One of the hardest things about all the therapy and work we have gone through is that it has been a lot about becoming our authentic selves. (Not a mommy- or daddy- pleasing self; not a living in fear of exposure self. This blog is a lot about that.)
And as it turns out, those authentic selves are sometimes in conflict, like right now.
It is indeed exactly like having the Mommy Wars inside your head. If you throw in sort of sibling wars too like remember when you all quit the job I was about to love? and remember that you said it would not always be all busy-busy!
War, too – today was a bit war-like just adrenaline wise. Lynn gets strange ideas about things and when we went to re-visit the Montessori today she scanned the place herself.
[Lynn's method of looking at space is completely different to most people's; where I just need not to have my back to a door, she basically looks at space the way you do in a video game (this is one reason I/we just can't play them; we sort of live aspects of them) - here's where you can hide, here's where people might pop out at you, here's what you can push over, here's where you could trap or be trapped, etc. However she also sort of assesses people and all the staff there passed as "uninteresting" which is, generally, one of the best pieces of news you can get. Interesting is bad.]
But it is certainly very trench-like to have her around. It’s sort of like having additional senses.
JJ is in on this one too and she really likes Montessori and thinks it is a really good match for Noah’s brain, so we sort of all agree on the method, it’s just more the hours.
Lyria is definitely really into the “mother” definition. I think she is able to let go of Noah appropriately but on the slow path, if you know what I mean. I’m encouraging her to post here later and she may, or she may not. But her main issue is that Noah is too little, and also what working full time will do to all of our home life, which is an important point.
She hates rush and thinks it is terrible for people, especially babies. She thinks the rat race is silly. She hates ordering food or eating pre-prepared stuff, unless it is made with love somewhere. And she thinks that our home should be a haven and for her that means her being here most of the time to kiss boo-boos.
And y’know I can’t entirely disagree with that, because if it were only her I would be very glad to have that happen. It’s just that it is also me, who ends up pacing around wondering how much longer it will be before I lose really important brain cells.
She thinks, really, that I am missing out on what could be my/our authentic, quiet life and getting busy monkey-mind. Which is a little true; I am not a zen contemplate the rock type; I am more the rock on! type.
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I think part of it too is that the idea originally was that we would have a child or two, slow down, and live more simply while they are small.
What I have discovered about myself right now at 36 years old is that I feel like I am missing out on something important while I do that. And god I love Noah. The thought of being far away from him is almost physically painful. But the thing is – I still, while enjoying him, while adoring who he is, end up worrying each day about how I am not ‘out there.’ And when I have good work to do, I sink into it and come up refreshed.
I guess I think that yes, if I were an ideal person, I would stay home longer. But I am me, and me really wants to work.
And see my mother made the opposite decision and she believes totally that she did the right thing, and who am I to argue really, since there was no alternate universe to test it in? Except that she was so unhappy for so long. And bounced around in pretty dead-end jobs. And I don’t really want to do that – I don’t think I would do it like that, but it sort of haunts me a little.
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I have to admit that in our negotiating (and we do try to do it on a long-range basis too) we throw everything in, oddly.
Like, if I get to work, Lyria gets to have more vegetarian meals. These are not easily related things, except that they involve people getting some say somewhere. There will be budget concessions in there too, if we ever get past the salary just covering costs.
The scariest one though is the baby question.
We are talking about a possible baby #3/2, too. I have mentioned I am 36? There is some slight urgency to the question.
Like this: I say that even the minimum one full year at this job would be the addition and contacts necessary to my resume, or ego, or both. Lyria really wants one more child, and part of the reason I am not sure I do is that it would mean being out of the workforce longer.
So we might do it like, start this job and give it at least 6 reproductively neutral months (i.e. before even thinking about conceiving), but then in exchange for taking this opportunity now, which should theoretically make me less stressed out about being able to get back in the workforce, consider throwing another maternity leave in there (err, and yes, another child – I am not negating that at all).
This sounds like a horrible way to decide to have a child so I should stress that this is not about having one, it’s about possibly having one – actually having one is a much bigger thing. And of course one should not take a job planning to get pregnant right away. I think 6 + 9 is reasonable and it’s only a half a year older, should it go that way.
(I still don’t know except that Noah is so great. Take that as you will.)
Then there’s the willingness to back out. Pretty much everyone in the system has pointed out that I have a hard time leaving things and that’s true to some extent. But we have agreed that if after three months Noah is not adjusting that I will back out, even though at that point we won’t have any job and it will make me look shitty.
But there is no question that if he were to stop being okay, he is immediately the top priority, given that we have the luxury of food and shelter already.
I have this meeting tomorrow, but so far I think we might try it out. Carl is very supportive about taking the job (or not, but he sort of favours trying it).
Brilliant!
Have you considered running the UN?
Your thoughtful response provoked more thoughts and questions in me!
As a multiple, what does authenticity mean to you? I’m thinking beyond simply staying true to one viewpoint or one deeply held value. How can the system maintain authenticity to many different values and priorities? I believe what you wrote above demonstrates that difficult process beautifully.
In a non-multiple, I think it means balance between a number of viewpoints too – what Lyall Watson in ‘Dark Nature: A natural history of Evil’ calls the Goldilocks Principle. Not too extreme in any direction: just right, appropriate to the context. The different values given to different pathways – a spiritual quest; a small business, corporate or professional career; a family; the pursuit of excellence in sport or creativity – are often decided in terms of the appropriate life-stage, and do not need to be mutually exclusive. Conflicting paths often mean a risky and uncertain trade-off. I’ll have my career and then my babies. I’ll have my babies and then my spiritual quest. If I time it carefully, I can run my business/career, meditate, have relationships and babies and run marathons as well. So speaks Supermum with no idea of her limits!
The authentic person, as opposed to the construct Supermum, decides on how all those priorities are balanced in one life.
I’m assuming it’s more problematic when the individuals in a multiple system are more exclusively representative of different viewpoints and all are valid, based on conclusions arising from their different experiences/need to survive. Integrating or developing co-consciousness probably entails balance as well, and naturally everyone in the system will have their own idea of what that is!