Back when I was in university and could think – you know before the three latchlings sucked all my brains out through my boobs – I had a special interest in female autobiographical narratives. If it hadn’t been for falling in love and deciding to start a family and the whole scary looming student loan debt I had to pay, I would’ve done my Masters degree in it.
Yes. Those were the days.
Apparently, I do still retain some ability to think, despite the inane nursery songs running through my head on loop that are disrupted only by a child screaming that there’s poo somewhere other than in the toilet.
So, I was thinking about the idea that I was going to write my thesis on. Namely, women (or those gendered female) write autobiographies and autobiographical narratives during a liminal, or transitional, phase in their or their character’s lives, whereas male gendered autobiographical narratives tend to be more of the memoir style – written at the edge of completion of their “life’s work.”
Gobbledygook, I know. But man I could spin that.
I was a master at transforming gobbledygook into long footnoted essays that usually earned As. Now I’m impressed if the homework I help my son with in Grade 2 gets us a solid B.
Hard to believe that student life now has bearing. But it does.
I was thinking of all of this because as a work-at-home Mom I think I might have this liminality pretty much down pat. I am neither working mom nor stay-at-home mom. I am neither career woman nor housewife. I work in the same place I play, live, and meet the needs of others and there is no separation between those states: they all just bump against and intrude upon and destroy each other.
The interesting thing here is that motherhood in general tends to be like this. In Jungian philosophy, liminality is described as part of the process of moving from disorientation to integration. That chaotic, broken down phase where you’re neither here nor there and have no clue where you want to be is essential to making “whole” again – to finding a sense and purpose in life.
Is there any better way to describe motherhood?
So the next time your older kids are flinging cheerios at the ceiling fan while you’re simultaneously nursing and changing the toddler in the midst of finishing up a conference call and you feel like you’re going to have a breakdown, give ol’ Jung a nod. And thank your kids for being your tricksters and recreating your life for you. God knows where we’d be without them.
About Dara Squires
Dude. This post made me want to laugh and cry simultaneously. Because you put your finger right on the pulse of what I’ve felt ever since I became a mom. I love my kids and I love the new sides of me I’ve been able to explore being a mom. But I also miss being able to be a human in my own right and have thoughts that go beyond “what is the best way to remove pee smell from mattresses.” You are a genuis Dara and I love you. xoxooxoxoxo
Twitter Name: coolwhipmom
No, no, not a genius – just able to spin gobbledygook. That’s what an English degree is for, isn’t it?
But I’ll take your praise and raise you a “you’re pretty.”
Twitter Name: ReadilyAParent
That photo looks like my house, and I don’t even have small children anymore. (Where are the spider webs though? ;)
Love the post; rockin’ the liminality. . . .
Twitter Name: feralchick
Now that could be a great title for a book….
Twitter Name: ReadilyAParent
PS I was also gonna say that you could’ve taken that pic in my kids room. We have that exact same Walter the Farting Dog book, Sponge Bob doll, yoga ball and well the mess looks quite familiar too. Just add about 8,543 pounds of dirty laundry to yours and our kids bedrooms will be twins.
Twitter Name: coolwhipmom
Take an A Ms Squires. Please have all that poo removed ready for next week’s seminar.
Twitter Name: pocketropolis
What, but the poo is a postmodern deconstructionist statement about the …umm…yeah it does kind of smell, doesn’t it?
Twitter Name: ReadilyAParent
I really needed to read this right now.
I am not a work-at-home-mom. I have been working outside the home for a few months now. I enjoy my “grown-up time” each day. I get dressed in nice clothes, put on make-up, and (usually) leave the house unscathed. I don’t eat breakfast, but I don’t end up covered in a small human’s poo between the hours of 8am and 5pm.
I am, however, working in a field *entirely* unrelated to my education in order to keep the bills paid and keep my family together, and I, quite literally, am the lowest-of-the-low: every single person I work with makes more money than I do. I have two graduate degrees. I have been told by very well-respected professors in both fields to publish specific pieces and to pursue PhDs. For now, though, I’m neither here-nor-there — I’m just going through the day-to-day until I (we) get where I (we) want to be. Sometimes, though, the distance from where I am and where I want to be, both as a professional and as a mother, seems so very great. Like an uncrossable chasm.
Thank you for putting a name to, and a (positive) spin on, this experience for me. To name something is to arguably take ownership of it. I am in liminality. I am moving. I am growing and coming together. Even when (yet) another door has closed, I can look past the seeming disintegration and see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now if I can just get to it without breaking my neck from tripping over all the toys and laundry!
Twitter Name: LDMarshall
I’m the spinmaster, babe.
It’s true – I know when I worked in literacy we referred to pregnancy and early motherhood as being “teachable moments” in an individual’s life. In other words, it’s a time in your life when you are both realising that you need more resources and seeking to grow and “improve” yourself.
I imagine everyone goes through these growing pains, kids or not, but we parents are more battle-wounded and therefore tougher, in my humble opinion :-)
Wanna have a laundry party?
Twitter Name: ReadilyAParent
Hellz yeah! As long as your laundry parties include wine.
Twitter Name: LDMarshall
A party – of any kind – without wine just isn’t a party, is it?
I might even have some wine stains too. Damn kids always forget to pour mommy’s wine into a sippy cup :)
Twitter Name: ReadilyAParent
Nicely spun, Dara.
Aww thanks Michael!
I’m touched that you read it…..do I get an A?
Twitter Name: ReadilyAParent
Awesomeness, Dara. Did I ever tell you I was on my way to England to start a masters in 17th century studies, with a focus on eroticism in English poetry of religious conversion, before I got pregnant with Bonnie? I’m not even making this up. Hooray for the spin-masters!
The weird thing that’s happened to me lately is that I’ve come to the conclusion that I actually am a housewife. I know, for a dyed-in-the-wool feminist of our generation, it’s like admitting you’re, I don’t know, secretly a member of some right-wing-nut-party. It took me ages to figure it out. But I’m so much more content now that I’m not trying to work and raise kids at the same time, in the same place, which for us resulted in screaming, ignored, bored children and half-assed work getting done for virtually no pay. (Arts admin jobs. What the hell?) It was not working. At all. Luckily, our cost of living is low enough (low mortgage, lots of resources in town, kids with no major expenses) right now that we can slide by on Mark’s work. We don’t have a cent to spare, but we get by. I’m actually finding it really liberating. But – and this must be said – my idea of a good time is labeling food for the freezer, mending holes in the kids’ clothes, and getting three meals out of every Sunday dinner. So this is kind of my dream job. Since there is economic power in doing these things, I am able to consider my housewifery as a financial contribution. (I believe it’s Erica at Northwest Edible Life who calls this stuff “negabucks” http://www.nwedible.com/). If I were someone who had a different idea of how they would like to spend their days, I’m sure it would be stifling (as stifling as it is for me to be behind a desk for 8 hours a day). But – who knew? – I freakin’ love it.
All this to say that I think, for the first time in my life, I’m actually *not* in a liminal space, and it’s at once really weird and kind of cool.
I don’t think being a housewife is in any way contrary to feminism. I think feminism is about rejecting that there is one right place for every woman- some will best thrive as caretakers of the home, some as primary breadwinners, some as a combination of domestic and workplace responsibilities.
I’m someone’s wife and someone’s mom and someone’s support staff person and someone’s weekend religion teacher. I haven’t really identified what my role is on its own, without being defined by whose sphere I exist in.
Twitter Name: MamaKaren
That’s just it. As long it’s something you love doing, and a role you’ve taken on of your own volition, it’s for sure a feminist act.
So many women I know are in the work force because they “have to” be – not because they love what they do, or even necessarily for economic reasons, but because they’ve been raised to value themselves based on their careers, and because their husbands/partners/whatever would never entertain the option of “letting” them stay home. These women come home at the end of the day and still have to do all the housewife/mom stuff, with no thanks, acknowledgement, or negotiation about sharing the load. *That* is oppression.