Back when I was a person
On the impossibility of mothers as successful individuals
“Back when I was a person.” I said the other day to my husband. I was worn down by the day and slightly irritated at the never-ending pleas calling my name, Mom this, mom that. The actions my body executed were not belonging to my will but to the will of my children. My will was gone, and so, I referred to myself as a non-person and also made a nostalgic observation. “Back when I was a person.” meant something I used to do, an activity I had time to perform before I became a mother.
My day revolves around my youngest one’s naps. Or so it seems to, in my mind. I wait expectantly for her to fall asleep so I can finally do my things. My part of the day begins when both of my daughters are not around.
Except. Nap time lasts around two hours, and my waking day lasts around seventeen, which means my day does not, at all, revolve around her naps. My day, whether or not I like to admit it, revolves around the will of the two little girls that live in my house. What does, in fact, revolve around my daughter’s naptime is the satisfaction of my individual needs of well…being an individual.
I know it all sounds very reasonable. All people and that (surprisingly) includes women as well, have the need to fulfill their individual needs and aspirations. There’s nothing about that statement which could rise an eyebrow anywhere in the civilized world.
It’s been broadly, and abundantly, even stubbornly dealt with. Yes, women have a tough time. Objectification, harassment, violence, and disparity have become almost inescapable concepts when discussing females. Motherhood tops the charts with countless testimonies of women describing their very rough coming-of-terms with their experience becoming, almost always, the main caretakers (if not the only) of their children.
We get isolated from a society made for adults. We get lost having not been witnesses to many of the normal processes of motherhood. We get disproportionate expectations for things we never learned. We fail. Alone. And. We. Can’t. Escape.
Whoever we were before, in the philosophical sense of being individuals — an independent mind and its goals — becomes what I now picture as a scrambled set of mindless limbs serving the needs of others. Ironically all of this exhausting work is directed precisely towards the successful development of my daughters…as individuals.
Does this sound a bit off to anyone else? How is it that the mother must lose that which she has to teach her children to cherish the most?
Be your own person, pursue your goals. Don’t lose your freedom of will, and choice, and action.
Aren’t we teaching our own path of self-annulation and discredit? What is there for us to do other than comply and hope for the best? Perhaps put our daughters under warning: be yourself while you can because you’ll lose it sometime between your 20s or 30s.
Our current economic system is completely incompatible with the necessary processes of motherhood.
Personally, I grew up as most humans do. I assimilated into the culture that surrounded me. By my early teen years I had a very conscious intent of defining my own individuality by whichever means I could. I developed tastes in fashion and hobbies. I declared myself: a pretty woman with intellectual inclinations (which so many times proved impossible to execute).
That was it — the stereotype I consumed. And we all did, at some point or the other. We couldn’t live assimilated into this culture if we didn’t — even the rogue outcasts in capitalist societies must look the part, get into the costume that they had to buy with the capital they so criticize (I know I’ve done it).
I was very comfortable with my individuality. I did things that I liked. I went out until the break of dawn. I got trapped by book plots for days inside my house. I took spontaneous trips. By all accounts, I was a successful and accomplished individual. And I certainly looked the part.
That was all back when I was a person.
But then I had to stop myself and read back on my words. A person? And who was that? My individuality was defined by the indisputable fact that I was a woman. Motherhood somehow annulled my womanhood, which stood on what most young womanhoods stand: being nice and aesthetically pleasing. It hadn’t occurred to me, the tenderness or disgust (those are the main feelings encountered) that I caused on most people removed me entirely from the sexual objectification that I had known before. So, who was I if not wanted?
I was not. The pillars upon which my individuality stood crumbled as if they had been made of sand. Had I been passionate about beauty? I thought I had fallen deeply in love. I had felt the push of intention and knew I was unstoppable.
Except. It was all made of smoke.
Had I been a woman? Was I a person? Or what I had thought a person should be; a set of skills, of looks, of interests, of things to buy?
The egotistical pursuit of one’s goals in a capitalist society is utterly incompatible with the selflessness needed in the caring of children. The individual that used to be Me does not matter in those affairs, and it makes me twitch and fight, like when I try to force my baby to nap before she’s actually tired. It’s everything I have been taught should not happen: Be your own person, pursue your goals. Don’t lose your freedom of will, and choice, and action.
So who is mistaken in the first place? What we learn or what we should learn? Was being a woman, a mother, meant to be a lifelong conflict? Should I comply and disappear? Or should I teach my daughters, they too don’t matter? But neither do their classmates, their teachers, or their grandparents. If mothers must unlearn individualism, should we not start by not teaching it to our children it in the first place?
