I love being a mom. Every time I look at my son's face it amazes me that my heart doesn't explode with all the love I have for him. Even when I'm correcting him I am thinking how heartbreakingly beautiful this little human is.
I love being a wife. My husband is a consummate gentleman. A soft-spoken sweetie pie. We treat each other well. We have ups and downs, we get over it. We love each other.
By all accounts it seems I have settled into the role that I see so many other women play out so beautifully. Except, I don't fit here.
My first images of womanhood are from my mother- who was perfection. Seriously, our home was bleach and a toothbrush to baseboards kind of clean. Sunday lunch from a crock pot. Weeknight meals at the table, cooked by my mother, not from a paper bag with a yellow M stamped on it. Laundry perpetually clean, folded, and in my dresser drawers.
The other indelible image I have of what a grown woman should be is that of Snow White. Disney's Snow White to be exact. My first Disney princess. She sang while she swept up after all those little men. Odd. Like she was happy to be cleaning and cooking for them.
Apparently this was the wrong thing to say as my mother immediately gave me "the look". I simply meant that she sang just as Snow White does in the classic movie. I believed that all women sang like that as they performed their housewife duties. I knew then that I never wanted to be a housewife. I didn't like opera enough to warrant it.
Eventually I did marry. Oh, how I wanted to be the perfect wife. What did that look like? Food. Make sure he has meals that he likes. And desserts. I have spent most of my life as a vegetarian. My husband has spent his life on meat and potatoes. I didn't know how to cook the meat, so I didn't. I did know how to make brownies from a box. So I stuck with that. And I got fat. Real fat.
So maybe cleaning. Maybe that part of this wife thing I could do. Alas, I fell short here too. With my mother's example of perfection I found that if I couldn't make it perfect, I would give up in the middle. I remember once when I crazily ironed sheets right out of the dryer to make them wrinkle free before I put them on the bed. And when I couldn't fold my fitted sheets into perfect squares I would cry and rumple them into balls and shove them in the linen closet. My mother once bought me a little plaque that read: "Creative minds are seldom tidy". Well.................
But once I had my son, things changed. I felt that it was even more expected that I become "that woman". The one who cooks for her family, has a clean and organized home, creates beautiful women's ministries programs, scrapbooks on the weekends, has obedient children who recite bible memory verses, is involved with the PTA, children's sports, and a host of other things.
This dreaded, horrible, flame-breathing beast is know to me as the "mommy club". Membership is exclusive and dependent upon you being able to do all the above mentioned activities in addition to maintaining the perfect balance between ministry and family but not limited to managing employees and ministering to congregants, or whatever your affiliated obligations, all while meeting the deadlines from the powers that be, while maintaining the perfect weight by diet and exercise and a multitude of other requirements that I'm already too tired to list.
It is obvious that I am not a member of this club. Every time I walk to pick Zane up from school all the women in this club are in a literal circle chatting and nodding their heads while closing their eyes for effect as if to say "I'm such a wise wife and mother and you are too. That's why we stand in a circle of mutual admiration."
I made the mistake on the first day of school by trying to make conversation. I could imagine them saying, "Don't make eye contact. If you don't look at her she'll just keep walking". And I did keep walking, thankful that I have not yet been overtaken by the beast.
This is nothing new. So much has changed. Yet so much is the same. It is a new era of housewives. We have dropped the unfavorable term and replaced it with euphemisms. And yes, women's roles have expanded, we've gained some ground in equality, and yes, there are stay- at home dads too.
I can't help feeling though that my own expectations of what a wife, mother, and minister looks like still resembles an outdated 1950's sit-com. This has been manifested in recent months by Pinterest. My personal boards more or less have begun to look like a manual for someone who is being rushed for the mommy club sorority.
I have some beautiful friends who seem to pull all of these things off with ease. My mom was one such woman.
I am not.
I don't want to be. I am a good wife. I am a good mom. I am a good officer. My laundry is presently dirty, lying in piles on the basement floor. My bed is not made. Meal planning literally depressess me. Planning anything makes me have a panic attack. I'm not joking. I won't go to the grocery store unless it's absolutely necessary. I don't know what's for dinner tonight. I don't like knowing what's for dinner. It's more exciting.
For years I tried to be something that I wasn't because I thought that was what was expected of me. But it's tiring, and I've got a lot of things to do. So from now on I will try not to apologize for being who I am. I am creative, messy, forgetful, and uniquely me. I adore my husband. He adores me. I cherish my son. He loves me. My guys treat me like a princess. Despite all my failings, that's what I am afterall. A child of the King.
