that I could go back in time 13 years and do it all again. It feels like I'm leaving a part of me behind. Ever since Darby started walking at 10 months, I have known that every step is a step away from me. Now I feel like I'm stepping away from them and it's a little scary. I'm sure that in a year I'll be saying that it was easier than I'd feared, but right now, I'm not sure I'm ready.
Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Monday, February 26, 2007
The Role of a Mother
I'm a mother of three. I have two girls, ages 11 & 5, and a boy, age 9. I take this job of mothering very seriously. One result of that is that my children think I'm horrible. In this instance it's that I won't allow my girls to have Bratz dolls. They, in turn, think I'm an awful, old-fashioned prude.
I am happy to announce that the American Psychological Association has done a study that shows that Bratz are harmful to our girls. The study is on the sexualization of our girls and the effect that has on them as they mature. It's no surprise that our kids are surrounded by sexualization in the media everywhere they turn and that that will have an effect on them. What has always surprised me is that mothers buy these dolls and give them to their daughters without giving it a second thought.
I know the problems with Barbie: she's not a normal size, she teaches our girls that they should all be tall and skinny, with huge breasts. There was a moment after the Bratz dolls came out when I was excited about a multicultural doll that had hips and curves. I actually thought that no one would buy their bikini- and fishnet-clad dolls and they would go back to the drawing board, scrub off her makeup, take away the drug-induced stupor from her eyes, and give her some decent clothes, and that my daughters would have a healthy doll to play with.
I actually thought that mothers would be outraged by the clothes. But that didn't happen. Instead mothers went out and actually bought these trashy-looking dolls for their own children. So now, we have a choice between a tall, skinny, blonde who has some signs of intelligence (her careers), but who might give our daughters an unhealthy body image, or a scantily-clad sexpot whose sole desire seems to be shopping and looking trashy. Thank God for Groovy Girls.
I've imagined this scene at Mattell for some time now.
A man enters the boardroom to propose a new Barbie doll. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Barbie has held many jobs. Some have been very traditional roles for women: ballerina, fairy princess, chef. Others have been more traditionally men's roles: dentist, doctor, CEO. But in the past few years, I think we've seen a return to tradition for more and more women in our society. More women are staying home and embracing the idea of motherhood rather than career, and our dolls have reflected that. In fact, when Barbie's married sister became pregnant, she was embraced by our kids as a traditional mother and role model. Now I would like to see us take the lead in representing what women have really meant to many men over the years: Sexpot Barbie. We could plaster her face with make-up, give her pouty lips and a drug-induced trance, dress her in ludicrous outfits, and she could either work as a prostitute or simply be a trophy wife for Ken. After all, what could be more traditional than making women feel like trash, and passing that ideology on to our children?"
After he is laughed out of the boardroom, MGA welcomes him in with open arms, relishing the idea of turning little girls into sexpots, and showing them where a woman's place in the world really is. These men take Sexpot Barbie and run with her, calling her a Brat so that mothers the world over will be fooled into thinking that they're cute. So that mothers the world over won't notice that their daughters are being taught to wear the trashiest of clothes and focus on nothing but the next shopping spree. Because mothers the world over seem to have forgotten OUR role.
I am happy to announce that the American Psychological Association has done a study that shows that Bratz are harmful to our girls. The study is on the sexualization of our girls and the effect that has on them as they mature. It's no surprise that our kids are surrounded by sexualization in the media everywhere they turn and that that will have an effect on them. What has always surprised me is that mothers buy these dolls and give them to their daughters without giving it a second thought.
I know the problems with Barbie: she's not a normal size, she teaches our girls that they should all be tall and skinny, with huge breasts. There was a moment after the Bratz dolls came out when I was excited about a multicultural doll that had hips and curves. I actually thought that no one would buy their bikini- and fishnet-clad dolls and they would go back to the drawing board, scrub off her makeup, take away the drug-induced stupor from her eyes, and give her some decent clothes, and that my daughters would have a healthy doll to play with.
I actually thought that mothers would be outraged by the clothes. But that didn't happen. Instead mothers went out and actually bought these trashy-looking dolls for their own children. So now, we have a choice between a tall, skinny, blonde who has some signs of intelligence (her careers), but who might give our daughters an unhealthy body image, or a scantily-clad sexpot whose sole desire seems to be shopping and looking trashy. Thank God for Groovy Girls.
I've imagined this scene at Mattell for some time now.
A man enters the boardroom to propose a new Barbie doll. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Barbie has held many jobs. Some have been very traditional roles for women: ballerina, fairy princess, chef. Others have been more traditionally men's roles: dentist, doctor, CEO. But in the past few years, I think we've seen a return to tradition for more and more women in our society. More women are staying home and embracing the idea of motherhood rather than career, and our dolls have reflected that. In fact, when Barbie's married sister became pregnant, she was embraced by our kids as a traditional mother and role model. Now I would like to see us take the lead in representing what women have really meant to many men over the years: Sexpot Barbie. We could plaster her face with make-up, give her pouty lips and a drug-induced trance, dress her in ludicrous outfits, and she could either work as a prostitute or simply be a trophy wife for Ken. After all, what could be more traditional than making women feel like trash, and passing that ideology on to our children?"
After he is laughed out of the boardroom, MGA welcomes him in with open arms, relishing the idea of turning little girls into sexpots, and showing them where a woman's place in the world really is. These men take Sexpot Barbie and run with her, calling her a Brat so that mothers the world over will be fooled into thinking that they're cute. So that mothers the world over won't notice that their daughters are being taught to wear the trashiest of clothes and focus on nothing but the next shopping spree. Because mothers the world over seem to have forgotten OUR role.
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