How long must women wait for liberty?

This question was posed to President Woodrow Wilson by the suffragists of the early 1900's and we have yet to have that question answered.

Liberty, by definition, means freedom from captivity; the freedom to do as one pleases--free. The question of the day is "Mr. President, how long must women wait for emancipation?" Emancipation is freedom from restraint, especially social or political restraint. Mothers are socially restrained and held captive by social standards that offer little in the way of alternatives.

Are woman truly free? Does a mother raising a child or children look at all like a father performing the same tasks? Upon retirement, do the payoffs for mothers and fathers look the same? Upon divorce, do the responsibilities of the mother and the father look the same? Are they carried through in the same manner or is the scale tipped?

We know these answers but what do we do with them? How do you boycott mothering? How do you take that final stand? Perhaps we just get buck-wild militant. Dare we post placards in our front yard serving notice that we are un-compensated for the work we are doing on the inside--that we are in possession of future tax-paying citizens...but then what do we do with that? Threaten to warp their minds or neglect their needs? Do you see the perversion in this problem? There is virtually no recourse! I am weary of having my love for my children exploited so that the cycle may go on.

I am held tight by the "balls"--so are most mothers, we should not have to secure a man in our lives so that we might have financial security. We should not even have to crawl into a social service office with our heads bowed. We certainly should not have to raise children so the current free-loaders might secure retirement AT OUR EXPENSE. For the price of our tears, our times, our lives, our gains, our senses, our selves--we produce and offer up the next generation AND FOR WHAT?

I love my children. Their laughs, their highs and lows. I love their voices and their minds. I love their little bodies and the way every part of them is miniature and new. I love their hearts and their souls. I love their songs and passions. I especially love to watch them sleep, the way their precious lips part and their chest rises and falls--full of the life I have given them. When we are together, I am free and liberated by their love and affection and adoration, afterall, I am mommy--supreme in their eyes for now. I need their hugs, happiness, breath...they have given me what I would have never had in their absence and my heart and life are FULL.

I don't want to price tag the hugs, kisses, laughs and songs but I don't want my efforts or their fruits disregarded as private and therefore invisible. What is the middle ground?

A New Day

Wow--I was upset last night and I've had the day today to recharge and revisit the situation and after this time and reconsideration--I'M STILL FLAMING PISSED!

Rick Santorum has a position that is the poison that will continue to guise the importance and value of the invisible market that women sustain/maintain--the market of care, those pesky little matters of the heart that often get in the way of "real" life, right? So he is on the side of sending mothers to work--well, only if they don't have husbands, he wouldn't dream of sending a "companioned" woman to work--single mothers must work, let's be clear. Then this woman will qualify for assistance with child care--the government will pay for someone else to watch her children--just not her.

It's going to take mothers standing up and demanding recompense. As if a mother has enough hours in the day to advocate for a job she's not sure she's even doing correctly with the constant state of schizophrenia that the media keeps us in--this diaper, that diaper, this cereal, that cereal, this discipline, that discipline, stay at home, choose day care--the messages are the drug that keeps us numb to our plight and keeps us flailing around to do better and be better instead of having that split second to say wait a fucking minute here--YOU NEED ME!!!!

Wow--if mothers only knew just how much this world needs them--oh, it gives me chills to consider the possibilities. If that patriarchal foot lifts just enough for mothers to see the light above them we are in for a revolution. And we need a revolution don't we, it's been a while.

How can we possibly mobilize mothers? It's not as easy as calling out the troops--these troops have traveling companions that need more than a carrier and chow. These traveling companions are the future that we depend upon to replicate and perpetuate this gigantic crap machine that works so well to marginalize it's mothers.

It is certainly worth considering--what if a mom made more than a pro-basketball player or an A-list Hollywood actor or a rich, spoiled, blonde who stumbled upon success and notoriety because of her last name--what would this world look like?

Here's an exercise for the mind--put mothers in the ideal position within society: venerated, esteemed, valued and central, then work backwards to present and tell me, how did we arrive?

Getting into Gear

Another night I sit before my computer with the intention of writing/preparing my thesis proposal. I know it will be done before the due date--that is never my problem. My problem is the perpetual procrastination that I am afflicted with and the resulting stress. It is hard to find the time for this piece of myself while tending to the needs of children. Every waking minute is spent on their care and activities and when I finally take that breath of relief--it's late and I'm tired.

Precisely why I wanted to branch out into the blog world. Not that anyone will ever find their way to my blog, though I hope that they do, but I need a venue where I can release and ideally channel my energy on those rare occasions that I have any left. This blog will probably sit in isolation--isolation, that is the problem. So many mothers are isolated and feel inept in the job that they are doing or overwhelmed or lost or even, forsaken. It's easy to feel forsaken. Especially when there are men out there spouting their mouth on a topic that they could never understand. Take for example Senator Rick Santorum--you know that I was going somewhere with this. He was on the Today Show this morning with Katie Couric under the pretense of speaking about the Supreme Court Justice Nominee until Katie so predictably (for mainstream news) turned the tables to speak on his new book, "It Takes a Family." Katie gave him one, maybe two, hardlined questions and then set the floundering bastard free. Forgive my animosity but he had the audacity to say that single women must work--married women had the luxury and therefore the choice to stay at home with their children but for women with no husband (because I assume this conservative tighthole is NOT considering "partners") THEY MUST WORK and therefore have no choice. Pardon me for a second but since when is raising/guiding/rearing/nurturing a child NOT work? Oh wait! He means paid work. I get it--what have I been thinking, of course! Woman with man=choice and stamp of approval for rearing children as sole responsibility. Woman with no man=no choice and self-righteous dismay at the decision to be with children instead of holding her own and taking care of her own in the labor force. Notice anything here? "Man" is peripheral. If you've got one, great! Then you have more flexibility and a stamp of approval for the arduous task of raising children. But if you don't have a man then damn woman, get to work--no more popping bon-bons while the 25th chair gets thrown on Springer, while junior is dragging a five-pound diaper as he trys to outrun older sis who is chasing him with a stick of some sort, while they whither away getting dumber by the sheer seconds that they spend with you--you manless woman with no choice.

This is a problem folks--Rick Santorum said nothing about men--the fathers in this whole equation. The semen in the biological process, the penis in the union of sexual organs, the free bird sailing away. Rick Santorum can never know the feeling of taking it on alone and knowing good and damn well that the whole world is watching, waiting to say--damn those mothers. In a patriarchal society that lifts him up and justifies his choices, Rick Santorum can never know the feeling of screaming when he can't be heard, crying for a hopeless cause and performing a service in the absence of choice for a world that deems you unproductive.

It's late and I've retyped my thoughts after I lost my original entry. I probably lost some of the fire too but I think I recovered most of the heat.

Alas, no thesis proposal tonight. I guess I had a few things to get off my chest. I only wish the weight was gone--the weight will press upon me in ways that Rick Santorum can never understand.

Perpetual Procrastination

Here I sit knowing good and damn well that I should be preparing the thesis proposal that I am to submit in less than a week to my faculty advisor. I am writing on motherhood and resources, certainly I have something to say on the subject yet I cannot coerce my mind into cooperating! Then I thought--I should journal more, I should really be leaving behind a trace that I existed. Elizabeth Cady Stanton left behind many memoirs that can be called upon in an effort to trace her ideas and feelings along the way. Besides, I rarely have the time to have an adult conversation so that I can keep my mental faculties up and fully charged. I thought this might help the process. Instead of journaling, I looked up blogging in my search engine and here I sit, creating Activist Mama at 11:32 on a Sunday evening. Well--I have every intention of completing this post and getting back to the thesis proposal but I could not very well create the blog and leave without a post. So...I post and tuck one of my little ones in bed between these words that I type and check my email and change the music playing and inform my partner that I have created a BLOG!! Ah, one more step into the revolution that I plan in my head every day of my life.