A Mom By Any Other Name
The Mommyosphere was buzzing over a recent letter to Salon over a young woman ridden with anxiety at the prospect of motherhood.
The woman wrote in her letter that she’s thinking about having kids, but is
rather frightened and somewhat “grossed out” by women who self-identify as moms – specifically, the following “icky” dialogue.
“So, Lucy, tell
us a little bit about yourself.”
“Well (giggles),
I’m a mom.”
The prospect of joining this club of self-deprecating gigglers horrifies the letter-writer.
As my friends have gotten married and started having children, I’ve heard this kind of thing coming out of their mouths. I realize that being a mother is
fun and rewarding, and all-consuming at times, but why does it have to be the
primary identifying factor in some women’s lives? I would think being a mother
is sort of a family affair, and making it your calling card, so to speak, is no
more appropriate than saying, ‘I’m a wife.’
I can identify. To a point.
I’m very happy now that toddlerhood and the preschool years are over and I’ve ended my hiatus from campus and classroom. My kids are tucked safely away in their elementary schools, and I’ve been able to spend more time at work. I like that I can tell people that I’m a professor. For some reason, our kitchen renovation
guys think it’s really funny that I’m a professor (is it the big hair?) and keep saying things like “So, professor, you really want to expose the brick on the chimney? Well, if the professor says so, we gotta do it.”
It’s kind of nice having a job description that gets a little respect. That never happened with my title of the past several years: Stay-At-Home Mom.
Sadly, the mom name tag doesn’t come with too much street cred. It’s not
fair, but that’s the way it is.
But even when I don’t have to use the “mom” name tag as my formal job title, it’s still there. Like this working mother, I spend a lot of time dealing with and worrying about my kids’ education. My older kid is coasting in school right now and need a lot of work at home. His teacher has written him off at the smart kid who likes reading and knows more than she does about history and geography. She’s not checking his work over. She’s more concerned about the girl who is punching herself in the face to get out of doing math work. So, my son is daydreaming through school and making tons of careless errors. If I don’t pay attention to my boys, nobody will.
And when I don’t have the big worries like their academic future, there are
always the smaller things that are always on my mind.
While I’m giving a lecture on Plato, I have my cell phone on just in case one
of the kids gets sick, and I have to rush out of class to pick them up.
On the way back from school, I run into Shop Rite to pick up bananas for lunch. I
don’t make spicy food for dinner, because the kids won’t eat it.
My husband and I took turns going to a Super Bowl party next door, because someone had to be home with the littlest one. We picked out the boring Corian countertop for the kitchen, so the kids wouldn’t have to worry about spilling drinks. I know exactly how many slices of bologna are needed to get us through the week of lunch boxes.
Frankly that “mom” job title doesn’t come off no matter what else I do. So sure, I can use the “professor” name tag to get attention from the kitchen workers and the cocktail party people. I’m pretty good at the professor thing and really get a kick out of the classroom performance act.
But my job as a mom is pretty enormous, too, and it does bother me that that
part of my life gets so little respect.
Aspazia, another mom-professor, posted a response to this letter in her blog,
I guess if there is one thing I want to emphasize in this post about how my worldview differs from the “Dear Cary” letter writers’ it is that being a “mom” is never just about being hermetically sealed up with your children. Children open the world to you and get you out in the world more than ever. So, the fact that being a mom has become associated with a kind of shut-inness is just plain wrong-headed.
So, let’s reclaim “mom” to connote cosmopolitan, worldly, publicly engaged and throw away, once and for all, the outmoded view that moms are nothing more than the emotional and nutritional providers for their children.”
Smart young women shouldn’t fear the mom label. It’s impossible to rip that name tag off a cardigan. And they might not want to, because whether or not it’s a resume-builder, it’s a better job than they think.
Laura McKenna is a political science professor who lives in New Jersey. She blogs at 11D.
Thanks for the article! You’re so right – as a SAHM (who also homeschools her tweenagers) I definitely identify. Yes, I’m a mom. But really, that’s only about a 10th of who I am – that part of me just happens to be on call 24/7. I’m also the accountant of our small home corporation, a teacher, a photographer, genealogist, market researcher, etc. I would never wish to rid myself of the title of “mom” – it is, afterall, the most important job I feel that I can do, but my life (and by extension, their lives) are much more full than any title could describe.
Our society values motherhood and professorship differently. This is not because of some inherent inequalities. Simply, one takes more effort to achieve than another. Any human with two ovaries can become a mother (well, almost any), but it still takes a degree of effort to obtain a PHD.
What people do after achieving these goals is a different matter (and a more important one, in my opinion), but may be beyond the scope of this discussion.
Julio
People tend to assign job status on the basis of entry requirements rather than on difficulty or skill. MD has high entry requirements, so even a bad one has status. Mom has low entry requirements so even a good one has lower status. There are other jobs like that, most of which involve working with people. Being great at a low entry requirement job is nearly always underappreciated – to strangers, or those who know you only slightly. Only those who know your work will ever admire it.
Of course, those are ultimately the people that count, aren’t they? The automatic admiration of a title is gratifying, but ultimately not very sustaining.
Great article! I’m a full time homemaker and, though I used to be a professional woman, I see the world a lot more as a mom! You are very right about banishing the idea that moms do nothing but stay at home. I have seen more museums, gardens, parks, beaches, aquariums, farmers markets and more as a mom than I ever did as a full time educator.
I guess if you think children are boring or a chore, being a “stay-at-home” mom could be tedious, but then, why did you have children to begin with? If you see children as fun, interesting little individuals who have a curiosity about the world the same as you, the possibilities for fun and intellectual stimulation are endless. Yes, you need to have other parent friends with the same outlook on parenthood, but there are lots of places to meet people if you try.
I found this article really interesting, because my experience (admittedly, in the Midwest), is that any woman who *isn’t* a mom is a no-status, worthless piece of cat-excrement, regardless of education, job title, professional achievements, etc. Any conversation with a new co-worker or neighbor ends immediately after I admit I have no children (too ugly to get married, too stupid to get knocked up out of wedlock). I could freaking cure cancer, and the obit in my hometown paper would read “Heather wasted her entire life doing absolutely nothing, and is survived by nephews and nieces.”
So I’m totally baffled by both the letter-writer, and Professor McKenna insisting mothers get no respect. Maybe y’all just need to move out of your “cosmopolitan” cities and to somewhere where you’re worshipped, just like I had to move to a city so I wouldn’t be ostracized completely.
Great article! Though this quote from Julie made me laugh: “Our society values motherhood and professorship differently. This is not because of some inherent inequalities. Simply, one takes more effort to achieve than another. Any human with two ovaries can become a mother (well, almost any), but it still takes a degree of effort to obtain a PHD.”
My husband and I have raised a blended family of 8 very lively, strong-willed, intelligent people who are productive, law-abiding members of society (including 4 who have served or are currently serving in the military). I also have to work outside the home, and am currently going to school part-time to finish a degree.
I have to tell you that even though my job and school take a great deal of effort and are both very satisfying to me personally, NOTHING has been more challenging, exciting, or worthwhile than raising children. I am so proud of who they are becoming and feel that they have been worth every sleepless night, every tear, every “sacrifice.” My favorite T-shirt says it all: “Motherhood is not for wimps.”
For those who do not have children: your lives are also important and valuable, and, I hope, fulfilling. So much about life depends on attitude rather than the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Maybe what we need to do is look beyond the label, celebrate those things we have in common, learn from different perspectives, and realize that we all have something to contribute.
WOW! Millions of kids being warehoused for the sake of moms career can now be grateful their mom is so much more than that. What is this,an outline for the upcoming Broadway smash,”The Icequeen Cometh”?
Well,I guess this attitude is better than abortion…I guess…though not as “cosmopolitan”. Man,I got the chills from this.Time to put on an extra sweater, or two. “Mommy, I’m so glad you’re happy being a professor! And thank you so much,perfesser, for making my buwoney samwich…EVWY SINGO DAY UV DA WEEK! Oh and, don’t forget to write.”
Luv you mommy dearest, oops, I mean, “perfesser”.Sawy.
Thank you for quoting, sallyo. (It’s Julio, not Julie.)
Becoming a mother and being a good mother are not the same. I have encountered numerous lousy ones, by virtue (if you call it that) of my profession. Many idiotic professors too… sigh
Kids are being ‘wharehoused’? Hmm, that’s nothing new. Years ago they were shipped off to farms or boarding schools or wet nurses. The days of ‘child centered’ families and parenting are upon us and within the context of civilization, a relatively new concept.
Sadly, women are still fighting off the 1950′s ‘little mother’ stereotype, where a child’s every developmental glitch is seen somehow as the mother’s failing to be loving enough, attentive enough, stay-at-home enough, etc.
God forbid a women should have other interests beyond the household and perhaps, want to be valued for other things besides the ability to nurture and wipe noses.
Parents are the experts on their children. We are the consumers of education and medical professionals. The professionals are too quick to forget that without us, they would not get pay checks. We are tax payers and pay for health care insurance and they need to be listening and respecting us more as we are in a sense their employers. It’s time that parents stand up for their children and address the things in our society that are happening to our children as we stand by and nod our heads and let the professionals diagnosis and treate our children the way they think they know is best based on their text books. Parents have an intuition that we have forgotten and need to start listening to. No one knows our children better than us! Think about it…when you hold another persons baby and the baby starts to cry, what do you do? We all (proffessionals included) automatically give it back to the parent. Do you know why? Because the parent is the expert of that child, and most of them do not have a degree…think about it….
What a truly fun writing
I could not think you are more right!!!
Admirable piece of writing..