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in the past couple of months, i have begun to make some major changes in my life. i started to really think about who i am and who i am becoming deeply as i weaned my 1 year old daughter. for the past two years i have spent my life in baby-land: pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding. babyland in many ways is like an altered state of consciousness. my body housed and fed another living being. it is a beautiful exhausting heartbreaking space to live in.
weaning my daughter, re-viewing and re-formulating life is happening in conjunction with my first saturn return. when the old and unnecessary structures of my life fall away and i determine what is useful to who i am. it is a bit scary.
i have been thinking about the rebecca/alice walker sadness. it paralyzes me. i have loved both of their writings. and i am an unconventional black mom raising a biracial kid. her father's family have so much more resources than i do. and i struggle for time to write to read to think. i would love to drive a 100 miles away for a few days and write. *sigh* i also struggled with a mother who seemed to put her work and her reputation before my best interests. i would have loved to have a mother who could be involved in my life without making it 'about her'.
i wonder what my daughter will say about me? will she rail against the way i raised her? ahhh...i can hear her now: you took me to dangerous war zones, locked yourself away so you could 'create', never let me develop traditional bonds with my extended family, wrote openly about how you resented being a mother, referred to me as a 'parasite' when i was still in utero, refused to take me to a medical doctor even when i had a high fever for 2 days, fed me unhealthy food, never had a stable home and bribed me with a lollipop so that you could write an insignificant blogpost (that was 10 minutes ago). all of that before she was 2 years old...
so part of these changes i have decided to make are more writing time, healthier eating, studying more, more long walks, more bodywork, being a practicing member of an online spiritual practice community (still looking), and a more concerted effort to get my work 'out there'...which in another sense means i am committed to being an even worse mom.
right now my daughter has abandoned the lollipop and is throwing books into a box. no, now she is trying to crawl into the box. the lollipop is stuck to my leg.
i hope that when she is older she will not feel that i abandoned her to travel and write and love. but i am sure that she will...sometimes...because i refuse to be a martyr for my child. if i were then she would learn to be a martyr and i owe her more than that...
right now she is standing on the box, yelling no over and over again. when i smile at her she stops for a moment and then starts proclaiming no again.
5 comments:
dearest qbg sistalove. your authenticity and intention along with your motherly love will shine through to your daughter as it shines through your writing. i affirm your journey and choices to live as you are called to live. be well. be blessed. be at peace with all of you. light and joy, ananda qbg go green bap
your post makes me think about how different childrearing would be if capitalism hasn't made the nuclear family the model of perfection or the way people think to and are (not so) subtly coerced to organize their lives. what if there were villages where adults shared childrearing where mothers were important but so were other adults. where there was no judgment about your coming and goings because everyone understands that you need to do what you need to do and that children need many adult role models to reflect a myriad of ways of being in this world? What if that world was now?
your post makes me think of a close friend of mine that i visited last week. she is now the mother of 3 (5yrs, almost 2, and 8 weeks), and dedicates herself to being at home with her children while her husband pursues his career goals. she is a wonderful mother, but the difficulty in watching her is that i remember when she used to have dreams of being a young professional. once marrying, she put her dreams on hold, and now talks of returning to work part-time "someday." but i feel like she is often overwhelmed, bored, and resentful of her husband being able to develop a life outside of the family - even though she feels that this is best for her kids.
though i'm not a mother, i applaud your decision to not be a martyr and pursue your dreams. i can't offer any suggestions, but i will say that i've never resented my parents for choosing to work over staying at home with my sister and i or pursuing their career goals and dreams... i also wonder if it is possible for women to move away from feeling guilty for not putting our "lives" 100% on hold for their children...
yeah. i think that capitalism/ idealization of the nuclear family/ sexism has alot to do with it. when we were living in southern mexico with aza, the culture was much more open and relaxed towards children being a normal everyday part of life. and we lived in shared housing with (at first) strangers who quickly befriended us, and there were lots of hands to hold her and i could easily knock on someone's door and ask them to watch her for a bit while i finished whatever i was doing. even better people would often see that one or both of us were busy and they would wordlessly start playing with her or ask if they could watch her while we were busy. it was as if we were doing them a favor...i have missed that since we have been back in the states
Hey y'all...
I was just having this conversation...I dislike capitalism and the oppressive consequences it creates. I love being a mother and an artist...an organizer, doula and activist, I love the power of being creative and I also value the ability to share and/or design holistic places that support my personal and community growth. That being said, I feel enormous amounts of pressure and guilt sometimes when I'm engaged with myself at the peeks of creativity or self-care! I understand "black womyns guilt",a conflict of emotional distress and internal/external obligations that are informed by the idea that we can be "every womyn" or "everything to everyone"...
I have to be the best Soraya- so that I can be the kind of human I strive to be....the kind of mother, sister, auntie, lover, partner, organizer...who ever I desire. Guilt and isolation will have no healthy impact on the direction's that I choose to move in, the spaces I wanna share with folks. I try hard everyday to give "me" what I need. I work hard to affirm and enforce my boundaries while respecting those of others! It ain't easy- but their is beauty in struggle!
Peace
xoxo
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