The other day I went on my usual grocery run, this trip was to our local Publix. Publix is a nice grocery store that has nearly everything you want, but can be a little pricey. I usually make a trip to Sam’s to get what I can, then the farmer’s market, then Aldi’s, and then go by Publix to get the last of what I need. At Publix, they also claim to carry out your groceries. However, if your a man, or with a man, they won’t offer to take your groceries out. If the bagger is female or the bagger is lazy or shy you also are probably not getting your groceries taken out to your car unless you insist on it. On this shopping day, I happened to get a bagger who wasn’t a complete antisocial invert, and actually got my groceries carried to my car for once without having to ask. He was actually a very witty person that I chatted with out to my car. I pointed him in the direction of my car and we continued to chat. There was a big blue minivan parked in front of my car and he went right for it. Oh, the horror! I said no, no, no, not that one, who do I look like, really? I pointed him in the direction of my little black 2 door coupe. We talked a bit more as he loaded my groceries into my car and I placed my son in his car seat. Where is it written that if you have one child you must give up a perfectly good car that seats 4 comfortably for a minivan that seats 7 or more. I try to live life in a frugal way, yet enjoy what is important to me. By trying to live this way I do things which are not always considered mainstream, such as transporting a 30 lb toddler in a little car over an enormous minivan.
So I just wanted to clear up any preconceived notions about stereotypical stay at home mommies and let you know who I am, who I am not, and who I would like to be.
Let me first tell you that,
I am NOT that mommy,
- who is part of any mommy click
- who never wears make-up
- who wears the same clothes all day she slept in
- who doesn’t brush her hair
- who wears clothes 2 sizes too big
- who doesn’t bathe everyday
- who is too weak to move the furniture to clean under it
- who wears over-sized flannel pajamas
- who has a hissy when my kid eats a goldfish cracker, or god forbid, off the floor
- who drives a minivan
- who has never colored her hair
- who submits to her child’s every whim
- and who’s idea of a home cooked meal is a Stouffer’s lasagna
I AM the mommy
- who is sometimes manipulated by her child’s cuteness
- who loves to speak with women of experience about their children
- who loves to eat good food
- who loves to speak about her kid, but also has other interests
- who isn’t defined as homemaker, but rather by my former profession that I will one day return to
- who prefers lingerie to sleep in
- who wears a bikini, even while pregnant
- who takes my kid on vacation and everywhere else I go
- who uses cloth diapers
- who swears by attachment parenting
- who believes child rearing doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive
- who was able to have a non hospital natural birth
- who enjoys a good red wine as often as possible, but doesn’t snub some white zin and sprite over ice
- who usually makes homemade, from scratch meals, but doesn’t swear off junk food
- who wonders why people think its odd that my son eats vegetables
- who changes the color of her hair with the season
- and who knows a little about alot, yet realizes her there is so much more to learn, and so much more I will never learn or understand
I WISH I were that mommy
- who had time to clean the whole house everyday
- who gave myself a manicure and pedicure every week
- who baked bread regularly, instead of buying it
- who had a place to plant a garden
- who made time to crochet, knit, and sew
- who took more time to read
- who had a room with a view
- who didn’t worry about the things she can’t change
- who accepted people the way they are without trying to change them
- who didn’t get easily angered
- who didn’t hold grudges
- and who didn’t judge people
I wish I were that mommy who was, well, perfect, like this fantasy woman I am describing, but that’s not going to happen. I’ll just continue to try the best I can everyday, learn acceptance, and practice moderation in all aspects of my life.
If you liked this post, tell me who you are, who you aren’t, and who you want to be on your blog. If you don’t have a blog, just post in the comment section. You could do mommy like I have done here or daddy, wife, girlfriend, sister, brother, grandparent, or even your profession. If you do this post, leave a link in the comment section here to your blog, so that I can link to you here in my post.
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Nice blog entry, Angie! Don’t you just love how people make assumptions about who someone is based on stereotypes?
I think I am a combination of all three mommies. Although, I have to confess, I own a minivan, LOL. Of course, all my kids are grown and out of the house, so I guess that makes it okay! More often, I drive my pick up and don’t fit THAT stereotype either!
Love the new look of the blog, your latest photos (that burrito looks YUM!) and this punchy new writing style of yours.
For fear of crashing your site, I’ll stick to one thing I wish I was… a mommy!
This did make me laugh! No-one in the UK carries your groceries to your car from the supermarket unless you have a disability! Not that I mind, I don’t expect that. I am that working mummy whose boys have grown up and left home, who sometimes misses them, but not much and who sometimes feels guilty about the fact that she doesn’t miss them that often. I am not hard hearted, I hope I’ve given them the skills to be independent, but I also hope they feel they can come to me when they need help. That’s the mummy I want to be – I’m not the one who can judge if that is the person I am. Thanks for a great post.
Hey Angie, my kids are all grown. I have 2 naturals and a few part timers too. Being mom is, well here’s an example, my youngest is 22 and when he speaks of me he calls me his Mommia! They can always count on me, even now, and they know it. Never mind who I think I want to be or who I’m not, I think being me is enough. Driving, I drive whatever is available at the time. Currently that’s an F250 or an 08 Elantra. Don’t think I’ll ever fit a stereotype and I’d bet money you won’t either! Keep doing what you’re doing friend.
I really love this post Angie. When I am a mom I hope I am like you – still pretty put-together and not one of those moms who lets herself go. I will not be wearing clothes that are two sizes too or too weak to move furniture! In fact, I hope to still be training for/running marathons well into motherhood.
well, the only thing I can comment on about being a mommy is, sounds like you’re one hell of a good one….
You are doing a great job being a mom, which is the hardest job in the whole world. I agree with what Joanne says.
Great post….strikes many chords. I am not a grandma so t here is a whole different set of criteria and goals and lots of love.
Good post, Angie.
LOL! I’m an engineer, a geek – but with occasional social skills, a single parent, foodie, avid skier, and part-time professor. I write to encourage people to improve and use critical thinking skills.
What I like about this article:
You chose to stay home and chose your child over your profession. You will not thereby lose the natural affection of your child as so many millions of Moms do by letting the State or other moms have them for a better part of their lives.
I just hope that you choose to home school this child as well.
If you do not, by the third grade, he/she will have lost the light in his/her eyes relative to creativity.
For example, as an experiment, go to the local school, either private or public, it doesn’t matter. Any school that segregates kids by age as if they were apples on the tree maturing at the same time in the same way.
Ask a kindergarten or first grade class who is an artist, and all the little hands will go up in the air, and you may hear shouts of me, me, me.
Then go over to a 4th grade classroom, and ask the same question. What you will see is perhaps one or two or no hands go up, and the heads will turn to see if there is anyone who wishes to claim to be creative in that way.
The system has taught the children an important lesson by the 4th grade. Individual creativity, the expression of the individual, is not accepted lightly.
Only you know your child well enough to know what he or she needs.
The State is a top down organization. The important choices in State schools are made from afar, and controlled by school boards who generally are composed of the loudest people in the crowd, and principals who know nothing about your child, but do know exactly what the school board and the State wants your child to know, and the attitudes that are acceptable to the State.
And remember, the social engineering that has been part and parcel of the schools for the past sixty years have taken the average American classroom from first to last in the developed world in terms of knowledge or skills learned.
That is one of the reasons that you can go to any public university campus graduate science program and look at the faces of the student researchers, and you will find 60% of them minimum are faces from the international community. There are no American children who are qualified to take those spots because the average American high school valedictorian places in the bottom third of most developed country’s students in terms of knowledge and accomplishment.
The only graduate school area that is overrun by Americans are the law schools. With tens of thousands of American lawyers graduated each year, our society is known throughout the world as a very cruel, intolerant one, with all those lawyers looking to find a citizen(s) to feed upon in the name of freedom.
The Chinese (who are copying US censorship laws from the 40’s and 50’s when the US was truly leading the world), and Indians (the Indians alone produce 350,000 US qualified engineers every year) think that the US is crazy to allow the schools and lawyers to do what they are doing to our children and to our society.
Nothing wrong with the American kids, mind you. Given half a chance, an American child still can be the most creative in the world. But, the schools, especially the public schools, and our litigiousness are ruining everything.
And, no, the jobs won’t be coming back from India and China any time soon. Our alienated teens, you know, the ones who have learned in public school to disrespect mom and dad, and the 23 year old American “college graduate” who has learned the names of all the foreign beers and thrown up on the sidewalks of their schools after every football game, win or lose (See the latest Penn State reports), this represents what we are doing to ourselves.
See our Congress today. They represent the kind of people we have put into power everywhere. The kind of values they represent are exactly what we evidently want.
The State is not and never will be our friend. The State represents the 5% of Americans who own 95% of all the stock on the New York Stock Exchange, and 40% of all the land that is ownable in the US. And, you betcha your son is not going to be invited into that 5% group unless he was born with a ten million dollar trust fund.
Bitter? NO. I just know what the PLAN is. I’ve lived with the upper 5%. I’ve been with them when they speak about the public schools and what they mean by “socializing” children.
The US now has more prisoners in jail (redundant) today per capita than any other nation. We do it and call ourselves free. But, at bottom, every great fortune was won by very great crimes.
Once the rich and their descendants have society exactly the way they want it, with their friends and relatives controlling all the boards of directors, you can bet that they are going to get laws passed to keep it just that way.
Democrat or Republican, it is jail for anyone who dares break the tens of thousands of laws that have been passed for one purpose only, to make sure that the upper 5% on average remain in the upper 5%. The kinds of things their ancestors did to grab the resources that were here to begin with, is of course, how one goes to jail today. (Of course, there are show pieces, the one in ten million child of the middle class allowed into the 5%. It’s impossible to keep them all out. However, you show me a child in the upper 5% at birth and 99 times out of 100, I will show you someone who will spend his entire life in the upper 5%. You show me a middle class or lower class child at birth, and 99 times out of 100, I will show you a child who will spend his or her entire life in those classes. The first step, of course, is to attend the public schools. (They are called welfare schools by the upper 5% who I have known, and I have known a lot of them.)
Grabbing the diamonds today is illegal. But, the richest families in the US all have ancestors who maimed and killed for the diamonds without a second thought.
So remember the words of Balzac, “Behind every great fortune is a great crime.”
And, keep that lovely child of yours away from the maw that is the State.
Beth
My favorite hobby shop (owned by lifetime middle class folks) is:
ToysPeriod is a leading online shop specializing in lego sets and model railroad equipment.
It sounds like you have a good grasp on what it takes to be a great mother! Be happy with the fact yo re doing your bst, that is the most tht can be expected! Cool blog and than you.
I just found this post that you did! i love it! It was so nice to read more about you. I need to write a post like this. You seem like a really great, cool mommy
This is a very interesting post. With all the changes that the “stay at home moms” are going through. Its very nice to hear that their are moms out there that still take pride in raising there children. I love the list of the things that you do as a mom.
This is great. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.
I love reading the list you have for both AM and AM NOT that mommy. I see some on both lists that I am. I do love to wear a bikini when I am pregnant because I think it is so cute.
Super nice this is going to my collections
I sure did laugh when I recognized myself in “I am NOT that mommy” list! My two children are young adults now, one still lives with us. My daughter has been living in another city for several years now and I love when she calls just to say how much she loves me and misses me (and her dad, of course). At that moment, I know that I did OK and everything is alright.