The Princess Cake

Recently a "friend" of mine posted Facebook pictures of his son's birthday cake. The cake was beautiful, pink with flowers and a crown. It was a cake fit for a princess, however, not a prince. I watched the comments start rolling in, most of which seemed confused or uncomfortable. The father explanined that his son wanted a "princess cake." I like to consider myself very liberal and open minded, yet, I began to wonder what I would do if one of my boys wanted a princess cake. I found myself quite uncomfortable with the idea. I started debating in my head what would be the best parenting strategy. Did my friend do the right thing or was he encouraging his child to be gender confused? Was it responsible to get the boy a cake that might make his friends tease him? Would the kids even notice anyway or would they just be consumed with the concept of eating cake? Recently a book was published by a mother whose son likes to wear dresses and nail polish. "My Princess Boy" was written to break down the stereotypes and traditional roles we impose on our children. It's a book about letting a child be him or herself despite what society thinks and feels. I was still uncomfortable both with the subject and my reaction to the subject. I decided to broach the topic with a good and very intelligent friend of mine over dinner one night. We debated back and forth. She felt there was no harm in allowing a boy to be "girlie," pointing out that there is little stigma attached to little girls who behave like "Tomboys." She feels it's a parents role to keep a child happy and comfortable in his/her own skin whether that means that skin is in a skirt or riding a scooter. I agreed, but also pointed out that it's also a parents' responsibility to protect a child from a world that can often be too cruel and unforgiving. "If the world is going to be cruel, let them be. Don't let the child remember that mom and dad were cruel too. " With that my friend won the debate. If my child wants something that will make him happy, so long as he is not hurting anybody, it is my duty to see to that happiness. I would be lying, however, if I denied that I do silently cheer at the fact that my boys' favorite toys are their cars and trucks. I am, after all, a product of a very clearly defined era of gender roles. My boys' generation will most likely not even notice.

It's not Work When You Love It

When discussing my desire to be a stay at home mom I often get "You will go crazy" or "You will be bored.". These comments perplex me. For one, how does anyone else on earth know how I would feel, and two, how could you not want to spend time with your children? Perhaps it's an issue of calling. Everybody has a calling, whether they have found it or not. It can range from being a CEO to a surf bum, but we all have something that could make us happy to do day in and day out. I have floundered for years not knowing what my calling was. I think I have truly found it, and, much to the luck of my offspring, it's motherhood. Things that we truly love to do and excel at don't have limits. When you love doing something you can and will do it despite lack of energy, resources, and patience. The past two days my husband has been terribly sick with a disgusting (at least it sounds that way when he slams the bathroom door and pukes his lungs up) stomach bug. I have been left to my own devices with the kids. That has meant baths, and diapers, and dinners, playtime, cleanup from playtime, and putting them to bed all on my own (did I mention I still put in a full day of work and a commute at my day job?) I didn't think I had it in me to do this. I thought I would be too tired, but I have not only energetically, but happily jumped into my temporary role as a single parent with ease. I was so proud of myself at dinner time, with one hand feeding myself a salad and the other spooning soup to my boys who waited open mouthed like hungry little birds. Tonight I feel like a superhero, or should I say a mom because isn't that what we all do? We all jump in with two feet and without second thought when it comes to what is best for our families, and I am so blessed to completely and totally enjoy it too!

Nervous Nanny

By far the most challenging aspect of being a working mother, at least for me, is finding, and keeping the right child care. When my twins were in utero we started looking for appropriate places to leave them during the work day. Neither of us had the luxury of parents available to watch them for free so we reluctantly began the process of visiting potential daycare facilities and providers. What a disappointing venture that was. Other peoples' homes terrified me. From large unanchored mirrors screaming "fall on my child" to one woman who didn't know she could no longer put a baby in a drop side crib, each home was a plethora of one potential hazard after another. On the flip side any place we fell in love with cost the equivalent of a monthly mortgage payment. I ended up taking a longer leave of absence than I originally planned so I put the daycare hunt on hold and started looking again when my kids were 5 months old. We decided that, although daycare facilities would be great, we just couldn't afford it. I ended up placing ads on Internet nanny/ babysitting sites. After a couple of not so stellar applicants we found our winner. Months later we still have our care giver and she adores our children, however the pitfalls of relying on one person are many. We have become subject to her schedule and constant need to leave early or show up late. Luckily I have a good friend who is between jobs and always available to fill in, but sadly I don't know how much longer our current babysitter is going to last. My husband is interviewing for more and jobs and something is bound to come through soon, which will take away the flexibility he currently has (I have no flexibility at all). I may be on the hunt again, and paying a second mortgage after all.

Money Changes Everything

Tonight I write with a heavy heart. I've lost a friendship that was once very important to me. There weren't any fights or disagreements, or tearful goodbyes, just a gradual parting of ways. What drove us apart? Sadly money, quite simply because she has it and I don't. I don't mind that she has money, I have other friends that do too. I also have family with money. How it drove a wedge between my friend and I isn't so much that she has it, it's that when I met her she didn't, and when she got it, it changed her, and suddenly every conversation revolved around her (husband's) money, the opportunities it gave her, and little reminders to me that I didn't have money. I'll never know, because I'm too phobic of conflict to ask, if her digs were intentional, or if she never realized she was making them at all. At the same time she was experiencing this new country club lifestyle Mr. Timewarp and I were scaling back. He lost his steady job and was working for a couple of friends for very little pay (he's still on the hunt for a steady job). It was hard to listen to all the talk of what this friend was spending and how she decided to stay home instead of return to work after the birth of her child. I found her comments (including that a fellow friend's husband making a quarter of a million dollars a year didn't do "that well") self serving and obnoxious. (For the record I think $250k is a LOT of money and it would take far less than that even for me to live comfortably). She put down the place I had my baby shower, the fact that my car wasn't brand new like hers, and made me feel like I wasn't good enough to hang out with anymore because I wasn't a "stay at home" mom. My children recently had a birthday. Financially I could not afford a big fancy party so I kept it to a few friends and family in my small home. I didn't invite her because I feared it wouldn't have been a good enough party for her. Naturally I saw she just had a large party for her child and I wasn't invited. I guess I could expect that but it really drove home the fact that this friend and I are really done. She's now building a huge house, and though I'm sure coffee with her would probably mean endless chat about this house and how fantastic, and expensive it will be, part of me wishes we could get together like we used to. We used to have a lot in common. We both worked in the same industry and planned our families and were pregnant at the same time. Unfortunately,now that those families are here there's just no more common ground to stand on.

Do I Have To?

It's been quite a few days since my last post. The greatest reason is probably because March is the busiest month for me at work. Until this month is over I have tunnel vision, only thinking about my "9 to 5" life. It's survival, I have to do things this way or I'll go mad. So I've had very little to say, because I haven't allowed myself to think too much outside of the basics of getting through the work day and making sure the bare minimum happens at home so that my family is at least well fed and not living in squalor. In the back of mind though, is this blog, and my few, very few, readers. Every night I fall into bed and the little voice in my head says "Tammy, you didn't write for your blog again, you are never going to build a following. Those who do follow you are going to lose interest. You will let them down." This voice torments me over and over until I answer it, as I have with many failed endeavors of my past, "Do I have to?" The answer of course is no, I don't. I have to care for my children, I have to buy food, cook, clean my house, I have to go to work and provide for my family. These things get no argument from me. The sad thing is writing is what I WANT to do, but I'm so bogged down with non negotiable things that I have to do, that suddenly things I want to do feel like work. Even sex can often feel like a chore because all the have to dos are sucking the life out of me. So I apologize for my lapse in communication. There will be times when I have tons to say and seem to be posting daily, and others where I've appeared to have abandoned you all. Until the day that the "want to dos" can outweigh my "have to dos" please bare with me. I hold out faith that it will one day happen, I HAVE to. ;)

"Mompetition"

There are a series of cartoons on YouTube titled "Mompetition." They feature obnoxious animated robot voiced moms trying to one up each other in venues like neighborhood parks. I used to find them wildly funny. Now they annoyingly mirror what has become of some of my friendships since the birth of my children. The same gals I used to depend on for a fun afternoon out have been replaced by overachieving mombots interested in nothing more than bragging about their toddlers latest trick and making others feel like theirs are lagging behind. Most of these women, I find, are the ones who are of the SAHM variety. I conclude that they do this for one of two reasons. Either it's because they have the time to spend with their children and teach them all the things that working mothers can't OR it's because they have so much more free time on their hands to obsess over what their children are doing. I am in no way shape or form putting down SAHMs. I hope that someday I can join their club and spend afternoons at the park instead of the office. In all honesty, my schedule has been so busy that I rarely even talk to these women anymore, lest see them. There is a great divide between SAHMs and working moms. It's an area almost as dangerous as opposing political party members. I choose to avoid the landmine dance and avoid my former gal pals altogether. The only reason I know all of their children's amazing feats is through Facebook, which is the internet mompetition equivalent of the park. Status updates are about whose kid is doing what and when. Sometimes I'll even get asked if one of my children is walking yet or talking yet, they want to know what they are saying, how many stairs they can climb. It's not out of care or curiosity, because it is almost always followed with "Well Sammy is doing this," or "Too bad, Sally is." I try not to talk too much about what my kids can or can't do on social media. I don't want to make anyone feel bad or give anyone a chance to worry me because it's worrisome enough being a mother. So no, my kids don't really walk yet, and by the time they do say "mamma" maybe yours, from what I gather, will be finishing War and Peace...in Mandarin, but my kids can light up a room with their smiles, charm a crowd with their laughter, and know just the right moment to give me a hug, and, for now, that is enough.

Global Sized Guilt

My husband and I set a goal this year. We want to be able to leave our current home for a larger one. The same place that was once "too big" for the two of us has become quite cramped since our family doubled in size. With the spring time upon us we thought it would be a good time to think about testing the market, so tonight we started to throw away some useless, broken, or extra things from our basement in hopes that an opportunity to move will soon follow. As I added my last of tonight's trash to the pile I felt really sad. It's hard to let go of things, especially things that were once bright and new and important, and useful. What made me even sadder though is how much junk we produce. I always wonder about garbage and where it really goes, yet I don't find out, and I know books and articles have been written on the subject and the info is out there, because it will just depress me. Yesterday I wrote about the guilt we feel when we put our needs before our families', tonight I'm thinking about the guilt associated with putting our needs above the world's. This is another cross us modern women have to bare that our mothers and grandmothers didn't. They made their meals without thinking about what kinds of pesticides might be on the vegetables, cooked meat without thoughts of slaughterhouse abuse and mad cow disease, picked up the dry cleaning without fear of all the chemicals on the plastic covering, tossed out the trash without sorting it. They were blissfully ignorant. I cannot say that we know too much, we just know too late. And now their blissful ignorance is our burden, as is this guilt I feel over the heap of trash in my front yard, waiting to be taken to some landfill somewhere. I often think we will some day live on mountains of garbage, I just hope most of it isn't mine.

High Maintanance

I'm beginning to see how a woman who once dressed to kill can end up in mom jeans. When working, maintaining (semi maintaining) a home, and maintaining your children (if you have a man in your life this includes him) it's very difficult to have the energy to keep up with you. I find that my roots get longer and grayer, my gym ID gets swiped less often, and I haven't seen the inside of a yoga studio since before I got pregnant. As difficult as it is I suck it up, because, I am a vain women. I simply would never be happy in a pair of muffin topped mom jeans. So I often drag myself to the gym, the salon, and force myself to wear fitted jeans, full makeup, and a nice top even if I'm just going to the market. Finding time isn't all that challenging, I can get up an hour earlier, go to bed an hour later, watch my favorite tv show from a treadmill. Caffeine was invented for a reason, to give us the boost we need so a cup of tea comes in handy when I need that boost. There are time cures and energy cures. This is not my issue, the guilt is. Mom guilt, it's a concept I heard of but never quite understood, until now. Recently one of my toddlers went postal when "da da" went upstairs to shower. He hurled himself up the first step, which is as far as he has taught himself to go. I picked him up and tried to comfort him. He continued to scream for his father. My heart sank. Is this what happens when mommy works more than daddy? Has my need to spend so much time away from my kids made me persona non grata? Since this incident, every thing I have done for myself non work related has been tainted with guilt. My workouts, hair appointments, even solo trips to the grocery store are now rituals I feel bad about. I think, do I really have to exercise, get my roots covered, need to buy produce when there are two little ones at home who are missing me? I try to rationalize that a happy mommy means a happy child but I'm not so sure anymore. I tell myself that by exercising I am guaranteeing that I'll be healthier and here for them longer. I think that by getting those roots covered I'm helping to ensure that daddy stays attracted to mommy which also is for their benefit. Produce, well we do need that, and until the market has bigger carts that can contain twins, it's just easier on the days I can't get someone to help me to go it alone. My husband doesn't like going on family trips to the market, despite my fitted jeans and full makeup.

"Don't Hate Me Because I'm a Conservative Gender Roles Liberal"

Excited about finally launching a blog, last night I told 3 of my closest girl friends my alias and asked them to follow me. I wanted their opinion, and their vow to plug and promote me any which way they can. One of my friends came back with "Good job. It's very well written!" YES! Another said "I LOVE it! Nice work 'Tammy'." WOOT WOOT! However, though the praise was great, it was the comment from my third friend that my mind played over and over again. "The anti-feminist stance is disturbing." Pheeeeeeeew CRASH. This is a friend whose values and ideals I not only respect, but usually, until that instant, have always shared. Together we have waged passionate Facebook debates, ok more like attacks, on anyone who challenges our liberal (very liberal )ideology, we work in the same field, we support the same politicians, we even world travelled together. She knows I'm not anti-feminist, or am I? We debated our points back and forth for some time last night. She had some great arguments. I found myself verebally chasing my tail trying to convince her of my point, but she stood firm in her convictions and now I am questioning myself. When I was a little girl my father's friends would say "Are you going to grow up and marry a rich man." I would answer, "No I'm going to make my own money. " What happened to that little girl? Was she too lazy to pursue her dreams of fame and fortune? Was she too practical to chase her dreams of being an anchorwoman or actress because her mother drilled in her that any lapse of health insurance would surely bring on some terrible affliction she could never pay for? Is it all from being overworked and underpaid? Or is it something else? Is it a transformation that happened the second I saw my first sonogram picture, felt my belly move, looked into my newborn's eyes? I firmly believe that women are natural nurturers. We have to be, how else would the species survive if we didn't really want to be mothers? No one is going to stretch her stomach to watermelon size and tolerate nine months of heartburn without a strong desire for what lies beneath her taught itchy stretch marked skin. It's hard to endure all that and then, after 6 short sleep deprived weeks have a day care worker pry your infant from your hands so you can go to work while they take pictures of all your child's first with a disposeable camera you placed in the diaper bag. We are hard wired to raise babies, feather our nests, whip up garlic mashed potatoes and roast chicken (or tofu). In the same respect men are biologically hunters and gatherers. Have you witnessed the despair a man experiences when he loses his job? I have, and it is heartbreaking. My own nest has been in an opposite skit. I work the most hours out of the home and the hubs runs the vacuum and we both want to be in the other parties shoes because, I believe it is our nature. Do I think this means women shouldn't bring home the bacon and that men shouldn't wear dishgloves? Not at all, I think everyone should do what works for them. My husband and I feel that reversing back to traditional gender roles is what would work best for us. So to my dear friend, and you, my dear readers, I don't advocate anything anti-feminist. I am a firm believer in a woman's right to chose, have birth control coverage, use assisted reproductive technologies to get pregnant. I believe that single women should become mothers if they want to, that a married woman doesn't have to have children, that a woman who wants to work outside the home is just as entitled to as a man. Like I said, I am a die hard liberal, I just happen to be one who feels there is an argument in favor of conservative gender roles.