9.26.08
I can do anything
I wrote a while back about a play group I found online and went to. It was women from the same neighbourhood and I kind of felt like I was crashing a party the whole time. They were mostly wives of professors from the local university and they were a little pretentious, quite frankly. Leila was one of the only girls there, so we were surrounded by cars and toy guns, action heros. Unlike our usual stuffed toys, baby dolls, pink strollers, toy farms and books.
The women were all older than I and talked about their adolescent years in the seventies and eighties. They talked about feminism, with a capital "F". They laughed and said how they would never be caught dead in pink, and to this day, aren't "girly-girls." I took insult to that, on a lot of levels. The most obvious being Leila, who was running around in a pink shirt with a pink barrette in her hair. She plays with dolls and strollers, she loves her soft pink blanket, she has no interest in cars or loud toys. But on a deeper level, I think that what these self-proclaimed feminists were preaching about is a big part of the problem in our society.
Somewhere along the lines of fighting for equal rights in the work place (which has not been achieved, but this entry is not about work force equality), our society has turned on women. Women are horribly objectified, all the time. A lot of the time, it feels like we have two choices: be like men or be scorned. Amid the conversation, one woman piped up with a novel fact: she had read an article insisting that women's fights shouldn't be against the colour pink, since it is just a colour, but against greater forces. And I couldn't believe that amidst this group of highly educated women, the focus was put on a stupid colour. Of course it's not about the colour. And furthermore, when we minimize the importance of the nurturing nature of women, we submit further to belittling our own strength. Taking care of others is our most primal instinct. If we take away what is at the core of ourselves, what is left?
When children want to take care of a doll, to feed it and wash it, to change it's diaper and put it to bed, aren't they merely imitating what they see their parents do? When we encourage children away from nurturing games, aren't we teaching them that taking care of the people they love (like the way we, mothers, take care of our children) is somehow inferior to jobs in the work force?
To say that women and men are the same and physically capable of the same things, to me, is absolute foolishness. We bear children, men don't. So doesn't it stand to reason that there are things men can do that we can't? It doesn't make one better than the other, it just makes us different. And so, to minimize the importance of "girly" toys (aside: I don't even like using gender terms when talking about toys, because I think we seriously need to get over the girls toys vs. boys toys thing, like, yesterday and just let kids play with the things they like) seems to continue leading us down this horribly steep slope of minimizing the importance of women in our culture.
I know that not every woman wants children, and by no means do I think that every mother should stay at home to raise her children. I'm simply saying that we should focus on raising awareness (or maybe common sense is a more appropriate noun?) about the importance of our (the parents) job.
Leila is inherently gentle. Sure she gets wound up and tears around sometimes, but her favourite games are playing with her doll (whom she has totally embraced since Alena's been born... big surprise) and reading books or playing quietly with her farm. And if I were to tell her that those activities are not as "good" (translation: desirable, lovable, worthy) as playing baseball or crashing her trucks together, what does that teach her about her own sense of worth? If what she enjoys doing the most isn't worth doing, how can she learn to love and embrace herself?
Every parent knows how intently their children watch what the do (hence Leila and her growingly intimate relationship with "Baby"), so are we not somehow limiting their choices by unconsciously teaching them that the occupations that make more money are better?
I have been to university, I'm bilingual, I've travelled a little. I have every intention of getting a Masters one day. And yet I don't know if I'll go back to work. I am intensely enjoying being home with my children, being able to decorate cupcakes in the afternoon before Steve gets home. So was my education all a waste? I used to think so. And then I realized that without the experiences I've gained, I wouldn't be who I am, so how could it have been a waste? What job in the world is more important than being there for my children?
Before Alena was born, I had this underlying sense of having to justify myself. Two kids in two years, only working part time, I had planned on being somebody by now, or at least well on my way. And now, my days are more full than I knew was possible, I'm busier than I've ever been before and I couldn't be happier. I'm also stronger than I've ever been. If I never go back to work, then I don't go back. If I want something else on my plate that keeps the flexibility of the life I want, I can volunteer, I can join committees in my community. Or maybe next spring, I'll be ready to go back, and maybe it will be full time. The point is, I can do anything I want to.
Being a mother has given me a way of finding strength within myself I never would have imagined possible. Being a mother to Alena has proved to be not nearly so paralyzingly frightening as learning how to care for Leila, and for that I am intensely thankful. The past two years have been the most challenging, the most emotional, the hardest and hands down the most rewarding time of my life. And so everyday, I tell myself, I gave birth. I can do anything.
wunderwuman at 12:54 p.m.