Perhaps I've Been "Mama"ed Out

It's an odd world I inhabit. A world suspended between that of adults and children, workforce and home front, religious and secular. Sometimes it seems like a parallel universe - population 1.
But I can't be alone in straddling these social lines. The idea of being an engaged community member, worker, and friend, while also being a parent and spouse, is not a rare one.

So why does it feel so lonely? Why are so many of us convinced that we are alone in our experience and struggles?

I think it comes down to this: the language we use to speak to, and of, other women, and the simplistic way we think of ourselves and others.

We have "mama"ed ourselves into a hole

There's a right way to be a mother. Or at least there is a little scrap of rules for what a good mother should look like and do in many minds. It normally reads something along the lines of "makes the same choices I have made" irregardless if that is a reasonable expectation.

I saw this in what could only be called "pearl clutching" by some mothers over the second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
I assumed the hoopla would be over the language and sexual jokes.
But no, that would be your run of the mill pearl clutching, this was a new level.
They were upset that the lead character agrees to go on tour without a pre-laid plan for her children. In fact, every night she spent out pursing comedy as a career might as well have been a personal affront to mothers everywhere. They interpreted another woman's choices, a fictional character mind you, as a method to "make fun of people who value raising children."

No matter that this was an entirely different time and place, or, ya know, fiction. There are rules and standards for what it means to be a good mother, and they just so happen to line up with my own choices, huzzah!

Because we are mama tribe! Mamas unite! Mamas-who-look-and-think-and-do-like-me-because-we-are-the-saviors-of-all!

Y'all, we can't do this and then turn around and complain about burnout and isolation. 

I can't even count how many times I have seen women exclude other women or persist in continuing unhealthy situations. I then watch those same women post sunshine and rainbows, of said situation, on social media. #blessed

This is perhaps one of the few times I think the academic phrase "complicit in their own oppression" is an accurate descriptor.
Women are the ones who have hurled  the most vitriol at me - a stranger on the internet. Women are the ones who have refused to cast me because I'm a mother. Women have made cliques and iced me out of groups I started. Yes, there are bigger factors in all of this, but I don't think they would have as much control if women would stop consenting to be weapons against other women. If women would stop weaponizing against themselves.

The truth is for every possibility automatically eliminated as a potential for another woman leaves another possibility eliminated for herself. Not out of necessity, but out of an oversimplified idea of who she is and who she can be.

There a flatness to this "mama" world. Where we call strangers on the internet "mama" as some form of false unearned intimacy. Where talk of "my mama heart" takes the place of having normal human empathy.
We miss the multi-dimensional whole person that is so desperately desired when discussing children. Children are whole persons. They get to have hopes, dreams, and aspirations. They can to be living, growing, people. Why can't their mothers?

Time to take up some space!

This isn't about being abrasive or confrontational.
It's about not apologizing for being a human being with gifts and wholeness and possibilities!
It's about seeing yourself as a person of worth that is not defined by how well your parenting choices line up with the current fads.

Don't be afraid to wear multiple hats. Sometimes I'm a mom of three at home and up to my eyeballs in constant laundry, books, and cooking. Sometimes I'm a young woman out with friends or attending a talk or performance. I can discuss books, current events, and ideas just as well as I can cooking and parenting.

I'm not doing this to check all the boxes so I can claim "not just a mom". I'm doing this because this is what it means to be honest about who I am: body, heart, mind, and soul.

I long to see more honesty from other women. I long to be more honest myself.

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What are your thoughts on "mama"isms? How we encourage more multi-dimensional living among parents of young children? What did I leave out here?