A Funny Thing My Grandmother Said To Me

Now that I've told you about my grandmother's funeral and a little bit - a very little bit - about her life, let's travel even farther back in time ... no, wait ... this post is about something she said before she died (probably obvious), but after I ate all her tums. Okay, it's in the past. (I'm sure the Germans have a tense for this occasion.)

One of the last times I visited with my grandmother, she told me to "Always have a boyfriend on the side." When I told my mother that Grandma M said this, her reaction was "Why didn't she ever say that to me?!?" No idea.

Was my grandmother just telling me to live life and throw away societal norms and give in to my passions? No, not at all. This fact may shock you, but being a ventriloquist on the radio was not exactly a lucrative gig. I know, your mind: it is blown. My grandmother was a secretary throughout my mom's childhood. Given the fact that she was blind, this job garnered her a mention in an article. She wasn't, however, a proud feminist showing that women can have it all. No, she was a woman trying to keep food on the table and a roof over her family's heads.  Instead of thinking that skills and education were the way out of this predicament - after all, she had both courtesy of the Lighthouse for the Blind - she believed the answer was to have another man to fall back on and help provide. If something happened to your husband? Make sure someone was there to step in. My grandmother didn't want my mother to go to college or wear pants and when I transferred colleges and broke up with my boyfriend, whom my grandmother liked, I think she was concerned for my future.

My grandmother during her secretary days.

Unlike my grandmother, I am a feminist. I want my girls to have both education and skills.  When people talk about the Good Old Days when women were women and men were men, I'm not sure what they are talking about. Most women have always had to work, although in the days of cottage industries, not all needed to go far. We do our daughters a disservice not to prepare them for the real world.

Am I saying a women can't have a life goal of motherhood and staying home to care for their children? No. I have always wanted to be a mother and H and I made plans, so that I could be at home the majority of Q and Z's babyhoods.  If something was to happen, however, I have the skills to find work and, more importantly, a belief that I can take care of my family. I think that we need to make sure that our daughters are prepared for all possible problems and that none of them need or believe they need "a boyfriend on the side" to handle it.

What Q Did When I Said It Might Not Snow

She looked at me, stricken, and said, "But I want it to snow!" And I said, "I know, but it might be too warm and it might not snow." She stared at me for a few seconds and then walked over to her sister and did this:

Hugs make everything better. Z didn't understand what it was all about, but she didn't complain.

I don't Pinterest and that's okay

(Dammit - I just noticed that the Bloggess's most recent post is about pinterest and now I feel like it is going to look like I'm writing in response even though our posts have nothing in common other than mentioning pinterest in the title. I just really like my title, so I'm keeping it. I seriously doubt anyone would care, because, let's face it, she's the Bloggess and I have, maybe, ten readers on a good day. Hello, readers!)

A few weeks ago, the article Why You're Never Failing as a Mother made the rounds on facebook. The intent behind the article is obvious: don't feel bad about keeping up with the Joneses (how do you make that plural?).  The "Mommy Wars" have received a lot of coverage over the past few years and I'm not going to say that they aren't alive and well, because I'm sure many people have experienced them (or the fall out), but, in my experience, it isn't about stay at home moms against work at home or bottle feeders versus breastfeeders. It's about someone being a jerk and, to be honest, I'm pretty sure that person would be a jerk about anything, not just your or my choices on motherhood.

Yes, people have told me to sleep train my 5 week old, yes, people have told me not to feed her as often, yes, people have stopped me at the playground with (unsolicited) "advice" for how to help my non-crawling 9 month old crawl (Q didn't crawl until 10.5 months). But you know what? I never thought to myself, wow, you are so right, I feel so badly about my choices and you make me second guess myself. Nope, I just thought, "jerk" or "you're crazy."* (One time, a friend and I were at the Fra Angelico exhibit at the Met - I think it was that exhibit, she is an art history grad student, I'm not, and it was over 5 years ago - and we were examining representations of the dormition of Mary, which is an Eastern Orthodox, not Western belief, I believe. At least, my 12+ years of Catholic school hadn't mentioned it and I was confused and said, "I've never heard of the dormition of Mary." Well, a woman behind me interjected to tell me that I need to "read more." It turned out she was a big fan of Dan Brown - no, I will not link to any of his work - and firmly believed in a Church cover up about Mary. My internal reaction? "You're crazy." My external? "Oh, wow, thanks, yes, we'll look into that.")

How do I internalize the majority of unsolicited advice or critiques on my parenting? I don't. I just - in most cases - think "Jerk." What I'm saying is, if you offer me unsolicited advice or criticisms, I will mentally categorize you as a crazy Dan Brown fan who accosts innocent museum-goers and insists that they "read more" until they are as steeped in the crazy as you.

A better question for the Mommy Wars is not "why are women fighting amongst themselves/not supporting their sisters" but "why are women so willing to second-guess themselves?" And it isn't just about motherhood.

I have two little girls and I want them to be confident in their beliefs and choices.

Disclaimer: I am talking about unsolicited, unhelpful advice, not suggestions by professionals. Also, my mom loves Dan Brown. Furthermore, while I don't Pinterest, I love seeing all the creative efforts. My sister did EVERYTHING for her wedding, including making her own papier mache centerpieces and cake top. It looked wonderful and even made it to Style Me Pretty. She and many people are really talented and I am in awe of their and, perhaps, your abilities. But they don't make me feel like my mothering is subpar, since I have not one crafty/artsy bone in my body. They just make me appreciate your efforts all the more. You want to explain the origins of the undead to preschoolers? I'm your mom. You want to make cupcake toppers? I am not.

Z doing tummy time on a blanket made by my sister while wearing PJ pants ALSO made by my sister.  See? Crafty. Me? Not at all. But I reap the benefits.

*I am so badass that neither my parents nor H's liked Q's name when we told it to them when she was still in utero and their negativity did nothing to make me change my mind about it other than to think, "Why would you keep asking what we were going to name the baby, only to shoot it down as soon as we told you? Jerks."

Modeling My Natural Form

Also known as: you will never be alone in the bathroom again, so just tell yourself it is to help your children have realistic expectations and embrace their own bodies as they age.

Just keeping it real over here with my non-Smartphone photo

I'm not sure how well this will work towards helping their sense of self as they grow up, but it's not like I can keep them out of the bathroom or bedroom. Neither has a lock.

(1) let my girls know what a normal, female figure looks like: CHECK!

(2) do not make negative comments about my normal, female figure: in progress.

(3) do not stand in a dressing room bemoaning my legs as my little girls watch me, only to turn to them and say, "You both have my legs!": not yet by me, but pretty much every shopping experience with my mom growing up (and that's a lot! Oh, and my mom is 5'1" and never weighed over 94lbs my entire childhood and adolescence).