A few More Thoughts on "Selfless Motherhood"

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was working as a cheese buyer for a major specialty foods retailer. You don't get a job like that without a well-documented fondness for cheese.

During my pregnancy, one of our vendors was clearing out what was left of a limited-release cheese from one of my favorite creameries, Cypress Grove Chevre. The cheese, generally too cost-prohibitive for me to bring home for dinner, was suddenly on sale at a ridiculously affordable price. And, since it was a special, commemorative, limited release for the creamery, once it was gone, it wasn't coming back.

Naturally, I wanted to stock up--or rather, chow down, as this particular cheese had a shelf life of about a week.

There was just one problem: beautiful, gooey, slightly funky, soft-ripened goat cheeses such as the one in question are solidly on the no-no list for the prego.

I could sample and sell this cheese all day long to the lucky customers at my counter, but enjoyment by proximity was as far as my love affair could go.

Now I am pregnant again.

There's a bottle of my favorite cheap "champagne" hanging out in my kitchen closet that beats me in a staring contest every time I put away a mixing bowl or retrieve a sippy cup.

I'd love to chill that bad boy down and enjoy a little bubbly while I get my fix of The Middle on Hulu.

I'd love to eat a massive rib-eye, seared on the outside and bleeding in the center. I'd like a raw-oyster appetizer and a Caesar salad on the side, made the real way, with raw egg yolks, if you please. And why not add a full carafe of coffee to go along with dessert?

But all that will wait till baby number two is breathing his air out here with the rest of us.

Am I a selfless mother?

Hardly.

But like it or not, pregnancy and motherhood entail making sacrifices.

I'm not any less of a food-lover or occasional adult-beverage enthusiast during these nine months, but I recognize the need to put certain preferences on hold for a while. I can manage.

Furthermore, I realized something during my first pregnancy:

These long gestational months of awkward body changes and forced sobriety are such a blessing.

Why?

Because I am selfish. Deeply, deeply selfish.

And no matter how many sacrifices I choose to make for my children, sacrifices will be made.

Sleep will be lost.

Stretchmarks will be gained.

Shirts will be ruined.

Showers and a general sense of personal hygiene will occasionally be forsaken.

My sanity will at many times be utterly up for grabs.

It's going to happen.

But God knows what He's doing.

He gives us nine whole months of semi-sacrificial living to get us used to making sacrifices. To begin, if ever-so-slightly, to chip away at our deeply rooted selfish natures so that by the time our slimy, screaming, bloody bundles of joy pop out we are in some way ready to tackle the poo and the spit-up and the nipple-biting and embrace the moody, beautiful enigmas that are our children.

This post and the previous one were inspired by another blogger's post, titled, "My Doctor Judged me for Wanting to Have Sex, for Not Being a 'Selfless Mother,'" which can be read here. Neither of these posts are meant to be an attack on that post, but rather further exploration of the concept of the Selfless Mother. I would love to hear your thoughts on these posts or motherhood in general if you would like to share!

In Defense of Selflessness

I subscribe to a e-newsletter from a women's blogging network called BlogHer.

A while back, one of the headlines in the email caught my attention, so I clicked the link and read the post. 

I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. 

The post, titled "My Doctor Judged me for Wanting to Have Sex, for not Being a Selfless Mother," bemoans an apparently archaic and anti-feminist female archetype, The Selfless Mother. 

The author/subject of the post  was confronted with her male obstetrician's expectation that she embody this archetype when given the choice between what was most pleasing to her (continuing to have sex with her husband as desired) or what was most beneficial to her growing baby (holding off on sex for several weeks until her low-lying placenta could be re-checked).

The doctor's request infuriated her. 

He told her that "it wasn't just about her" anymore. She felt she was, as she says, ". . .very subtly being criticized for being a mom-to-be with a sex drive."

She continues, "I think American society has a ridiculous notion of what a mother should be. We are sent the message that we should, as the doctor said, forget about ourselves and make it all about the baby. But in doing so, what's the benefit?" 

Earlier in the post she elaborates on the archetype of her frustration:

"Most women (parents or not) are probably familiar with the image of the selfless mother. You might, in fact, be so familiar with it that you don't even think about a mother without automatically assuming how selfless she is. After all, the American ideal seems to scream that we women should think of nothing but our children once they are born."

Her own take on motherhood is a little different:

 "Though I feel all baby-high, awesome, and marvel at my expanding belly, I have also managed to somehow keep my head about me. I still pay attention to my husband, and being a selfless mother has never even crossed my mind because I am a person, too.   . . .Selfless mother? I am not. Nor do I want to be." 

Okay. Deep breath.

I think I get where she is coming from, in a way. As mothers, and even just as women, there are so many ideal images out there that we think we have to live up to. The Donna Reeds of today fill the blogsosphere and various boards of Pinterest with their seemingly perfect homes, crafts, food, parenting wisdom, and uncanny blend of creativity and organizational skills. It's easy to come away from an Internet session feeling like if you don't have the time-management skills to whip up breakfast, lunch, and dinner from scratch, redecorate your house, and teach your two-year-old how to read the classics before the sun goes down, you don't deserve the mommy badge you so expertly appliqued to your self-crocheted sweater. And what are you doing on the Internet, anyway? Don't you have a homemade diaper-rash cream to whip up before nap-time is over?

Honestly? I love that stuff. The frenzy of inspiration.

I wish I could be half the super-mom I dream of being.

I can't.

No one can.

No one, not even the most pinned, most "liked," most re-tweeted (or non-blogging but seemingly flawless) mom out there has it all together the way she wants to in her head.

And that's fine.

We cannot be perfect, and we cannot be selfless.

But does that mean we shouldn't try?

Recently I've been confronted with the realization that many of the things I do in the name of being a better mom are more selfish than selfless.

I want to make homemade play-dough.

I want to train my daughter to pick up her toys and say please and thank you and obey upon first request.

If she doesn't fuss in public, counts to thirty in Spanish by the time she is three, reads proficiently by the time she is four, and recites the New Testament by the time she is five, I look like I know what I am doing, like I deserve that Super-Mom cape.

If I'm spending all that time training my daughter to be intelligent and Godly and well-rounded, I seem so selfless.

But my pride will not be denied.

I yell at my daughter.

I get so angry and frustrated.

I set the kind of example I would never let her watch on TV and that I would never want my friends (let alone strangers) to see.

Why? Because it's all about me, of course. Because if she messes up, if she doesn't obey, if she doesn't "get it" when I'm trying to teach her something, I am failing. Hang up the cape and call it a day.

Right now, my daughter is watching Dora and hanging all over me, pulling up my shirt to talk to my enormous baby bump. Incessantly. Her sippy cup is making that slurping sound that means it's running low, so any second now she is going to request that I get her more milk, and I will request that she say please. She woke up early from her nap, and I didn't get my full allotment of "me" time.

I want to tell her to give me some space and let me type.

And maybe that's the more evolved, feminist thing to do.

But I'm going to make an effort to calm my spirit, to invite Jesus into the equation, and remember that the computer will be here later. No one is waiting on this post. It can take all day or all year or stay in draft mode eternally.

But my daughter? She will be in this stage of life for a moment. A fleeting, vanishing moment. And to me, that's worth giving selflessness a shot.

Below is the link to the post I referenced. My post was not meant in any way to be an attack on that one (or on any type of mother for that matter), but just to express additional views on the idea of the Selfless Mother. What are your thoughts? 

http://www.blogher.com/selfless-mother-who-person-anyway?from=pop