Brain in a 4-oz Jar

Here we go...

I decided to start dumping my inner monologue on something other than the shower walls, so I may as well use the internet.

The feminism and women's liberation movements of the 1960's and 1970's gave rise to a new demographic, which has yet to be truly recognized. We're the Gen X moms. Our parents are baby boomers who may have rebelled in the 60's, but who did a reasonably good job of passing along solid American values. In many cases, they provided strong negative examples. (Out of all of my high school friends, only my parents and those of one other guy are still happily married to their original spouse; most of the divorces happened in the early 1990's, though some are more recent.)

We were encouraged to work hard, do well in school, and get jobs. We're older than the Gen Y boomerang kids who were overindulged and/or overprotected and are trying to maintain their parents' standard of living in overly expensive parts of the country. Many of us were never told that girls can't do math. The top 5 graduates in my high school class were female. Getting married and staying home with kids was never part of the discussion. I never really thought about life after college; that probably explains why I felt so lost after I finished my MS and was finally just going to a 7:30-4:30 job every day, with no real goal towards which to work (solution: started running marathons). I accidentally stumbled across my husband after years of dating some terrific guys, and finally learned what people mean when they say "you just know" when you have met the right person. He's almost 9 years older, and has been ready for kids for years. When I got fed up with the Air Force and decided to go back to school, he was very supportive, assuming that I would eventually come around.

Sometime in the spring of 2004, not long after I turned 30, the idea of a baby was suddenly no longer intimidating. Parenthood sounded like another great adventure, albeit a challenging, expensive, lifelong one, and I suppose I felt that I had had enough adventures to be able to settle down for a while. So at peak fitness, after my first season of bike racing and best season of triathlon (feeding my accomplishment-junkie streak and justifying beer/chocolate/wine consumption), I got pregnant. I hated being pregnant. Sure, it was nifty feeling a life growing inside of me and yada yada yada, but I saw it as a means to an end. I hated feeling sick and fatigued early on, and didn't enjoy blowing up, especially after years of working so hard to maintain my size. My due date and graduation date were the same, which provided some extra motivation to get through the PhD program. Natalie finally showed up 11 days after my "due date." I had a tough delivery (for the experienced: this included about 3 hours in transition, sans drugs) and was suddenly thrust into motherhood.

Plenty of women get to experience the helplessness, sleeplessness, and cluelessness of those first few weeks with a baby. Most forget it. Let me remind you: IT IS NOT FUN AT FIRST. I had no idea what I was doing, and fortunately had my mom around to at least make sure we ate. Babies are nonlinear systems, and don't come with a little monitor screen that says "HUNGRY" or "OVERTIRED." After all that education, I was in totally foreign territory.

Fortunately, Natalie was sweet enough to start sleeping through the night around 2 months, and I started to get my balance back a bit. Unfortunately, we moved from Tucson, AZ, the Center of the Universe, to Fayetteville, NC, at the behest of the Air Force. I won't slam Fayetteville much because I don't know it yet, but I will say that Harnett County, NC is a pathetic, backwards place which you should avoid, and if you already live here, I'm sorry. For example, they have corporal punishment in schools (YES, IN 2005), and they don't recycle. I have been recycling for about 20 years and am offended by this. Our neighborhood is nice enough, but I really feel like I'm biding my time. Thanks to email and cheap long-distance, I can still keep up with my friends in Arizona and elsewhere.

My crummy location is a lot less important than the issue of the Gen X Mom demographic. It seems like almost all of my friends are having kids this year. Here we are, a bunch of 30-something new moms who are formerly professional, often in technical fields, and all of a sudden we're thrust into the traditional homemaker role. We don't naturally measure success in terms of loads of laundry completed. We need more intellectual stimulation than Sesame Street, and we want to talk about something other than potty training. We have egos that were stoked by professional success, and now there's little or no recognition of our former accomplishments, which is part of why I am hanging on to my military reserve job. We want the best for our kids, but are trying not to be as indulgent or demanding as the soccer moms. I suppose that we need to learn to apply our creativity to parenting, and need to learn to draw fulfillment and satisfaction from just being moms. (Oh, and a few of us are dads, too, though I only know one true stay-at-home dad, and they probably have more angst about lack of recognition, etc. than the moms do.) Meanwhile, we're trying not to beat up our husbands, as we are fully aware from first-hand experience that going to work is a LOT easier than staying home with a baby, assuming that work is an office job and the boss isn't a complete jerk. Our husbands are different, too - most of them are interested in being good fathers, and make a conscious effort to be involved. Household division of labor is still tough to balance.

This blog will follow me around as I try to be a good mom and wife, juggle my part-time jobs (95% online), and maintain my sense of self so that my daughter can grow up to be a strong woman. After all, we're taking over!


TITLE: Brain in a 4-oz jar - the stage 2 baby foods come in 4-oz jars. Some of them are grey and mushy...and some days, I feel like mine is about that big.

posted by Anne Johnson @ 6:46 PM