I Got Through All of Last Year, and I'm Here

So last week I was trolling the news Web sites looking for stories I might have missed, and I stumbled on this:

Still Me: The Cool Mom’s Guide to Staying Hip

My reaction pretty much removed any possible doubt that I am, in fact, still me, since it boiled down to: Are you fucking kidding me?

The idea that mothers deserve a forum where they can be reassured that they are “still them” is the sort of thing that drives me nuts. It’s the same kind of sniffy clubbiness that would make me itch in college when I would walk by the Black Student Union and the Hispanic League and the Filipinos for Filipinos’ Sake.  Knowing those groups existed and that these groups would howl for blood  at even the prospect of any “Whiteys Rule” groups running around asserting themselves just made me want to shout in my loudest un-PC voice, “Where da white folks at???” 

Seriously, all this compartmentalizing has to be detrimental to society. When does it stop? Where, for example, is the Post section devoted exclusively to new college grads, reassuring them that, “yes, you have to get a job now, but you are Still You even if you are a corporate drone!” Or the one telling first-time managers, “Sure, you’re one step closer to being The Man you used to stick it to, but you are Still You!”

Or, oh, I don’t know, maybe the one for new fathers?  Yeahyeah, you can give me that riff about how parenthood is “different for women.”  Different, sure. But exclusive? Spare me. I defy you to tell that to my co-worker who hasn’t had a full night’s sleep since March, when his wife had their second daughter. Or my husband – who has dropped the YP off at day care way more often than I have, and who will flay you if you dare even hint that fatherhood didn’t significantly change his life. Or any number of other dads out there whose lives changed the instant they saw that new face looking up at them squalling for food, for warmth, for attention, for God knows what reason.

The thing is, the premise is all wrong. It is wrong to think that the only way to affirm you are “still you” requires sinking your talons into your single life, your childless life, your unbeholden college student life. It is every bit as wrong as thinking “Sure, I had a baby, but nothing has to change!” Here’s a tip to the few people who read this but who somehow missed this lesson: Your identity is inextricable from what happens to you and what you do when it happens. Life brings change, and that change has an effect, even if that effect is to realize nothing really changed. I had a baby. It changed my identity. It did NOT obliterate it.  The same way discovering I like Panera more than Starbucks changed my identity, but didn’t obliterate my affinity for iced coffee milkshake-type drinks. Change comes. Roll with it.

Anyway, this feature apparently has been running since September of last year and this is the first time I noticed it. I suppose that numbers me among the “unhip” – or maybe it numbers me among those who aren’t looking to the Post for good feature writing.

Take a look at snips from the inaugural column:

I realized that I hadn't read a newspaper -- my own newspaper, the one that pays my mortgage -- or watched the TV news in over a week. I could, however, quote entire pages of dialogue from Disney's "The Incredibles" and sing the theme songs of every single show appearing between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. on the Noggin cable network.

Soooo… the Post pays its editors not to read the paper? Sweet! Where do I sign up? Not to mention that I daresay NYAB knows more Wiggles lyrics than I do at this point.  Again I ask, where is the section for him?

Arond says she's seen a real shift in the last six to 10 years in how modern women value their mental, physical and social well-being vis-à-vis motherhood. "Parents years ago felt like they were being selfish if they focused on themselves as much as their kids," she adds. "Now you see that moms are much more open about the fact that they start resenting their kids, their husbands, their work, if they don't take time out for themselves.
"There's a stronger feeling of not wanting to give up that part of themselves that they knew before they became moms," she says.

Hm.  My mom rebuilt a car engine when I was 5. Most of my friends had moms who worked full time. Several were divorced. My grandma played softball with me when I was 10 and talked about how she used to play basketball in the school gym while her janitor father swept up the classrooms.  NYAB’s mom had five kids and still found time to work, attend church, keep up with the goings-on of everyone in town, and bake rolls from scratch at least twice a week. But I’m sure this woman is right. I’m sure none of those women retained any sense of who they might have been pre-pregnancy.

I'm not trying to be the Dr. Phil of hip. I don't see this space as a place to scold you for not being cool enough or wag my finger in judgment. I see it more as a place to have a conversation, reflect on my own experiences and share what my access is teaching me about how to retain a bit of sexy edge.

“Sexy edge?” What does that even mean? It sounds painful. And seeing as how she admits in the first part of the column that she can go for weeks without knowing what’s in the news, she sure as hell better not see “this space as a place to scold” – glass houses and all that, you know.  But – “reflect on my own experiences” – ahh. Now we are getting somewhere.  This is not a space for reader validation! It’s a space for the writer’s validation! You thought "Still Me" was about YOU? Ha!

So if being a cool mom is all about being a little better informed, then the "Still Me" column should be a place where we can get our learn on. We'll be talking about a range of topics, from music and fashion, books and music, pop culture trends and even politics. Help me out, people. And, as the Black Eyed Peas would say, let's get it started in here!

Dude. “Get our learn on?” Seriously? Does anyone really talk that way? Not to mention the fact that I -- even I, who haven’t been plugged into the music scene in years -- cringed at how dated that Black Eyed Peas reference was. Perhaps she was being ironic? One can only hope.

Since this inauspicious beginning, La Neal has written about jeans, the “one-time single mom” on Project Runway,  Arianna Huffington, children’s music (and why hip-hop is inappropriate – duh – but ignoring if not flat-out missing the point that, hey, your choices are not strictly limited to music about bitches and ho’s vs. music about barnyards and hayrides), being fat, being nice to other moms, clutter, Earth Day and the most recent offering: Botox.

But, see, I am already plugged into all this stuff – on friends’ blogs (Maliavale’s jeans-fitting generator discovery was WAY better than this column, mahaloluinoa is nothing if not a Project Runway encyclopedia, and Lane's fashion column explored fat-abulous in a much smarter and better written way.)  On news sites (though the less ink Arianna gets, the happier I am.)  Through co-workers (Joe W., Dan Zanes owes you a commission.) Etc. etc.  And while I am most assuredly “still me,” I am also most assuredly Not on Top of Pop Culture/Fashion/Feature Item Current Events.  If this Post feature can’t even suck in me – theoretically the target demographic -- who IS it working for? And as long as I’m asking these questions: Where da smart folks at?

Comments

[not a mom]

awesome

[TigMode]

I'm usually bemused by women who think major life changes (getting married, having a child) should in no way change their lives. If anything, I am MORE me since becoming a wife and mother times two....parts of me that were dormant came to the forefront and dramatically affect who I am.

We're normal, they're stupid. =)

[Kbee]

People sure are disgusting sometimes, aren't they? Smart folks are a dying breed. They just don't seem to be reproducing with quite the vigor as other groups.

[lane]

I wonder how many of the moms who are trying to be who they once were, actually wanted to be moms at all? Or actually considered what motherhood means before they got off the pill? It's like women who fantasize about the wedding without considering the marriage.

To a small extent, I understand. My first few months with Thor, I spent time wondering if I was the same person. Then I realized I was, and I spent time wondering how to reconcile who I was to HIM with who I am to ME. I had grown a new person who was going to see me in a new light, and I had to figure out how that image fit in with what I thought about all the mothers I knew, and what I knew about me.

Then I got past all the post-partum stuff and forgot I was supposed to wonder about that. I got on to the bigger issues of worrying about daycare and carseat ratings.

I'm still exactly as selfish and vain as I have always been, but now my selfishness and vanity have taken on new function: I selfishly guard my time with my son, and I think he is more beautiful than anything else I've ever seen.

I still go get my nails done.

I still go get my hair cut.

I still freak out over cute shoes.

I just do it on my lunch hour or with a kid in tow. And frankly, my life would be even better if someone would invent a spa chair that would seat two.

[Kim]

I do not want to be who I was before my kiddos arrived. And as far as being a Hot Mom of a so-called MILF? The ones that wear tee-shirts declaring themselves to be such? Pathetic. If you have to advertise it, you don't believe it. If you became a mom, somebody thought you were hot, and if you are fortunate, it was your husband or SO, the father of that child, and he'll still think you put the hot in "Hot-cha-cha."

[tammara]

How refreshing! There are at least 6 sane mothers in our age group out there!!

I did not intend to become a mom. My general feeling at 23 was somewhere between "probably never" and "maybe later." Through a glitch in ye old birth control, though, I got the title of Mom. I cried a little. And then I went to the bookstore to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do now.

I knew NOTHING. So in a funny way, I went into motherhood with no preconceived notions. It never, ever occurred to me that I wouldn't be "me" for having produced a child. I was me, plus one (and then another two, equally not planned, less upsetting since I knew what I was in for... and after which Paul made a very planned and determined trip to the urologist). I don't get this whole trying to be a hot mom. I agree with you and all the women above - if anything, I'm more me than I was before. And ya know - if I didn't have kids, I'd still be more me than I was 18 years ago.