Just over a week ago, I attended the Tribe conference in Franklin, Tennessee. It is a conference for writers and creatives and I had been looking forward to going for months.
One night, at the conference, while talking to a couple of new friends, we were discussing how it is more uncommon for women with small children to come to things like conferences. As a woman with small children, I think I know why.
Brené Brown writes in Daring Greatly about shame. She discusses in specific, the impact of shame on women (men too – but we’re talking women here).1 She writes about the triggers which commonly come up in the participants of her studies, and while the first one is interesting, the second one seems to be on my thoughts quite a bit more lately,
“The primary trigger for women… is how we look…We still feel the most shame about not being thin, young and beautiful enough…Interestingly motherhood is a close second. Society views womanhood and motherhood as inextricably bound, therefore, our value as women is often determined by where we are in relation to our roles as mothers or potential mothers…If you’re working outside the home, the first question is, ‘what about the children’. If you’re not working, the first question is, ‘what kind of example are you setting for your daughters?’…But the real struggle for women, what amplifies shame, regardless of the category, is that we’re expected by others, and sometimes desire ourself, to be perfect, yet we’re not allowed to look as if we’re working for it.”
And now I’m paraphrasing, or at least sharing what I took from her research and her book. We’re supposed to maintain a thin, beautiful body, but then have 20 babies.
We’re supposed to stay at home and work outside of the home, and somehow be setting an example while simultaneously not stepping outside the front door, knitting blankets, baking cookies, and earning six figures all at the same time.
For myself, I feel what I am dubbing “I said IF’”.
Wether you were born with a vagina or a penis, you were born with a pull on your soul toward something. It’s only that, as women, we may gladly follow the pull, so long as it means staying home, becoming a teacher, or a hot secretary. These are all wonderful choices, but they weren’t mine, and they aren’t for many.
Additionally, we may allow ourselves to follow the pull, but only if we do all the other stuff first.
“Well, Cinderella, I see no reason why you can’t go to the ball…if you get all your work done..”
“Oh, I will”, says Cinderella
“And if you can find something suitable to wear”
“I’m sure I can. Oh, thank-you, Stepmother.”
Drizella: “Mother, do you realize what you’ve just said?”
“Of course. I said IF.”
I stayed home with my babies for close to eight years, with some teaching at a local college sprinkled in here and there. In that time, I ran three businesses, from an in-home bakery, to selling oils, to making baby wraps (none of them brought in more than a hundred dollars in profit).
I imagined opening a yarn store, an alpaca farm, and an antique book store. I started writing three novels, and three blogs. I had a desire for doing more than raising children and maintaining a household, and I think it was pretty obvious.
Staying home was a beautiful gift, and I love that I had the time with my babies I know so many women (and men – let’s not forget how much they’d love to be with their babies too) wish they had. I’m not complaining. I’m just observing, now, as I look back, how nothing I did could keep me from trying to follow that tug. I wanted to create and inspire and this went beyond shopping and polishing the silver.
Now, I feel, oddly enough, through the overcoming of my chronic illness and writing about it, I finally fell into the momentum of the pull. But I still feel the “I said IF”.
Women will ask me how I find the time to write. I know they don’t mean anything by this, and they are probably trying to show me respect more than judgement, but the shame in me says “I bet her house is clean because she devotes herself to her family. Your kitchen would be just as clean if you had skipped your blog post this week”.
Or, I feel it with my kids. Friends, it’s time I finally admit it. I do not bathe my children daily. I’ve found ketchup stains on their necks on Thursday when we haven’t had ketchup since Monday. When I find things like this, or the homework due two days ago, I hear it again, “I see no reason why you can’t go to the ball…if you get all your work done.. but you’re not getting all your work done, are you?”
Taking the time to lean into the direction of the pull means I don’t get all the work done. I fail miserably, all the time, at all of it. But I’m finally ok with that.
The week before the conference, I worked an extra seven hours from home to get my case studies completed and paperwork entered for the schools I work in. I was also spending every spare minute trying to finish laundry and clean the house. But I still didn’t get all my work done.
We may feel the shame. I certainly felt it. But we get to decide if we listen to it or not. And sure, it’s probably a good idea to finish our work so we don’t lose our job, and we should wash the gross ketchup off our kid’s skin, but we are under no obligation to check off the full list before we go to the ball.
I wish this was as simple as a fairy tale and just as we give up and fall to the ground in tears, knowing we’ll never have what it takes to get there, a fairy godmother comes down and solves it all for us. It’s not how it works. But, we can stop listening to the “I said if’s”. It’s just as magical.
What have you been putting off that, when you do it, gives you the immediate internal head nod of satisfaction? The thing you play or sing or draw which melts your insides like a long sip of your dad’s favorite whiskey? Find it and do it and don’t bother with the “I said if’s”. And if your kid shows up with pudding stuck in their hair, because you decided to do something which propels you further into your purpose, then friend, let’s celebrate that sticky, wonderful mess.
When I was kissing my kids good-bye last week, I heard shame telling me I was not a good mother for leaving them to go to a conference. My mother certainly never left me when I was a kid. But then, I turned, and I grabbed my bags, and I walked out the door, and I drove to the airport, and I got on a plane, and I met so many people who were defying their own “I said if’s” and I was actually proud.
Let’s defy the shame and stand proudly as we walk into our purpose together.
References:
1 Brown, B. (2015). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. New York, NY: Avery.