Transitions

Sociology 101 asked me to talk about when I transitioned into a new role, how it affected my other roles, what was helpful or not, etc. I began the paper meaning to discuss the transition from Stay-At-Home-Mom to Student-Mom.. but it turns out that since I have just started this transition, I don't really have answers those questions. So, instead I choose to dissect the process of becoming a mom.  For your consideration.. my paper.  


Over the 30+ years since my birth I have assumed multiple new roles, but the most impactful change to date would have to be entering motherhood. I was born into a culture that focuses on motherhood as the main purpose of women, so it is not surprising that I would assume this role. I also had a desire to be a mother. My life course at the time was late-twenties, and my social location included being middle class, married, and owning a home in the suburbs. When the desire alone wasn’t enough to make me a mother, I sought the help of fertility treatments and spent years working to achieve this role. It was an active choice on my part. I had imagined this moment my whole life and built all of my goals around it.

Can anything really prepare someone for motherhood? Well, sociologically speaking, there probably were some processes that helped. I spent a good deal of time engaged in anticipatory socialization. I didn’t take any parenting classes before I became a mother, however, I read many books about parenting and motherhood, talked to many mothers about their experiences and I offered to babysit for anyone who would let me. I also had many role models throughout my life. The women in my family, especially my mother, but also grandmothers and aunts, were my first significant others and agents of socialization. They helped to shape my idea of what it meant to be a mother. When I married, my husband’s family added to the picture, bringing in new and diverse ideas of how a family could work. In my peer groups, observing friends who had already entered that role constructed an image of motherhood that seemed more personally applicable. Another agent of socialization that had a huge impact on my concept of the role of motherhood came from my religious community. Lessons in church throughout my childhood and adolescence focused much of their time on the importance of motherhood. And, of course, we cannot discount the many examples of motherhood I witnessed on television, in movies, and read about in books and magazines.

Once I became a mother and began to actually perform that role, all of these influences continued to guide my behavior and their expectations played a large part in how I saw myself.  Opinions on everything from breastfeeding, to baby gear and sleep training became part of my world view and helped to shape what I thought about these and a variety of other role related issues.

And we must remember that I did not become a mother by myself.  One of the most important counter roles at this time was that of my husband, the father of my child.  The workload of his role as an employee and thus the time he was able to give to participating in parenting determined the amount of help I received from him and directly affected the amount of time I was able to devote to any other roles.  The norms he had internalized in his life created expectations of what a wife and a mother should be responsible for, as well as what his role as a husband and a father entailed.  His expectations influenced and shaped the definition of my role. And we cannot forget the most central counter role, my daughter. She depended on me for all of her needs and did not understand when my needs weren’t being met and how that affected my performance in the role as her mother.  There is no explaining to a newborn that you are exhausted and don’t feel like changing another diaper.  That, more than anything, established some rigid definitions regarding my role as a mother.

Society does its part in defining your role as well. You can tell whether you are acting in an accordance with norms by the reactions you get from strangers.  Whether or not you get asked to lunch by other mothers or if your child is invited on play dates can tell you a lot about how you are viewed as fulfilling your role. And of course, violation of serious norms would cause governmental departments to intervene.  And yet, there are many ways to play the role of ‘mom’ within our culture.  As I adjusted to my new role, I looked for ways to express my individuality. A few ways I believe I did that were having a natural childbirth, choosing to breastfeed, and having the baby sleep in our room.  I also think small things, such as deciding to wear sweatpants to the grocery store, played a part in my performance as a mother.

Motherhood is not an easy addition to a life, and role strain was ever present. It involved many late nights, early mornings and hectic days. I was constantly worrying about whether she was getting enough food or sleep; wondering if she was sick, and questioning my ability to handle this role.  There is a lot of pressure involved in suddenly being completely responsible for another human being.  As I worked to perform my role, I found that many of the things I expected to come naturally, did not.  The firm beliefs I had internalized regarding what would create fulfillment and joy for me as a mother, in reality, left me feeling hollow and broken.  The mismatch in how I felt I was measuring up to my reference groups standards led to inner turmoil.  After the birth of my second child, I even found myself suffering from depression due to, among other factors, my belief that I was failing to live up to those standards.

My self image changed drastically as I filled my role as a mother.  Who I was before seemed to take a back seat, and the parts of my self that didn’t go hand in hand with motherhood seemed to dwindle and disappear.  Motherhood began to overwhelm my self concept and push all else out.  I began to like myself less as more of my self worth became wrapped up in how clean my house was, how well dressed my children were and what kind of mother I was.  I felt as though my previous self imagine was completely disappearing in the face of the new role.

With such a large new role, some previous roles were bound to suffer.  We struggled in our marriage to adapt to having less time for each other and an increased need for teamwork and cooperation. It was a difficult time for us to come to a new understanding of who would do what and what this meant for our relationship. We found ourselves having different expectations, and frequently not understanding what each other expected.  All of which caused conflict between my roles as a wife and as a mother. Other roles, such as friend, sister and musician also suffered with the lack of time to devote to them. Everyone needed more time than I could come up with.

It also changed my role as a daughter, and this time, for the better. I found that it forged a deeper relationship with my mother as we talked more often, I relied on her more, and as I developed a greater appreciation of the performance she gave in her role as my mother. Additionally, with my friends, becoming a mom meant entering the ‘mommy club’.  Those friends who already had children seemed to welcome me back into a new found place in their lives, and those who didn’t seemed to take a step back in our relationship.

I believe, as a society, we celebrate the ideal of motherhood to such a degree that we don’t allow for the voices of those who have differing experiences.  By quieting these voices, I believe many women feel as though something is wrong with them when their role fails to meet those standards. I discovered that finding subcultures and peer groups within my society that felt similarly and were supportive made a huge difference in my ability to find a definition of my role that I could fulfill and be happy with.  I learned it was not the role of motherhood I couldn’t manage, but rather the performance I had been trying to give.  Recently, I decided that part of  my role performance as a mother would involve going back to school.  I  did this, not only to take on a new role to find a level of fulfillment that had been lacking, but also to demonstrate to my children a wider variety of motherhood than I saw in my early socialization. The lack of similar experiences in my life meant that it took a long period of inner struggle and much anticipatory socialization to decide and carry out the addition of that role.  So far, it has been a welcome addition.

Seven years after entering the role of motherhood I can say that it has significantly complicated and enriched my life.  With more women entering the workforce and more men choosing to care for their children full time, I look forward eagerly to what the next generation will bring to this role.

Finding my way

And here I am again! Yes, I know.. it's been more than a month.. but hey, I moved!  (It's not like you didn't know that was coming, sheesh!  haha.)  And man, it's been a doozy.  There's nothing quite as crazy and stressful as deciding to move, and doing it two weeks later.  It takes a special kind of nuttiness to come up with that plan, and a complete lack of any real grasp of reality to go through with it.  That's me and the hubster.. nutty people who refuse to acknowledge reality. :)

So, yeah.. I moved.  I left a 2500 sqft, 5 bedroom house in suburbia for a 1175 sqft, 2 bedroom house in hipster/hippie land. And I'm completely psyched about it. :)  I think the hardest part of the move, besides managing it in such a short time time, was the whittling down of all that we had accumulated in our big ol' suburban house so that we could fit in our new space.  We didn't want to rent a storage unit, and so my move included not only packing, but sorting through it all to decide what to keep.  I've always been a bit of a pack rat.  I like to blame it on growing up poor.. like I lived through the depression, and just can't throw away something that might possibly be useful.. someday.. to someone.  It was a scary task to take on, but in the end, digging through it all to decide what was most important was strangely liberating.  Time consuming, stressful, mentally exhausting.. but fruitful.  When you don't have space for extra baggage, you finally have to face your real priorities in life.

Turns out my priorities are being the right mom for my children, finding a fulfilling path for myself, and being a true partner to my husband for the crazy trip this life is taking is on.  I hope you notice that I did not say that I am hoping to be a perfect mom, or the best mom... I said 'right' mom, because who my children need is me.  A me who is happy, sane and fulfilled. They don't need the super-mom that haunts my nightmares, with her craft projects, clean house, and even tempered ways.., and I remind myself of that daily.  My current hero is a woman named Brené Brown with a PhD in Social Work.  A lot of my parenting philosophies come from her work.. and I just have to share this quote, because I can't explain it better than she does.  (If you want to know more.. watch her Ted Talk)

"You can't give children what you don't have yourself," says Brené Brown. "No matter how much importance you place on it." For instance, you can't raise children to be more resilient to shame than you are yourself. "I can encourage my daughter to love her body," she says, "but what really matters are the observations she makes about my relationship with my own body. Damn it. So the question isn't so much, 'Are you parenting the right way?' as it is, 'Are you the adult you want your child to grow up to be?'"

And, it is from that point of view that I can finally decide that finding a fulfilling path for myself is not selfish, it's the best thing I can do for my children.  And for me, my chosen next step on this path is graduate school.  I've applied at the University of Utah to a Masters of Social Work program.  Right now, I'm playing the waiting game.  I had hoped to know by now.. but I don't.  I have my life arranged in such a way that if I am accepted, I am ready.  If I'm not.. well, back to the drawing board.  Plan B is often a better plan in the end.. so who knows.  I'm not ready to give up on Plan A yet, but if it doesn't pan out, I'm not turning around and going back.. I'll just have to find another way through.