While listening to a recent podcast, actress Cadance Cameron-Bure discussed, or really, defended, her decision to walk away from acting and become just a mother over ten years ago. TEN YEARS LATER, she is still justifying her decision to walk away from her career. Ironically, if she had chosen to continue pursuing her professional passions, keeping her children with a full-time nanny, she would have still likely ‘needed’ to defend that decision.
Why do we, as in, why does our society, dictate what is acceptable for people to do? How do we, as a large group, determine what success looks like or the labels and boxes that we put ourselves, or really- the entire world into. What parts of the people we are, the things we do with our time, dictate our identity? How, or who selects the characteristics or activities that are good, not for the people who are judging us, but for the one person who has to live with the identification that we are given.
How or what determines an identity? What labels, accomplishments, investments or characteristics truly dictate someone’s identity. As in, how do people define you, and how do you, yes within yourself, determine if that given label is enough?
For the majority of my adult life, explaining my position, what I am accomplishing, and the goals I am working towards generally brought me a sense of pride. Ya know, sort of this shoulder strut that announces my worth to the world. Professionally, I’ve spent my time working as a social-worker in youth treatment facilities, or as an educator in a highschool specialized to work with at-risk youth. I was doing the work that was not only challenging, but also brought me joy. My titles, while personally driven, were always labeled by society, as important. As an educator, I have always been thought of as admirable. My profession was easy to talk about, my label was easy to accept. Hell, there is an entire day, some places even a whole week dedicated to my chosen professions.
Recently, however, making small talk about my daily activities leaves me confused and fumbling through conversations. I mean, so much of your occupation is linked to our identity, therefore if I answer with well, I’m just a mom there is a large part of me that feels this nagging, completely heart-wrenching need to jump into my story about how life was hard working, and juggling both a growing family and career. Somehow a simple question, turns into my life story, a discussion about how our daughter had emergency surgery at nine weeks old. Explanations about how our five-year old is in behavioral talk therapy, the frustrating saga about how our three-year-old apparently hates the toilet, and how, as an English teacher I completely failed our son, who in only first grade needed reading support. For some reason, I feel as though I need to justify my decision to just be a mother.
In August, I joined a running group. A small, less than twenty group of people who were dedicated to meeting twice a week, for ten weeks, in efforts to train and inspire each other across the finish line after 13.1 miles. During our first meeting, we did the traditional- stand in a circle, only this time we were socially distanced, and wearing masks. Outside of those two pandemic qualifications, everything seemed almost painfully familiar. We were asked to go around the circle, taking turns to state our name and occupation. When it came my turn, I of course mentioned my name, but was taken aback as it was oddly the first time I announced to strangers that I was a stay-at-home-mom. Internally, my heart was racing, not only because I am not great with strangers, but also because this was the first time I was admitting to the world that I was just a mom.
I managed to own my truth, without justification, and almost as if on cue, some well-intentioned individual smiled and said, “oh yes, but that is still work.” Her words flew out, and instantly I felt the need to vindicate all of the reasons as to how, in fact what I do is work, and does have value. I smiled, completely frozen for words. I was hurt, but did not yet have words to explain or understand my feelings.
You see, the comment, even so many months later still bothers me. When other group members explained they were teachers, a university professor, a therapist, a clerical team member, no one felt the need to defend how they spend their day-time hours. No one validated or protested, even positively about their life choices. So, then why did they feel the need to do so about mine?
As a society, do we not value the work of all people- of all mothers, or even fathers that make the choice to stay-home with their children? Are we only capable of recognizing people by how they spend their time, or how they make money and professionally contribute to society? Yet, on the other side, if we don’t label people by their occupation, how do we begin conversations with people we’ve just met?
Words matter, so how I respond to questions like what have you been up to? Or where are you working? Or really any other over generalized, and overused way to begin a conversation or fill up space. While this seemingly easy ice breaker question is in theory easy for people to answer, it is, in reflection- a fairly loaded question. These questions have the ability to provide a gateway into how a stranger interprets my values. Or how society determines my worth.
Not being employed provides a label that I am lazy, or that my husband must be rich. Being a doctor implies that you have money, that you are some sort of superhuman that can heal, that you have your life together. Working at McDonald’s implies that you’ve failed somewhere, didn’t read enough books, or don’t have any interest in climbing a ladder. Every occupation holds stigmas, assumptions and labels.
Judging instead by our character- the way we actually treat people, rather than the way a title suggests we should behave, or the qualities we should have. Instead, why can’t we allow people to be just that- a real life human. A real life human that happens to teach, or happens to be raising her children. Or, gasp- a real live human that doesn’t want children.
How about, instead of using blanketed conversation, we use intentionality to do things differently, and seek to understand the true characteristics that make people unique. If we seek to understand, to learn- to grow, then we not only develop an appreciation for the individual in front of us, we begin to debunk societal expectations and norms regarding what labels are automatically deemed as good or bad.
Let’s work to take away prepacked labels, and instead, work to expand our boundaries in efforts to understand who a person is, rather than what you assume they are. Work to take people out of the boxes that society perfectly places them in, and instead works to strip premade labels, and instead provide people the opportunity to label themselves, to provide, with their character, the proper classifications that are necessary to access a person’s true identity.
Most importantly, how do we do this for ourselves? How do we strip away the need to be placed in a box- to be accepted by society? The need to be wanted, to feel validation, or to be accepted by the people we determine, most often subconsciously, as qualified to designate the way we live our lives? Why do we allow these people, right or wrong, to place us into categories that determine the way we think about ourselves, and the decisions, risks or successes that we have? What would happen if- without fault, without apology, we lived, with only the identification, and implications, that we determine.
While working through sight word flash cards and making up a semi impressive dance to help our seven year old spell the word second, the two of us somehow got into a conversation regarding Maverick’s goals- what he wanted to accomplish in his life.
You see, unlike the movies, these moments- the ones where we have the Hallmark opportunity to enlighten our children with some deep-hearted advice, the type that just might change their lives, they do not come with fancy background music. There is no warming. Therefore, you have to know your values, you have to know, reflect and be able to articulate what you want your child to walk away with. This always seems like the perfect opportunity to screw up or worse, miss the moment entirely. Yet, if we can get our message across as eloquently and candid as they manage to in the movies, then during these simple candid moments we can really shape the actual people we are raising.
So, without warning, Maverick began declaring all of the ways that without saying the exact words, would make him feel success, or perhaps fulfilled. He articulated that he’ll be a father, own a large house, and become a scientist. Maverick’s words, while not harmful or outwardly destructive, caught me off guard, because- well, as he is just seven-years old, I was not cognizant that he was thinking about what labels he wanted to put on himself as an adult.
Then it hit me- we ask our children, often, in casual conversation, even before the first day they step into a formalized school what they want to be when they grow up. Of course the majority of these dreams will change over time, and of course they are incredibly adorable as they explain why they want to be the police officer that catches the bad guy. We (probably) don’t spend hours agonizing over the choice they wrote on their kindergarten pennant.
I wonder- are we sending the wrong message? Are we pushing our children to make decisions, or have thoughts that they aren’t yet ready for? Are we encouraging our children to be growth minded, or to begin determining their worth- not by how they treat their classmates, but on the accomplishments they achieve in already working, or thinking about what title they’ll have once they leave our homes?
So much of my childhood was filled with an internal dialogue that included positive affirmations regarding all of the ways in which I was going to crush the glass ceiling. My father left our home at an early age, and well- he never really looked back. While he is not a terrible man, he is also not a great father. After watching my mom struggle, working so hard, doing it all- as a single mother, I internally promised myself, yes- only a few years older than our seven-year old is now, that I would never rely on a man.
I mentally became that sassy meme, the one where the chic refuses help and hits repeat as she exclaims how she is a woman hear her roar. I was going to be successful, I was going to make my own money, I was going to find a husband who stuck around, and together we were going to raise a large family. This was my narrative. This is what I told myself, both continuously and subconsciously over and over again. This was both my driving force, my greatest asset, and one of my greatest faults.
According to my early assessment, my current life is a failure. I got a lot of the equation right, yet, I am currently not even stepping foot on the ladder that provides me the ability to make even a slight crack in the ceiling. I am, in fact, as a stay-at-home-mom, currently one-hundred percent financially dependent on my husband. While, my rational brain tells me that I, in fact still got it right, or maybe, better than right, that I do in fact have a successful life. I got the guy and together we are raising our four children. Yet, if it’s so right- then why do I so often feel confused, heartbroken, and defeated over leaving my career?
Why do, even after knowing- for me, for my family, that being just a stay at home mom, is the right choice for me right now, why do I feel like I failed? How do I move past society’s label of just and start believing in the little voice that tells me I am enough.
The voice that yells, far louder, than the small one of my younger years, the one that tells me that people and dreams change. The one that tells me that this season of being taken over by small humans, will pass- and in only a matter of time, I will once again have the time and energy to not only crack, but to break through on whatever professional accomplishments I want to achieve.
How do we stip away the idea of being known for our professional accomplishments, and teach ourselves and our children to instead reflect and label based on actual demonstrated characteristics and values? How do we teach our community that words matter, and even by adding a simplistic word, such as just can overturn any good-intention you may have had? How can we teach ourselves to instead invite conversations about people’s passions, to seek to understand the type of person they are, far beyond only using their occupation to determine our opinion of them.
Three Princes and a Sweet Pea 