500 Words a Day Challenge - A Persuasive Piece

“Oh, but she has kids.”

I heard this phrase more times today than I would have liked. It was often accompanied by a slight sigh, and a wistful dragging out of the last word, letting it hang in the air, compelling listeners to collectively dwell on the same toxic thought - What if she hadn’t? Then maybe her potential wouldn’t be wasted. But oh well. Moving on to the next young hopeful...

Perhaps one of the things that got me the most flustered, is that this all took place at a meeting for the Women’s Federation for World Peace, a very good organization committed to empowering women and re-establishing the traditional family as the cornerstone of a peaceful world.

One of the organization’s leaders, a mentor of mine, coined the term “familiarchy” to replace the terms of patriarchy and matriarchy. Rather than settling for one or the other gender to dominate societal infrastructure, as both the majority of history and the more recent feminist movement have fallen into the trap of doing, the much better solution is to revive the family unit - mother, father, children, grandchildren - treating the entire unit as society’s top priority.

It made me so sad to hear that tired old phrase coming from the mouths of people who so desire to improve things for women, and for the family at large. But I wasn't angry at any of them, because I realized that they did not say it consciously. It is something we have all heard over and over again, and if you hear it often enough, you begin to believe it. I found myself angry at the society we live in, which has trained us to view mothers of young children as life's “benched” participants. That because of their tremendous responsibilities at home raising their little ones, they are no longer capable of utilizing their talents, skills, knowledge and experiences to serve anything beyond the kitchen sink or the playground. 

This is desperately untrue.

Perhaps now more than ever, women have an abundance of resources to offer themselves in service to global needs. The biggest and best example is the internet and its complementary technology, with products like the iPad and smart phones. The ability to blog, to self-publish, to cultivate an online presence and connect with a worldwide online community from virtually anywhere is something our foremothers could only have dreamed of.

Women not only have the option of seeking help, support and understanding from other women in the same situation, they have the option to be that support. Thousands of mothers have taken to the blogosphere, sharing their experiences and knowledge with anyone interested, and the results have been astounding. Some of the most compelling bloggers have created a means of entrepreneurship, selling their resources in the forms of books, online courses and other materials. This is an incredible model that many more could harness.

Beyond self-gain, the internet and other media can also be better utilized by organizations like the one I mentioned above. By better establishing their online presence with more modern elements like blogging or multimedia content, such organizations would not only have a new way to extend their help to unnecessarily disenfranchised women, but they could give those women the means to contribute more freely, particularly in roles less affected by location or work schedule, such as writing, editing, accounting, media production and social media management.

In short: having kids doesn't mean a woman is no longer competent. If she wants to, she can still do plenty to help the world.

Of course, this doesn't mean that simply handing a mom an iPad with 3G will magically enable her to become a fulltime webmaster or media producer. What I think those women above meant to say was, "it's not easy juggling kids with other commitments," to which I would loudly respond, "HELL YES." 

And this is an area that needs real consideration.

Part of the reason why we believe mothers of young children are unable to do bigger things is that our social and business infrastructure is completely unsuitable for these women. By making "the bottom line" the bottom line instead of the family, an entire group of highly contributive individuals has been marginalized. Mothers - women with deep intuition and an instinct to lovingly do what is best for her family - have much to share with areas like the business or political spheres, which have long been imbalanced by testosterone-driven values like competition and assertiveness, and could use a motherly touch to set them right.

We - be it our families, our organizations or our businesses - must wake up to the reality that serving the needs of the family will also serve the needs of the larger group, and would nourish these groups in ways that money alone cannot. Society would be in a much healthier, more balanced state if the family were placed where it ought to be - above our financial worth.

To summarize, we as a society need to let go of the thoughts and practices which hold us - and especially the mothers among us - back. By taking advantage of the tools we already have and by engaging more resources in service to the needs of families, we can empower women to summon all of their beautiful abilities in creating a new world - one which all of us can enjoy together.

The 500 Words a Day Challenge!

Hello everyone,

Jeff Goins, who hosts a brilliant blog for writing advice, has started up a 500 Words a Day Challenge for the month of January. I have been going at it for a few days now, and I have to say, I write much more freely and with far greater results when I have a smaller goal! This is the piece I wrote today; I may backtrack and post more pieces from previous days.

This piece, based on a prompt by Jeff, is a letter to my child:

My dear Baby,

You are so beautiful and pure. Your smile illuminates a room, and your unadulterated joy when you discover something interesting brings the little girl in me back out too. I love spending my days with you - who wouldn’t want to fill their days with such sweet, true love?

As I watch you breathe in all the curiosities and wonders of this big world, I catch myself already thinking of when I will send you off to school, or to let you play with the other kids in the playground. I think of the days when you will go join your friends for an afternoon of play once school lets out for the summer, and the day you head off to college. I think of those days, and I get scared. 

Your sweet little mind would probably wonder, why is Mama afraid? Aren’t those things good too? Is she afraid she’ll miss me? Of course, that is a part of it. I know I will miss you when you become more independent (and I remind myself of that on days when I’ve spent maybe a little too much time with you). But there is another part to this fear, this worrying. I want to try my very best to fill your heart with love, with trust, with the habit of always acknowledging the goodness in people. I want to help you hang onto your glorious wonder that I see whenever you exclaim “CAR!” every time you see anything with wheels, your compassion that I see when you hug your doll and study his face, your sweet smile when you get to know new people - keeping all these beautiful qualities will help you grow into such a wonderful young man, the kind we wish we would see more of in this world. 

It is exactly that - this world - that fears me. I fear that those boys you go off and play with will teach you things that contradict the beauty and goodness in this world. I don’t fear the boys themselves; it would be hypocritical for me to ask you not to judge people, and then judge them myself. But sometimes other children can be cruel, and they can make you feel bad or weird or wrong to do or think certain things, like to enjoy being with your Mama and Papa, or to not like guns, or to not want to pick anyone to have a crush on, because you’d rather relate to people as brothers and sisters. I’m scared that, out of an intense desire to be accepted and included, that you might exclude me and Papa from your life, or you might decide to hide away the best parts of yourself, all in the name of “being cool” or “being a man.” 

I can’t bear to lose you, not only for my own sake, but for yours. Please, my love, do not ever compromise yourself just to fit in. Of course, I don’t want you to ever feel alone, though it will probably happen at some point. But you know what? In those moments, there might be other boys and girls who feel alone too, because what they’re scared to admit is, they think and feel just like you. They don’t want to laugh at the kid that seems different. They don’t want to have boyfriends or girlfriends. They want to share their love of science or show off their stamp collection, but they worry that other kids will think it’s stupid. Those kids feel alone too. 

Here’s where you come in, my love. When you have the courage to let your You-ness shine brightly, you give others the courage to do the same. And when those kids find it within themselves to be brave like you, and step forward in their Them-ness, then they don’t have to feel alone anymore. And neither will you.

So please, don’t buy into the messages you will hear (and I’m so sorry, but you will hear them whether I let you or not), whether they come from mouths or screens or eyes or hands. Messages that tell you to assert yourself through force, or through anger, or through apathy. Don’t let those messages strip you, bit by bit, of your divine essence. If you do, you will wake up years later, forgetting most of the names of the people you tried so hard to impress, and wishing you could remember yourself. The true you. 

Let’s be true, together. It’ll be worth it, I promise.

Love,

Mama