I'm Not A Strong Woman

My mother is a strong woman. She raised me on her own, working a full time job, and even moved us to a new state to escape the backwardness of our hometown. My mom was, and is, strong. She raised me to be strong too. A woman can do anything, be anything, and has a right to do or be anything. A woman's place was not in the home, but wherever she wanted to be! I grew up picturing myself as a strong, independent woman too. I imagined myself with a thriving career, a household that I was in charge of, and babies. I always, always wanted babies. Three of them, to be exact. And even when I was certain I would be the epitome of a strong woman, working and raising kids, there was this unnamed desire in the back of my mind. I wanted to be home with my kids. Maybe it was because my mom had to work all the time, and my father wasn't in the picture, but I really gravitated towards the idea of just being around my kids, a lot.

I remember once in high school, I chided a classmate for suggesting that a woman might want to be a housewife. 'No,' I insisted, 'No woman wants to be oppressed.' Even though in truth I wanted to be a stay at home mom, it's like my young brain hadn't made the connection yet that I was envisioning two conflicting futures for myself.

It wasn't until I turned twenty two, and the option to be a housewife presented itself to me, that I had to confront my juxtaposing desires. I wasn't a mom yet, but the plan was for that to happen within the next two years (it happened in six months in case you were wondering). Still, my job had me working sixty hours a week, I was in school, and my husband wasn't faring much better. The difference is, he's a few years older than me and was making more money. Why not just quit? He suggested one day, when we were talking for a few minutes before falling to sleep for a few hours. That was our normal back then. Talk a few minutes every day, then sleep a few hours and get back up for work. I was tired, but not tired enough to shackle myself to the patriarchy like that. 'No way. You quit your job.' I grumbled, and went to sleep angry at him for suggesting such a thing. But ten hours into my next fourteen hour shift, I could see the appeal. A few weeks later, he got a job offer in another state, and I made my decision. 'Sure, I'll be a stay at home for a while, why not?'

A while turned into the next seven years, and now here I am. Financially dependent on my husband, with two kids, someone most of my friends would describe as demure even. Not a girl boss, definitely not anyone's idea of a strong woman. But it didn't take seven years for the internal crisis to occur, not even close. A year after my son was born, my first kid, I had the sudden realization that I was the picture of what I would have despised as a teenager. I stayed home with my son, cooked, cleaned, and largely deferred to my husband on major decisions. It shattered me, in a really fundamental way. Granted, I had some very real unchecked postpartum depression going on that contributed. But the fact was, I had become unrecognizable to myself. I wondered if my mom wasn't secretly disappointed in me, and if my husband hadn't been planning this from the start! But my husband was nonchalant about the whole thing, 'You can go to work or whatever you want, I can't make a decision like that for you.' And my mom was too lovestruck with her grandson to take my paranoia seriously. In a way, I was appeased. My mom wasn't disappointed and my husband didn't expect me to stay at home if I didn't want to. So, I pushed that uncomfortable sensation of self-disappointment to the far reaches of my mind and moved on with my life. I eventually admitted I was depressed, and got help for that. Then I had my daughter, and though I was still being treated for depression, that looming dread returned. My son is five now, and he emulates daddy. One day my daughter will be five, and what will she be doing if she emulates me, I wonder. Cooking, cleaning, breastfeeding baby dolls, those sorts of things probably.

It isn't like I don't know the importance of fighting against gender roles with a boy as well. I definitely do, and my husband and I have openly encouraged our son to be whoever he wants to be. Sometimes that's a kid with no shirt or shoes, playing monster trucks in the mud, with painted toenails. He actively wants to help take care of his baby sister, and talks about how he will change diapers when he's a daddy, because that's what he sees. A daddy taking part in child rearing. And though I usually defer to my husband, my son once stated that 'Mommy is the boss.' It was easier to push my concerns aside with my son because, truth be told, I felt like his male role model was an excellent example of a feminist man. It's different with my daughter though.

I mean, until she reaches that tender age where I'm her arch nemesis, I'm the one she's going to be looking to while learning to be a 'woman'. That whisper of doubt is a yell now. I'm not a strong woman, despite being raised by one, so how can I possibly raise a strong woman?! I can't, obviously! She'll be a suppressed fifties housewife for sure, I've broken the chain of change my mom tried to forge. But…is that really true?

When I think about it from a more objective place, it seems kind of ridiculous to think that. I mean, isn't the whole point to raise kids who don't expect anyone to behave a certain way just because of their gender, or anything else for that matter? Doesn't that include expecting women to be tough career ladies? Isn't it ok for a woman to say 'I literally don't care what the back deck looks like just get it done,' while snuggling her baby on the couch? Isn't it feminist for a woman to say 'I'm happiest when I'm with my kids, and I'm going to live my life with my happiness as a priority?' I think it is. Logically, I really do. I still struggle with emotional blame/shame games, and sometimes I find myself picking myself apart. But for the most part, I'm beginning to understand what equity is actually about, insofar as gender goes anyway. It isn't about having to defy norms, or having to be 'strong'. It's about the lack of expectation. The freedom of choice.

I can absolutely raise my daughter to be unapologetically strong, by being unapologetic about how I choose to live my life. I can teach her about the right to make your own decisions, by supporting her right to make her own decisions. I may not be a strong woman, the way we usually see on TV, but that doesn't mean I'm not a feminist. You don't have to be brave or intrepid to be a feminist. You just have to be unapologetically you.