I have been becoming increasingly aware that throughout my life I have avoided fulfilling my own aspirations and goals and instead opted to tackle whatever things other people were dealing with. I have denied my own needs, import and comfort. This happens alot with women, especially once you have kids. If you look at a successful adult, often you can look behind and see that their parents were pivotal in their success. Not just success in the classic sense of the word, but in nurturing individuals with their priorities in the right place - as in fulfilment vs material gain.
Behind every great man, is a great woman. Women often provide excellent supporting roles be they visible or otherwise. Behind so many successes you will find one or even an army of women working tirelessly, quietly, not expecting reward or recognition. Because the achievement of the greater good is reward in itself?
Why is this such a successful model? Why do we recognise the success of the (mostly) male figure at the top of the success, but not the men and women, often lots of women, who made it all happen? What we see now, is the massive gap in income and mobility that this results in; women simply earn less for the same effort and they don't complain (enough).
So here's me, a mother, who has put herself last, a lot. Here's me in this culture where this is normal. It doesn't serve me to think like this though. Yes I know I live in an era, a culture where I missed the good stuff, I wasn't encouraged to get far, it was far easier to support someone else who was expected to succeed. Or in my case, I see the men around me (my kids included) who are gifted but also totally inept, that if only I try to fill that gap of ineptitude, their genius will get to shine through.
What motivated me time after time to be the earth, the brick the love and the comfort in the background is I saw this person who was amazing, but that this amazing-ness would only have a chance, if only they didn't disappear under their own flavour of autism. All that lack of executive planning, short attention span, low self esteem, depression, conflicted morals (if you are a moral person, much of what you can do that makes money, just isn't particularly moral - takes advantage of people, kills the planet, hurts animals, involves doing stuff we know to be unsustainable).
Working as a team makes you way stronger than the sum of your parts, for an Autie with all these holes in my skills - the disharmonic profile, we need support to achieve stuff. But we are rubbish at asking for help. I am and I know others are.
So armed with what I understand about myself, I recognise someone else similar and decide that by joining forces, we will do much better than on our own. Then we have children, equally disharmonic in their talents and my job is clear, even if it's not easy. It's clear, I fight for their future.
But what about mine? Oxygen mask first and all that? What sort example am I setting?
My husband is good at the details, keeping order to our finances, reading the small print, pragmatic and systematic. But without me, the trail blazer, the mover, the home maker, his life would be much smaller and more predictable. He is drawn to me to get him out of the boring predictable and I'm drawn to him because, without the boring stuff, the exiting stuff wouldn't happen either.
For me there's a dichotomy of behaviour - I am fulfilling a long established tradition of women who put them selves to one side in order to fulfill a bigger picture - the family, the succes of that talented man who would run out of clothes and food without me (I'm simplifying a lot, yes). The children who need nurturing and almost, the more intelligent and creative, the more upbringing and work it takes.
On the other side, who am I? I have many aspirations, dreams and ambitions, but will I be doomed to look back and think, if only.
Do I blame society? or do I take responsibility, forgive both my circumstances for their part in my underachievement? God, social services, my family, the lottery, whatever, won't save me. Only I can, but only if I'm prepared to ask for help too.
The hardest thing for me to get my head round is that thing where you are taking action, responsibility and being pro-active, but with the help and support that's out there - you have to find it, know that it's there for you, that there are tools to help, and that you deserve to use them. Some believe they have entitlements, I know I do, but I'm not sure I know the right ones.
Some kids are naturally more autonomous than others, some need reminding they don't need to be, don't see their limitations. Some have everything the could possibly need, yet lack the confidence to even attempt what others do without a moment's thought.
I have one of each, the eldest is the latter. He is 11 now and I still get the feeling there is an invisible umbilical chord, he won't go far without me. The younger feels more like a helium balloon on a string, and that if I don't watch out, he'll drift off into the sky out of reach.
I have to assess their daily movements very differently, push both their boundaries, like any parent, but also make sure that how far those boundaries go also needs to have boundaries.
Back to me though, this whole balance business, taking action, asking for help. I am really good and seeing it for others, I am even getting quite good at taking a step back and looking at my own circumstances from the view point of someone else.
True heroes of history pretty much always take what's expected, what's 'normal' and sometimes legal, and say this is not for me, I have a bigger, better, different idea. You can achieve great things regardless of what's going on around you. You can do this for yourself or for others - a small or a large group. Both are valid, both ultimately benefit or inspire others.
I am really starting to see that I can't validate something unless it benefits others! I can't even write about how wrong I feel it is to do something that doesn't. I can't even discribe it other than as a 'not helping others'! It's selfish, it's greedy, it's well, pointless to me. Very interesting.
I feel like I need to understand selfishness, I know I can be selfish, I'm not a saint! But most people do seem to be more selfish than I am. But interestingly, I pity them for that. How does that work?
Anyway, now I'm avoiding dusting my living room, I'm getting hungry and I've promised a friend I'll get her a herbal remedy in town for her bruised ribs having been hit by a car on her bike.
What do I want? I'm not sure. But everything I'm doing today is working towards my image I'm maintaining as a kind friend, a good mother, homemaker, generally fairly organised. My working week is like this, doing useful stuff supporting my family and friends.
Does that make me a rubbish feminist? or a person avoiding doing anything for herself, failing for herself, succeeding for herself, taking criticism or credit?
No comments:
Post a Comment