I
waxed lyrical about friendships on Monday. I
went mental about the Sunday Life article (Jacinta Tynan, you are not my friend) on Tuesday. It's now Wednesday and I've just remembered an encounter the other day that has made me wonder even more about us women-folk. Sorry if my unintentional Women Supporting Women Trilogy is starting to bore you. Bear with me.
I was stumbling up the steps one Wednesday morning with The Badoo under one arm, Cappers hanging off the other, carefully shepherding Maxi-Taxi and his friend The Slowest Boy in the World into their classrooms. The Professor, a full-time career woman and mum of one of Maxi-Taxi's classmates who has barely given me a glance all year, said something she probably meant as light and funny, but I considered to be condescending. She said "look at you, drowning in children! It's why I only had the one child*, so I can go to work and be a real person sometimes."
After I finished punching her in the face 57 times, I managed to point out that
actually (you arrogant bitch with the weird, flicky hairdo and boring corporate suit) I
am a Real Person with an almost-full-time job who just happens to like drowning in children as well.
She was shocked beyond belief and stammered something about good work-life balance before scuttling off to do Far More Important Things. But the satisfaction I felt at being able to
metaphorically pummel her senseless was very short lived. Why did I do that? I wondered. Why didn't I simply say that having lots of children to care for and spending as much time with them as I possibly can makes me a Very Real Person. The
Realist kind of person there is, actually. Why did I feel the need to shrug off the SAHM tag (one she clearly thought was derogatory which I absolutely do not) in order to make my point?
I'm a bit of a SAHM in Working Mum disguise, I am. I'm not sure how this comes about, but thanks to my trusty Blackberry, I do try to manage my workload and hours so that I'm able to do a couple of drop offs and pick ups a week, a couple of canteen duties a term and a reading mum session every month. WMG also pushed me to put my hand up to be the Class Mum for Maxi-Taxi's class (apparently the very first Working Mum to take on the job). In addition, I dress super-casual for a city girl so they're probably all thinking "she couldn't possibly go to work in
that outfit." But I think my biggest disguise is that I like hanging out with any kind of mum who'll have me and for a lot of Working Mums like The Professor, that just doesn't seem to be the case.
Now that I'm a Real Person with a job and all, The Professor is suddenly my new bestie**.
But the point is, I've infiltrated the SAHM camp, and I happen to know that they're a bit prejudice towards the Working Mum camp as well. They really are. I always feel just a little bit more WMG after a coffee with my SAHM lovelies. The never overtly spoken*** but
implied judgement is that I'm not
really raising my children or
there for my children because I
go out to work most days. A Real Mother stays home with the children. A Real Mother does the hard slog day in day out. A Real Mother. Ouch.
So I'm a bit torn between being a Real Person and being a Real Mother.
Truly I am. And I'm left asking: what is with the divide between "Stay at Home Mums" and "Working Mums"? I hate it. I don't feel it. I don't judge. I just think "whatever works for your family, whatever works for you" and I get on with bragging about the kids and bitching about the housework. What a wonderful world of mumming we'd cut ourselves off from if we only hung out with 'our kind'. It takes all kinds of women to be role models for our children and I hope I'm providing them with the right kind of balance. Not the "work and home" balance - but balance between knowing SAHMs and knowing WMs. You know, the important balance.
Have you noticed what I'm noticing? Do you think I'm being naive to think we should all be one happy family? How does it work for you?
* We will return to the Professor's 'one child' theory at a later date.
** Don't worry, I'm snubbing her nicely.
*** Oh, all right then, so ocassionally they just come right out and say it.
[Image by Ellen von Unwerth]
