Taking selfies so I can choose a featured image. First attempt: looking thoughtful 
Pretending to smile at someone like we’re having a fabulous conversation 
Deciding that maybe the most important thing to show is the size of my coffee cup. #jarsofdust
Question: What didn’t I ask you that you would have thought I would have asked? What didn’t you get a chance to say?
What questions didn’t I ask? A dozen that I can think of. Hundreds that are waiting in the deep recesses of my brain to be thought of. For the time being, read on.
Answers:
1. No I think you got everything.
2. I think you covered everything.
3. I would have thought you would have asked me about advice I would give to certain people on certain things. I think that’s really interesting to hear people’s advice because everyone comes from such different backgrounds and different marriages and different kids. There’s so many elements between, you know, the relationship with the spouse or work or all these different things. The balance. I think a big topic of conversation, especially in my world, is the juggle— the balance— work/life balance. That topic comes up almost every day in my life with people. So talking about how motherhood affects work, how you identify yourself— your own identity and how motherhood affects that. Most people have had kids in their late 20s or 30s so you have worked— you’ve built some career— how children affect that. Something that you identified with for so long, that you’ve worked so hard for, and how motherhood affects that. That to me is a very big topic of conversation that should always be addressed because it does affect it for anyone who had kids a little bit later.
Unfortunately today, it’s 2019, you have to accept the fact that it ain’t fair. It’s just not fair. It’s all gonna fall on you. The men cannot have the babies. You have to have the baby—that’s just how it is. You have to be pregnant, you have to have the baby, you have to recover from it. You’re in charge of that and no one can change a damn thing about it and you have to accept the fact that it’s basically like working while you are sick: you are not at 100% during that pregnancy— you’re just not— and you’re certainly not at 100% after the pregnancy and your priorities change and things change and things shift but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road. It doesn’t mean its the end of your career. Careers don’t have to be linear. There are options out there if you want to switch gear or you want to take your career down a few notches there are options. You just have to explore them. It’s not all or nothing anymore.
And here’s the other thing I like to talk about because people don’t talk about it enough— and some people will get mad at me for saying this but not many. My opinion, and I think the opinion of many other people, is that you cannot be a great CEO, a great mother, a great friend and a great wife all at the same time; I just don’t believe that. Something’s gotta give. So if you’re the CEO— and that’s an extreme— any sort of big, big major job that’s very demanding and very prestigious— there’s no way you’re also the best mom in the world. I’m sorry, you have to travel. You can be a loving mother but you’re certainly not the most hands-on because it’s impossible. Oh wait and there’s a spouse too. And that person needs your love and attention and a date night and, you know, compassion; and he’s had quite a day also. Unless he’s the stay-at-home dad and that’s another dynamic. But the point is you can’t be it all so something’s gotta give and you have to make choices sometimes and when you have small children, which one’s gonna give? Oh wait and then your girlfriends want to hang out too and you don’t want to lose those friendships so there’s all these things pulling at you. So for people who think you can lean in and have it all, I honestly think it’s bullshit. I don’t believe that at all. Sorry, I know that book sold a lot of copies. I’m sorry. That only works for a very narrow kind of person. I’ve been in the corporate world for a long time. I have my own business; I know what’s what. The women who are in their 40s in big time jobs— they are not the same types of mothers that they want to be. They feel guilty all the time. There’s only so many hours of the day. Oh wait and you have to also throw in self-care like working out. But it’s all a balance. People constantly ask me— I don’t know why they ask me this— it’s really interesting, “are you working, like, part time?” I’m like, I have a full time business; this isn’t a hobby— it’s full time. But it’s my version of full time and the hours are spread out. My older son’s last day of school is on Tuesday and I want to be there to pick him up and that’s in the middle of the day. So I blocked out three hours of time in the middle of the day but I’ll catch up either that night after he goes to sleep or I’ll catch up the next day.
I don’t want the time to pass and I don’t want the day to come where I look back and it is too late. I never wanted to regret not trying to create something, to create a legacy, to create something that has meaning and that has meaning to me.
Not everyone feels this way; this is just me. I always say to my friends who are stay-at-home moms: I wish I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom because I have the privilege, if I wanted, to be a stay-at-home mom— to be able to do that— and I don’t want to be. I sometimes feel guilty because I don’t want to be but at the same time I don’t feel guilty. As it is now, the time I have with my kids I enjoy because I appreciate it. Because I have other things going on and I work. But I think if I were a stay-at-home mom I would not feel as appreciative of the time I have with them and I don’t think my marriage would be as strong. And eventually, by the way, they go to school and then eventually they leave and then what? That was always my fear – that time will come so fast and then what am I doing? Then what am I doing with myself? So. I think this is a common conversation that people have. Men don’t have to have these conversations, but women do.
4. What might be interesting for a book like this is to talk about how motherhood might maybe affect professional life or career development. Maybe not?
5. I don’t think there’s anything else I was thinking you would ask. I really didn’t know what we were doing. Is that okay? Anything else? I feel like once this baby comes I could have a lot more things to say. I mean I just hope it’s healthy. But if it’s not it would be a whole other chapter of my book.
6. Do I like my kids? No I’m kidding. How do I— maybe not every mother feels like they need to escape motherhood— but how do I escape motherhood when I need to? Because I definitely need to. And that is just hiding somewhere. Going to yoga. And also I would say, you know, how has my husband’s approach at being a father affected my approach at being a mother? I think there’s a misconception sometimes that men don’t pull their fair share and that’s a very antiquated concept I feel like. I think it was true in the Baby Boomer generation. I think this generation of dads, at least from what I’ve seen, but personally and around me, dads are really pulling their weight at home. And I think thinking about being a parent when I was young versus what that has turned into now, it really is a team effort.
It’s funny. It’s more so about women’s natural ability to organize and prioritize maybe. That was one of the biggest points of contention between my husband and me when we first had kids it was— from the Break Up— “I don’t need you to do the dishes; I need you to want to do the dishes.” We want not only the physical labor to be unburdened but we want the mental labor that’s required to do all these things like the Christmas cards or— we have not yet sent out the we’ve moved cards— or the medical forms for camp and little things that get piled up. I’m trying to shift it in that direction but also, and I think about this too: when we first started living together I had a condo and I just didn’t want to be a landlord anymore so I moved out of my condo and we rented it out and I was like, yeah I want nothing to do with this. Here you go. And now he handles that and he handles all of the finances and he handles all of the, you know, when we are finally ready to sell our house he’s going to do all of it. So I forgive him a little bit. I also understand that he’s got his own other things that he’s worried about that he’s better suited to do. So if I have to tell him sometimes, “hey, you have to clean out the garage” it’s fine. But it is a little frustrating because I’m like can’t you just read my mind? Just read my mind. Just get it from in there please.
If I say to my husband, “I’m going to hot yoga and you can’t stop me like, bye, peace out—” I used to worry about well what is he going to do with the kids? Is he going to feed them? And I’ve gotten to the point where— well the kids have gotten a little older and they can say what they want— but like I just go. In fact I just go a lot. When it’s my mom or my husband’s mom or my husband I’m like: figure it out. If they’re hungry, they’ll tell you. Just give them some water. Just make sure they don’t dehydrate and we’re good. So I’m a little less neurotic about micromanaging their things. My mom is not. So funny story. My mom had something where she couldn’t be with us for a week so my husband’s mom stayed with us for a week and got them off to school. My mother made a list: “She will only eat x, y and z” and she made a whole list. And do you know what I did when she left? I threw it in the garbage. And I’m like to my mother-in-law: you got this. I’m sure you’ll know what to make them for lunch. If they don’t like it, they won’t eat it and they’ll eat when they come home.
It was fine; everyone was fine. The funny thing about my mom— she spends every single day with the girls but they like what they like because she manages it for them but my husband’s mom has a completely different way of doing it and she does different things and I can’t let my mom impose on her or me. Because my mom’ll tell me, “this one doesn’t like x, y, z” and I’m like, really? Well she’s gonna eat it or she’s gonna starve. So that’s been interesting. People will figure it out. I said to somebody because we were having a conversation about are we going to hold a kid back? I will face that challenge or that decision with my younger daughter because she was born in September. “Are you gonna hold her back?” “I don’t know, I guess I’ll see when I get there.” “Because there have been studies done about x, y, z” and I’m like, our kids will be fine just by virtue of the fact that they’re our kids; we care— we care so much— and this decision— even if it turns out she has a bad time in second grade because of something— I’m not going to go back and be like it’s because I didn’t send her early or late or whatever. They’re gonna be fine.
The other thing I’ll tell you I think is funny. I was talking to a cousin of mine. Long story short, she was very coddled by her parents when she was little and she and I are the same age. It sucks but she went through a rough time. She got married to someone she shouldn’t have gotten married to, he left her, she was like depressed for a long time, she went through bouts and bouts of depression and now she blames her mom because her mom always coddled her. And I’m like— all of our parents did the best they could; they all did what was right. You can’t have resentment towards her because she didn’t let you fail or didn’t let you do this. Now you’ve gotta get over it because you’re 38. But I did say my mom was always very self-centered when she was young. This is a new mom that I have now; she’s amazing to her grandkids. To me and my sister she was kind of never present. Not that I’m throwing her under the bus or anything. She was cool and she was strict but she was not present all the time. My dad did a lot of the parenting, a lot of the cooking at home. But I said to my cousin: you know, there’s something to be said for a little bit of neglect. We can’t go and micromanage our kids lives. If my older daughter gets a teacher that’s not highly regarded I’m not gonna go in and fight for her to get the right teacher because you know what? It might do her some good. A little neglect goes a long way. And I hate to say it that way— it sounds so dismissive, but kids’ll figure it out. None of this is going to scar them for life. Everything will be fine.
Perfectionism was a childish— something childish I held onto for a long time. I still try to do things really well; I still bring my best. But that notion that I had to be perfect to other people is what I let go of. Always, all of this comes with forgiveness of myself. Am I always going to do the right thing? No. And I just have to be okay with that. I forgive myself for yelling. Like this morning. My older daughter is very rigid. She tried on three different outfits even after we picked an outfit last night to go gymnastics camp; she didn’t like it because it was a tad big. And I lost my mind and I yelled at her; we got into a huge fight and she was crying and it didn’t go well. Later I’ll apologize. But I didn’t handle that well. But then again we’re all trying to get ready in the morning and it’s gonna go crazy so I just have to forgive myself for it. Or, like, I work a lot and I travel a lot and I have my younger daughter that says, “Mommy, can you play with me?” And I can’t because I have to get on a conference call or I have to leave or I have to do something and we’re all just trying to do the best we can so I try to forgive myself often. And maybe that line about neglect is part of me just rationalizing that for myself, but I also do believe it. I do believe it. I hope this was helpful.
8. I love your questions. I really love them because I feel like I never had the time to reflect on this motherhood— never. You just have to keep going; you don’t even have time to think about it, to reflect on it. And really this should come back every once and awhile. I think you should go back to these women, to me, in 2 years because it will change and the story will only be better.
9. When are you most stressed? Or when do you feel like you’re lacking as a parent? Right? Some negative stuff. You asked a lot of positives. For me, when I feel like I can’t be there for them when I want to be there. Like last week was end of school stuff so you’re making a priority to be at the school event, the party, but it’s also the last day of gymnastics and there’s a parent thing that day and the last day of swimming also in that week and you just can’t make it all; that’s when I get really stressed out because it impacts them. And I see it.
So I pick the ones I can go to; I try to make sure my husband can go to something or the two of us are at the most important things together. Because it’s also hard when you go to an event and both parents are there and your spouse isn’t. And we just try to do our best.
Most dads in this town work, some moms don’t. So they expect that the dad won’t be there to all these things but they expect that the mom will be there. So I’m constantly reinforcing that you know: Mommy works. Mommy has a great job and it’s a good thing for Mom and for you and Mommy will always get to as much as she can get to. And it might not always be every time but I will make it my job to get to the most important things.
I’m so disappointed. A couple of weeks ago I couldn’t go to an event because of an important meeting and the meeting was just not important. And we walked away from it— I was just devastated. I was like, why did I waste my time with this? When I had my first child one of the ladies I worked with said, “every day you’re going to have to leave at the time when you think is right for you and other people won’t leave at that time. And you need to be okay with it and walk out the door with your head held high.” And I’ve very much stuck to it. But even today I leave for the 5:18 train and nobody else is leaving and I have to be okay with that. So part of it is just changing your anxieties and guilt and your feelings and perception of other people. Not caring. Because your kids are most important.
My sister once said to me when I was thinking about quitting, “you don’t have to not work; right now you have to work less. So you need to find the right situation where you can work less than what you were previously doing” and that’s hard. It’s like finding the right fit and the right job. And that can’t be both parents. Because somebody has to bring home the bacon. She also always said, “you’re never going to get to everything; you have to pick what’s most important.” so those are two rules I follow and like you said, just forgiving yourself. It’s hard. It’s so hard. It’s hard for everybody. If I were home it would be just as hard. I can step away from motherhood so much every day and be in my previous life and enjoy that, right? Like all the adult interactions and the brain work and everything. And I couldn’t do that if I were at home and that would be really hard on my mental strength.
10. Oh no! Not necessarily. I think they were great and I think it’s a great initiative for so many reasons. I think the whole celebrity culture thing— I don’t understand why people take advice— because they’re not living in the real world and you’re only seeing one side of how they do things. They could be a horrible mother. The picture doesn’t show them with all the other things that are going on in their lives it’s just a picture.
I guess other things that come up, I don’t know, I think we touched on a lot of good things. One thing I notice is that there are so many misconceptions that come up about motherhood. Some people think it’s so easy, you know, I have gotten a lot of that at work. You know, you can just do this assignment and it’s no problem and they don’t appreciate that I’ve done this assignment while there’s a kid screaming in the background and there’s this going on and craziness happening around me. There are people who don’t appreciate motherhood and it does always take me by surprise but it does exist and I think that that’s something that I have to learn to respond to or sometimes maybe just not engage with. I have seen things happen with moms being sort of shamed and that always makes me so uncomfortable. But there still is that undercurrent with women where there is a lot of mom-shaming that goes on. The kid is screaming in the restaurant and another person complains and says things like your kid is only cute to you. I’ve heard things like that. I think that’s so messed up. I just think there has to be more tolerance in general in the world. I think maybe it starts with— maybe that’s something mom culture can drive. Let’s be tolerant. Let’s understand there’s a lot of work that goes into being a mom and just appreciate and value them. Show some respect while you’re at it.
I’m so happy to be in the world of moms. I always wanted to go over to that side. And it’s like I do feel like now an automatic kinship with someone on the street who’s a mom with a child who is having a tantrum in the middle of the street and I’m like: oh I feel your pain. And I do feel that sympathy for the child that’s crying. I hate the sound of a child crying. It’s the worst sound in the world. I still go like a radar to that child anywhere in a five minute radius of me I will find them and I will zero in on them. And it’s so rewarding to be in that world and I get so much joy from it and I hope to have one more. We’ll see.
11. Not really. But I think the society puts a lot of pressure on being— there’s this whole term of good mothering. That should not be in a part of anybody’s dictionary. I think every mother does the best. Every mother is a good mother. There are sometimes there are circumstances which, you know, things happen, but I think every mother is a good mother.
12. Mom: I thought you did a great job of covering all the aspects of motherhood. I couldn’t think of anything else. First of all your openness, and you’re very warm and it’s easy to talk to you.
Daughter: I think your questions were open-ended enough that people could really tailor them to their own experiences. I think that’s important because there is no singular maternal experience. I think there’s things in common: how do you structure your time, always feeling interrupted, tired, whatever. But I spend too much time looking at mothers’ responses on the internet and sometimes I feel like they must be raising a different species and sometimes I feel completely recognized. So I think you did a good job of being able to include mothers with a lot of kids, one kid—
Another thing. I think it’s important. I was very stressed out when he was born about bonding. I was very worried that he would not bond with me and I think maybe one thing I would tell that lady in the elevator is like: don’t get in your head so much about what the research says it takes for a baby to bond with you. You’re the only mom he’s got and there’s a million ways to be a mother. So stop fretting about this chemical reaction that you have no control over anyway. I was so worried I was like, he won’t bond! And there wasn’t a competition to choose like who got to be his mom it was always going to be me. And I’ve only now started to get out of that mind set like I need to do something. Just being with him all the time is the bond.
13. I don’t know what question would have led to this— maybe it would have been about lessons learned— but one thing I’ve noticed about myself in my “parenting style” is that we all have baggage from our own parents, right? And so in an effort to not be your mom or your dad or whatever thing you don’t want to be like I feel like sometimes we have blind spots and we end up becoming the opposite thing which has it’s own risks but we don’t realize that. So for example my mom was really critical. She was constantly interfering with stuff even if it was like the simplest thing; I’m boiling water and she’s gonna come over and adjust the heat. So I feel like I’ve swung to the other extreme where I’m like, I’m not going to intervene at all because I don’t want you to feel micromanaged but then I’m like, well, I probably want to give you some boundaries so that you’re safe and so that you feel like you have proper advice and guidance in the world. So I feel like it’s been interesting for me to try to navigate that just because you’re not doing whatever it was your parents did that you didn’t particularly love, doesn’t mean— you gotta be careful to not do something equally as bad by trying to avoid it.
14. Did you ask what the hardest thing was? I feel like your questions got at that without being so direct. I think it’s a good set of questions because it’s open-ended enough that people can take it where they want.
I was super busy in work over the period of a couple of months in November through January. Too busy. And my younger son’s first birthday was in November. And I didn’t come down from work until it was like 7. Dinner was ready and it was time to eat and I had hardly seen him on his first birthday. I realize that birthdays are— it’s this arbitrary thing— if I see him the day before and the day after it’s not, you know, but I came down and I started crying. I was like I haven’t even seen my baby and it’s his first birthday and he’s the best baby ever and this is not what I signed up for. It wasn’t guilty as much as mad. I deserve to be with him on his first birthday but I had so much work and it’s client work that just needs to get done. So I had a little cry and I got over it. I was like, first of all, realizing that whether it’s yesterday or tomorrow really it’s not that big of a deal. Second of all, I have control over this I can scale down. And third of all, he feels loved and I’m a good mom and it’s okay; this is just one day and it’s okay to feel frustrated. So I talked myself off the ledge. It was a combination of feeling guilt and anger and frustration.
15. I think one of the things— I don’t know if there’s something you should have asked. I worked up until I gave birth and then I’ve been on a child care leave a little longer than expected. It’s a little lonely I think. Motherhood can be lonely. And it’s hard, when you get older, to make friends. You know what I mean? Bitch, I don’t have time to fucking make friends with you like we can’t brunch, do you know what I mean? But I think you have to just— I don’t know— it’s like a sink or swim type of job. You don’t know how you do it, you just do it. You know the movie Groundhog Day? It’s like the never ending day. From birth until— I don’t know— when will I relax? When they’re 40 or 80?
I’m going back to work in September and I have an au pair coming. I’m like one of those now. And I say that and I vomit in my mouth. If someone would have told me that like 10 years ago I’d be like, “I’m not going to have a fucking au pair.” But because of our hours I need it. And I’m worried. I think my kids are going to be fine; I think it’s me. My friend was here this weekend she was like, “it’s you. You’re kids will be fine. You’re going to be the mess. She’s like, watch, your kids will be fine.”
Everyone’s like: become a teacher! Your hours are great! Well what the heck do you do when you have to be at work and your kids have to be at school an hour and a half later? Because my start time is 7:43 at my new school. My kids don’t go to preschool until 9. I have to leave my house at 6 AM. My husband leaves the house at 6 AM.
One of the biggest things that I was worried about going back to work— you know when they have the little Thanksgiving stuff? I told my husband and I’m like I’m going to have to call your aunt to go or my mom might have to go or you might have to go into work late one day. I don’t want my kids to be the only kids without somebody there to love on them. My mom worked but she went back to work when I went to Kindergarten. She worked at a doctor’s office.
It’s hard. Women are expected to have a work life, have a home life, have a social life. And your kids and then this and then that. And it’s like when can we just sit and pick our toenails, you know? Seriously. I had no help when my kids were little; I didn’t have a nanny because I stayed at home— whatever. My husband would come home and I was like I’m gonna go and sit in the bathroom. He’s like, “oh, what are you gonna do? I just got home from work.” “I’m gonna fucking pick my toenails, that’s what I’m gonna do. You have no right to ask me what the fuck I’m going to do. You got to go and have adult conversations all day. I got to argue with a two and half year old.” So my husband comes home and he was like, “how was your day?” And I was like, “fuck you I want to sit and pick my fucking toenails for ten minutes. In peace!” And he’s like, “okay, okay go ahead.” And of course I know what’s going to happen— he’s not going to watch them. They’re banging on the door and I’m like, “can you just fucking take them on a walk around the building? I just want quiet.” And he’s like, “you okay? You look a little tense.” And I’m like, “fuck you.” He’s like, “well I worked all day” and I’m like, “I haven’t showered in like 4 days. Fuck off.” Do you know what I mean? I feel like sometimes it’s a competition of, like, who has a right to be more tired. I’m like, I haven’t washed my hair in 4 days and he’s like, well I don’t have any hair. I’m like, well that’s not my fault. Let me bathe? Can I bathe? Do you want a hug? Please let me bathe.
16. I don’t know if you were going to ask me more about parenting styles or how do you get through a day? What do you do to get through a day? How do you get through a day? Is it working out? Is it taking 20 minutes for yourself? What are the best tools you can use? Even if it’s not escaping, it’s just what do you need day to day to be who you want to be? Maybe it’s someone likes to go running for 20 minutes but maybe it’s reading to their kids for 15 minutes; maybe it’s quiet time with your kids. And maybe most of the time it will be without their children. Probably I just more look at it like it doesn’t feel like escaping to me like this helps me get through my day. I don’t know that I’m escaping necessarily my kids are right there. I can hear them. I have to give them breakfast and I have to be mindful of them so I wouldn’t call this an escape but this interaction helps me get through my day because it’s like I’m not just with them all day long.
17. You asked a lot of really good questions. I think when I think of motherhood and kind of the social constructs around it especially for suburban moms like, what’s interesting to me is kind of what grouping people pair themselves into. There’s the cliché of the granola, hippie attachment parent and then there’s a lot of parents, their identity of being a working mom. There’s a million things. I guess you could ask people, like, do you classify yourself as a particular kind of mom or if you had to what group or school would you be in?
I think I had kind of a gravitational pull towards attachment parenting but it felt like it didn’t work for who my kid was. Because, like, people would be like “just bring the baby into the bed with you” and I would complain that she wouldn’t sleep. And she never wanted to sleep next to us. Or people would be like “why don’t you just wear her?” I’m like because she’s not happy being worn either. I mean I did sometimes but it didn’t seem like there was any solution that was a catch-all for all my mom troubles and I also just feel like I don’t want to be part of some mom cliché.
If you find yourself in a group of moms that you’re not familiar with there’s certain topics of conversation that always inevitably come up and then people kind of, I dont know, it’s a weird push and pull because in one circumstance all the moms feel united in this common experience and they’re trying to relate to one another but then there’s a lot of defensiveness too. Like I was joking with my friend— I went to a birthday party of one of my husband’s friend’s kids who we haven’t seen in years and she has a very tight-knit group of moms from her daycare. And they were very supportive of one another but, as an outsider, it was very hard to break into it because they were like oh, you don’t work? And like I’ve known some mom groups where moms kind of almost adopt a bad moms attitude like almost like: I’m not going to be perfect; I’m going to literally joke about being the opposite of a good parent, which I find hard to relate to because to me so much of my day is thinking about motherhood, like it’s my job, you know? But then I don’t know. I wonder if that’s just me being judgmental. I have no idea.
It’s so interesting because dads don’t have that. They can just talk to other dads and have this commonality and make easy conversation where there’s no one’s feelings are being hurt and it’s not contentious at all. I feel like I have different groups of friends that are all really different and I can get along with them; like I don’t feel like I fit into any package in that way. Yeah, it’s interesting. I think some of it is rooted in people’s insecurities about motherhood, which everyone has, regardless of what kind of mom you are. But I happen to be friends with a lot of people who have multiple kids, like 3 or more kids, because my town is full of huge families and so people have a lot of questions: why did you decide to have one child? What is that like? There’s kind of a line of questions like: that must be so great, you have so much time to yourself. All moms are kind of always sizing each other up. I guess all women are. People think it’s so formative. Whereas you never assume that all people who have 2 kids have the same experience.
It’s nice talking about all this stuff because people don’t really discuss it honestly like this. I have a few good friends that I do talk about the emotional components of motherhood but yeah, everyone’s always kind of, they want to bond as moms but they don’t want to step on people’s toes because they don’t want to be offensive.
It’s interesting. I’ve met moms who are kind of emotionally distanced from their kids and I feel like that really more a manifestation of like trying to tolerate the circumstances they’re in which are horrific. Like people who have shared custody where they don’t see their kids every day. Or people that work so many hours that they’re not interacting with their kids on a daily basis. And I think any woman, and maybe this sounds sexist, but I think maybe it’s a traumatic experience and when that’s happening people have to blunt themselves to the emotions and they have to put a wall up. Because I’ve met moms like that. And I’m sure they are also talking about my psychology and why I act the way I act. It’s a really intense experience. It’s also like the most common experience so it’s hard to reconcile that.
I think in some ways postmodern-feminism has left out stay-at-home moms in a way that is not good for all moms. You know, being a mom is a form of work. Whether you’re kind of outsourcing that and you have a beloved nanny who is part of your family and is helping you mother or whether you’re doing it, it’s a devalued labor force, for sure.
18. Maybe if you could change anything about your parenting what would it be? Or what is something that you learned that you didn’t already know? For me, so something that I learned— something that shocked me— is when I went from one to two. I did not realize how much siblings impact one another. I thought it was just us and our parenting. I learned very quickly how my son is being shaped by his interactions with his older sister and that he’s not having the same experience that she had. And I thought that they would. They’re raised in the same house, they’ve been given the same things. I see how he gets quiet because she hogs up so much attention so he’s willing to take a backseat to his sister. It’s not just us that molds and I think that was surprising.
If I could change anything about my parenting: I think maybe not be so intense. I think I was following in my father’s footsteps and I’m very intense. But. I’m not so sure that I would change it; I think that I would just pay more attention to it. I would watch it more closely. The whole thing is that my husband is not very strict at all. He acts like he is but he’s not when it comes to discipline and actually doing things. As far as working and doing school work that’s all on me and pushing them. So I think also it depends on your partner. You can’t have two rocks— that’s not fair to them. I think I would work a little better to feed off of my partner to give them— and it’s all growing as a parent.
Regardless of the fact if I’m working or not I know the names of their best friends and dentists. So it’s not just an excuse about work. Mothers will know that no matter what is going on in their lives. Mothers are invested in their children on a different level. I think all fathers need to see that and ask them those questions. Ask them how their day was and who did they hang out with today. Just be more invested in their personality and what’s going on. It’s like they get to be oblivious and we kind of co-sign and we allow them to do that and we shouldn’t. I’m not trying to put them down at all. They’re needed. It’s just different.
19. How being a working mother has impacted my feelings on motherhood. As a working mom, I am very aware of the sacrifices that I have to make as a mom, but also of the benefits that I believe me and my children get from me working. People say that you can’t have it all, but I am trying to prove them wrong!
20. One question that someone asked me the other day was do you still hang out with your friends who don’t have kids? Which I thought was interesting. Or like how’s the relationship going? But there was a little bit of like— my friends’ reactions at the beginning. It was kind of weird. It was like happy but it was also like—bye— and now I think now that they think Oh! You’re still you.
21. I had no idea what questions you were going to ask.
22. Si me hubiero gustado tener otro hijo.
23. I don’t know. I feel like I think we talked about a lot because a lot of the questions you asked encompassed a lot of things. I’m sure a lot of people are the same way. These specific themes that run throughout based on their personality and lifestyle and what’s important to them. And so all these different questions will come up with the same themes because that’s just who they are and that’s just what they think about. I guess you could say what are you failing at? But you asked what does not come naturally to you which is probably a kinder way—
24. I don’t know I feel like— maybe what do you like the most or least about motherhood? But you kind of asked that. I was happy that you asked questions that tapped into my emotional well being than just basically about the baby. I feel like you had good questions.
26. I guess my favorite part is sort of like the most rewarding. But what’s my least favorite part? I guess it’s the same thing— I miss sleeping on my own schedule. The weekend loses all meaning when you have a baby who’s gonna wake up at the same time no matter what day of the week it is. You know?
27. I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really have— about motherhood— I wish I had something really important and clever to add. But I don’t. I guess just that when you get to my stage you miss having your children, your children in law, your grandchildren around and that’s a very hard part of arriving at this stage. And maybe I tend to look back with such, thank goodness, fondness of those times and they bring me a lot of joy even now. That’s the positive. The negative is missing it. The positive is having the memories which light up the day. One of the things I’m doing now is I’m going through boxes of old photographs and I’m sorting them to give to my children and they give me such pleasure because I relive those times.
Is it me or are these women just ridiculously smart and impressive and clever? Conducting these interviews was an incredible experience for me. Aside from having children and fulfilling that dream of being a mother, interviewing women about motherhood pretty much sums up every other dream I have: drinking coffee, hearing about people’s lives, commiserating about motherhood, helping people think about things they wouldn’t have otherweise thought about, bringing the stories of ordinary women into the universe. If I could do this all day, every day that would be my ideal life.
On that note, I’ve got my next set of questions burning a hole in my pocket. Anyone interested in this next round? Now that we know the entire world can be run through Zoom, it’ll be a lot easier to interview people on the other side of the globe. And a lot better for my aviophobia. Until next time.
Mama Mader at Home 