A mild rant...

I want more babies! I never thought I would say that--especially as hard as I have struggled with personal time, personal space and personal self in the last few years. But I realized that this was a sham—I was made to believe that my children were hindrances to my creativity, obstacles to my success and ambition. I totally bought into it—worse, I assumed it as my identity. I cloaked myself in the martyrdom of motherhood and zigged when I should have zagged.

I studied sociology and earned my degree--first my bachelors and then I finished the Masters program, save for writing my thesis which is all that stands between me and my degree. I read many books that discussed the situation of mothers in society--the disproportionate burden of childcare on women, the second shift, the "costs" of motherhood, the fight for child support, intensive mothering--blah, blah, academic-blah. Now I buck the system that created me. I am certainly not spitting on academic endeavors or aspirations--I enjoyed my time and I see the world differently. And the work done by the sociologists, economists and other academics certainly adds to the knowledge base that we learn from and grow from—it has its purpose. BUT it became increasingly clear, especially after I completed courses and had time to breathe, gather and regroup, that the academic route was NOT the one I wanted to take. I am much more interested in personal experience, yet, as a trained sociologist, I am ever aware of the context in which I mother.

Quite frankly, that context sucks--sucks the life out of you, sucks the joy if you are not paying close enough attention, sucks your awareness and sucks your agency. I am in a conscience struggle against the institution in which I mother. The institution seeps into our pores—stealthily and maliciously—setting a bar, wielding a yard stick of perfection to see where we fall, holding a carrot. Where is it? Glad you asked. The institution enters your home through commercials, television shows, magazines—the media is a huge purveyor of the mother-way—I would argue, the biggest. Think about it when you see the next cleaner commercial where a mother shakes her head in fulfilled amusement as the family wrecks her home, tracking in mud on hospital white floors like uncivilized banshees. Then when they are done, she gets her cleaner and paper towel and *poof* she cleans their slate.