Muddling Along Mummy wrote an interesting post recently about the assumption that everyone on the internet is just like you, in which she said:
But there are people I look at on the internet and I think ‘what?????’
Like the ladies on twitter who describe themselves purely as someone’s mother and someone’s wife – where are you? Where is your identity? Do you exist only as a reflection of someone else? And no I don’t tend to follow them.
I read that sentence twice, the one about people who describe themselves purely as someone’s mother and someone’s wife and called up my twitter profile with an impending sense of doom. Staring back at me from the sticky laptop screen was my description of myself:
Bedraggled thirty-something mother of the Pocket Dictator and her Dimpled Sidekick, wife of DH and slave to the Wonder Hound.
It appears I am one of those people.
The problem I have is that I am incapable of separating myself out from my dual roles as wife and mother: they form part of my identity. At the moment, since The Girls are 1 and 2 respectively, they form pretty much all of my identity. DH is lucky if he gets a kiss goodnight never mind anything else. My day is fully absorbed by looking after my children and the home we all live in. Even when I am not with them, I think about them, making mental notes about name-tapes for PD or innoculations for Dimples. At a very basic level, I assume that this is because they are part of me: for nine months I carried them around, growing them, feeding them and then giving birth to them. They have some of my DNA, so I am part of them too: we are connected by more than mere cohabitation.
The same could not be said of DH, since the thing that binds us, other than our deep devotion to each other *gets bucket to vomit into* is a piece of paper which sanctifies and makes legal our marriage. And though we are not bound directly by blood, we are indirectly through our Girls, and subsequently through our shared experiences of raising them and being exhausted by them. And it’s not just those experiences, but the ones that came before having children: buying our first home, learning to live with each other (which is far harder than one would think), trying to find a way through life side by side, determining who is best at dealing with finances (him) and laundry (me), choosing holiday destinations and the right pension. Planning our future together. He is the person I run almost everything past (excluding gifts for him naturally) and the first person I call when I am down or thrilled, or simply because hearing his voice makes me feel better. We overlap in so many ways, I’d be less whole without him. So he defines me too.
I didn’t go back to work, partly because I didn’t have a career to go back to. And partly because there always has to be one parent who can drop everything and pick up a sick child. DH’s schedule is unpredictable and oftentimes long, so that person had to be me. And I am more than happy to do it, particularly now that I have had 13 months to adjust and am beginning to find a little bit of time to be myself in: to paint something; read a few pages; blog. For me not to go back to work was a no-brainer rather than a decision-making necessity. And, when I am not grumpy, I am grateful that I can do it. It’s not because I want to be a sanctimonious “I sacrificed my professional life so I could raise my children, it’s the best thing for them” crap, since I don’t think that is necessarily what’s best for the child.
I recently wrote a Personal Bio for a position I’ve been offered as a writer. I must have started writing it dozens of times but found it hard to come by the words to describe myself without making reference to my family. So I gave up trying to sound like someone else, and wrote about myself:
Mamma to PD and Dimples;
Wife to DH;
Mistress to the Wonder Hound.I am a person, at least I once was. These days I have small children, so Mamma seems to be the best way to describe myself. It’s what I do: I cook, clean, change nappies, teach right from wrong and, if I have time, iron my husband’s shirts.
Of course the bit of me that isn’t utterly absorbed by the mundane, potters around in the kitchen baking, spends her spare hours on art projects (or crafting as it’s called these days) and chunters on wistfully about the old days whilst sharing it all online.
It’s life as I know it: I just wish it had more chocolate.
Do I exist only as a reflection of someone else? On the basis of my Bio, yes. But without my husband and children I would be nothing; I would literally shrivel up and die because they are my reason for living. So it makes sense that they would define me.
If you are interested in writing for Brew Drinking Thinking, then please fill out an application form. You can also follow them on twitter, or subscribe via the website.
Lovely post. I don’t think it is unusual to define ourselves by our families if our children are very small and we spend most of our time looking after them. In my case I am other things and I do have other interests so I am more than just their mother but sometimes I do find it hard to remember that sometimes!
I think your life sounds perfect. Too often I see articles about how the ‘burden of childcare’ falls on the mum. What rubbish! It is an absolute pleasure to bring up a family and I’m just pleased that my OH is the one with the career! As my kids get older I am doing a little more work and volunteering for LINk Maternity and Newborn Task Group but my kids will always come first!
Everyone defines themselves by their roles and when are children are little and they take up almost every second of our waking hours it’s hard to see ourselves as anything but a mama… I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. I do understand the point being made though; when we define ourselves by just one or two things we run the risk of losing ourselves.
It’s an interesting one isn’t it? By necessity, when you have small children they ARE all consuming. They DO define you – and to deny that is to deny the essence of who you are. And yet – you’re not JUST that – it’s a piece of the whole. And as all the mother stuff slots itself around the wife stuff, I find the ME stuff slowly emerges too – I haven’t been replaced, but definitely changed; absorbed and adapted and moulded around the mother and the wife, making ‘me the woman’. And actually I rather like that.
As I said on Twitter, it didn’t offend in the slightest, Muddling. I totally get what you mean about trying to find the you: I think I lost myself for the first year. I wrote this in response to my realisation that this is who I am. I’m just a different person to the one I remember being. Still sounds Muddled. What was that you were saying about great communication???
Thanks too Bumbling: I agree that i would still be me, childless or husbandless. It’s more that I can’t imagine not having them fill my life. It’s nice to be reminded that I am important in my own right though!!
Kelly its a great piece
I am really struggling with who or what I am and how the various pieces of my life fit together (one of the reasons behind the jigsaw in my blog header) and I am always worried that bits of me disappear and the ‘me’ in the middle is important to me
Being a mother is a great job and I think you do yourself down in what you say – you’re a writer, a communicator, you do all the creative things and all the family things too on top
Great to hear a different view and to help me understand how my view of things is very much tainted by my life (which I think is what I was trying to say in the original article that I hope didn’t upset you)
I don’t have time to think this through properly. But here goes…
I completely empathised until the last sentence. Mothering and wifing is what you do. Of course that shapes how you are. And that is fine.
But without them you would still exist. Imagine you had not been able to have children – you would still be you. Imagine you are in the position that I have recently found myself in – husbandless – you would still be you. You’d be a different you, in either or both examples, but you nonetheless.
And “you” is special. “you” right now is mamma. And that’s great. But one day those chicks will fly and you will still have your baking and your crafting and the things that make you you.
I don’t see an issue with you describing yourself as wife and mamma. I describe myself as mummy and by my job. But that’s because that’s who I am, what I do. There’s much more to me, yes, but that’s the shorthand.
But I do see an issue with you thinking you are nothing without them. That was just a different path. And you are important.
When I went for a pregnancy scan with my first baby I was amazed by the number of women who were presented at check-in by their partners who said something like, ‘My wife/girlfriend is here for her scan’. Eh? Had the women lost the power of speech? Being a mother is the most important job I do, but because I work part-time I also think of myself in other ways too, especially when with people who don’t know I have children, and wouldn’t be interested even if they did. Your life sounds wonderfully rounded and full of love, and there will be more time in the future to do stuff just for you. Ramble over – love your blog!