Titles

I had a conversation with a good friend of mine not too long about about titles. Not just titles, like Mr. or Mrs., the essences of titles and what they mean to our identity. My friend and I are both "stay-at-home mothers" which means to the outside world, sit at home and eat bon-bons. To other @home moms we are amazing, multi-tasking, dynamos that need monuments or metals for all the unappreciated, unrealized and unrated attention we get.

She was brimming with anger for the responses she had been receiving from people in her life. The disdain others, i.e. doctors, teachers, PTA, family members were giving her because staying at home was "all she was doing".

I laughed at that. Can you believe such malarkey? I can't! My back has never hurt more, my feet have never throbbed more, I have never been more exhausted and I never ever seem to be able to finish my projects. Gee whiz, I bet that's not a problem for people who have "jobs". Who have a title they can bank on.

What we realized in our lively discussion is that without a title to "bank" on (money in the bank), you really aren't considered a viable person in society. If you can't show your worth via income and a title, who are you? After you ask someone their name, don't you ask a person what they "do"? Because we all know that defines the person, more so with men than women, but what we do gives us a facet.

So is being a mommy enough? That is what we debated back and forth and what we both concluded...Hell No! At least not for us. I believe in being at home for my kids with all my heart, but does it fulfill me? Not entirely. That drives me to do other things to fill that part in me that needs more of an identity. Volunteering, creating, designing, doing. That way when someone asks, what do you do...I can answer, how do you mean? In my personal, professional, private, spiritual life?

I watched an interview from a well know journalist (name escapes me now), female, who quit her job to stay at home with her kids. She went on to write a very controversial article about how she loved her kids, but didn't really like them. Well, you can imagine the response that got!!! Oooohh...she was flamed! How dare she say that and what a bad mother she was. What she was trying to say was that, she loved her kids and wanted to be there for them, but they didn't entirely fulfill her. She wanted more, craved more in her soul. I could identify with her.

Ironically the people who are most critical are working mothers. Which I would have thought would be the most sympathetic or more empathic to stay at home mothers. But after watching a really horrific Oprah about the opposing sides, WOW, it blew my mind. I couldn't believe the amount of prejudice and disdain working moms had for at home moms. Made me wonder what side we were all on.

In my wondering I have hit upon a theory; we (moms) are so caught up in our kids and husbands and what their needs are, we forget ourselves. We forget we are and were interesting people before. Before we met our spouses, before we gave birth. We went to college, attended art shows, plays, concerts. We write stories, drew pictures, sang beautiful songs...before. We did so many things before we became "MOM".

We let "MOM" define us and forget that we have a name. We are more than so-and-so's mom, more than so-and-so's wife. We forget that we can be separate than our family. That we have an identity beyond them and separate from them, that it is all ours. But of course, that comes with a price. Guilt. And for some, it's worth paying. But for others, the alternative is creating a headstone for wonderful and dear women that this world should know.