The daily struggles of a sometimes SAHM
As part of my unit on Media Literacy that I teach to my high school students every year, I talk about gender representation and The Bechdel Test. For those of you that don’t know, there’s a detailed explanation of the test here, but essentially, a movie/tv show passes if:
Seems like a low bar, huh? Yeah, well a surprising number of films don’t pass. Continue reading “The Bechdel Test…For Moms”
I don’t like kids. There. I said it. I have never liked kids. I don’t even recall liking kids when I was a kid. I’m the youngest in my family. I never babysat. Until I had I had a child, I was never around babies for any extended amount of time.
To be clear: I love my kids. They are the bee’s knees. The cat’s pajamas. My world. But in no way does that obligate me to like other people’s kids, or as like to call them: OPP (Other People’s Progeny).
Now that I’m a mom, I feel like I am expected to gush over everyone else’s kids, to find them endlessly charming simply because I have one (or two) of my own. And that’s just not the case. My coworkers have kids. They’re fine. My sister’s friends have kids. Cool. H has preschool friends. Neat. The case just remains, if I’m completely honest with myself, I don’t like kids.
Continue reading “Today I’m Struggling With…Other People’s Kids”
I recently saw a friend whom I hadn’t seen in many years. She used to be my best friend and roommate, but life and my bad habit of losing touch had allowed us to drift apart. In the years since we’ve last spoken, we both have gotten married, I’ve had two kids, and now she’s pregnant with her first. When I was in her area, we got together and had breakfast with my family. The night before I was so nervous, because I realized I had nothing to talk about except my kids. I had no idea what else her and I had in common anymore. I feared to ask her the same dull, asinine questions that everyone asks pregnant women.
“How are feeling?”
“Are you nervous?”
“Have you picked any names?”
I hated having to answer these over and over when I was pregnant, but now I hated that I couldn’t think of anything better to say.
I have two kids and breastfed both of them. My son until he was one, my daughter for four months so far. Breastfeeding was never a question and was a very important goal in my process of becoming a mother. But — and I’m already steeling myself for the comments — I’ve started to wonder if that one choice has done more or less good for my relationship with my husband and my own personal identity as a woman.
Continue reading “Today I’m Struggling With…Breastfeeding and Emotional Labor”