On motherhood, getting help, and surviving while single parenting

I’ve finally figured out how to track bloggers using feeds, so now I actually read blogs! I know, I know, it’s about time for some blogdom karma on my part. Anywhoooo, one of my new favorites is Wannabe Hippie where Elaine recently wrote this great post on pain, motherhood, and equity (or the lack thereof.) As these are all commonly musings of my very own, I felt less lonely reading her poignant post. My favorite line was about how when you are in chronic pain, you sometimes must climb under the covers and “hide from your own body.” It’s disconcerting, but in pain, it is sometimes true.

The other thing I loved about this post is that Elaine suggest to her mother, that she was thinking about hiring some help the next time her husband had to travel and her mother totally affirmed her! Once, when my children were both in preschool and I suggested this same idea to my mother she said, “I don’t know why you girls can’t handle this on your own. I had three children and I did it without help from your father.” Holy revisionist history batman!

This of course immediately neccesitated a call to my sister — at the time the mother of three — where we both spent a lot of time commiserating, shaking our heads, and drinking that ubiquiteous mother’s comfort, diet coke. We decided to make a virtual tape we could play in our own heads. It went like this:

“If I choose to suffer, it will not negate Mom’s past suffering.”

This makes us much less martyrish and a great deal more balanced when it comes to getting help.

In her defense, when my sister had baby number four, my mom got right on board with the hiring help thing…

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